Hey chatters. Chatters.
Welcome back to another episode. Also, I noticed when I was
editing last week's episode, which was a chit chat, that you
called it a chatters episode or I called it a chatters episode.
Anyway, sorry guys, obviously that was a chit chat.
They don't get this episode. Yeah, this is just for you.
Kill. Yeah, buddy.
So we were diving into emotional load on the main episode and
talking about what sits there for people emotionally in
relationships and in the reality check corner.
We had some reflection things that we thought we would dive
deep in with you guys. And then we've got some other
questions we'll leave you with. Yeah.
So like homework, questions, reflection.
Questions. The best kind of homework.
Yeah, not the bad. This is like.
Fun homework. This is like, I'm so excited.
Homework. This is like those kids in class
that just loved school that you know about and they're so
excited about these. Like those kids.
But I mean, they like say. Well, we weren't those kids, but
this is how you're gonna feel about these questions.
Yeah, you are. All right, so the reality check
corner was the first one was a reflection prompt.
And the question was who in your relationship is carrying the
weight of keeping the emotional peace, managing conflicts and
remembering special moments? Is it balanced and what is
something that your partner might be carrying emotionally?
Straight off the bat, it's not balanced.
So after that you carry the majority of this and you always
have and we've spoken about that before.
We think, you know, a big part of that is upbringing.
You know, you see our mums at home and the role that they
played at home growing up. So and then the roles of our
dads and obviously naturally, I'm going to be more modelling
what I've experienced from my dad than my mom, and you're more
naturally going to experience what your mom did rather than
your dad. But how we're in this stage now,
we're actually, we don't want that to be the case, right?
Like we don't want to be that for our we don't want that to be
the case for our kids. So I want my daughter to see,
you know, to learn from me. I want my kid, boys to learn
from you and that emotional stuff that you not necessarily
carry but are aware of. I want them to have that
emotional maturity and awareness of other people.
But the yeah, absolutely majority of the stuff you you
carry, I feel like we've been definitely increasing and
growing that over time. But it's still, like I mentioned
in the full episode before, like, you know, the big things
in this space that I'm so aware of is my responses to the kids
and my frustrations there and how, and I think it's probably a
growth area for both you and I to continually work on.
Well, how do you not carry that? And how do I be aware?
Like, not that I'm not aware of it because I'm always aware of
it, but how can I continually work forward on, you know,
breathing exercises and all of little things I know I should be
doing but just don't do? Yeah, I was thinking though,
there's our relationships. Interesting, because you carry,
I think you carry the burden of how the kids are feeling about
general life more than I do. So things like birthday parties
and I, I'm a lot less like engaged with that or even family
doing family stuff together. I've been thinking about this
recently. Like I don't sit there and
think, oh, they would just love this family stuff that that's
just doesn't enter my brain. I don't know if it's because I'm
so focused on just like in my brain, this is what I categorise
it as survival emotions. Like I'm just so focused on the
survival elements, the basics. And so I don't have capacity to
be like, it'd be so nice to have a movie night together.
Like I just never think that way.
But you will like you'll, you'll think about what would be nice
for them and what they might enjoy more than I would
naturally think about that. So you definitely.
And the other thing I was thinking about recently was you
think you have a whole element of emotional load that I never
think about, which is that you finance our family.
So whenever you're stressed about things, especially with
work, mostly about work, there's a whole layer to it, which is
you're stressed because you provide for our family, mostly
financially contribute, but not that much.
And so I never think that way. I'm never, I've never had the
worry. And even when you've had times
where you haven't had work, my approach has been like, we'll
get work. I'm not worried about that,
which is good. Like I'm glad that I've had that
neutral mentality to it so that I can support you in those
times. But I realised recently, I can't
remember what we were talking about, something to do with work
and. And you were talking about how
if I don't have a job, we don't have money.
And I was like, well, yeah, that's something that you carry
emotional load in that I, it's not even in my frame.
Yeah. That's probably more of a mental
load thing rather than emotional.
Like I can kind of disconnect from that, but it's like, you
know, it's, it's always because we, we went off contracts,
right? And, and grants, that's how our
organisation runs. And it's sort of this thing
where it's like, you know, and This is why I kind of want my
mind more over the organisational finances, like
I've mentioned to you is because it's like, well, that impacts
our family. If we lose grants, if we lose
contracts, it we lose house. You know, that that's where my
mind goes to. And that's exaggerating, but
it's, it is where my mind goes to.
It's like it is an added pressure in that space of like,
yeah, I'm, I bring in the money, like, and I need to take that.
And that's where I think a lot of guys do struggle.
Like they'd have been working, especially in the stage of life
where we are, where you've been more staying at home with the
kids as you needed to. Yeah.
And that's a lot of stress that guys bring.
There's a lot of work stress that comes into the home because
it's tied down to all those extra things.
But we're in this sort of day and age now where a lot of women
are working more now too. So I was like, which is great.
But then it's this again, we've seen our dads have that role,
we've seen our mums have that role.
And now it's just relearning of like, well, now we're both in
that role. So what does that look like?
And that's, that's the learning. Yeah, together.
And we actually switched roles for a time, which was I think it
was a really good. Example And I think that was
really good for us too, for me to get that insight into what
you were experiencing from being a stay at home, right, and vice
versa. Yeah, being a stay at home dad
was hard. Yeah, a, as we spoke about in
the full episode, my biggest thing with the emotional weight
is that a lot of the emotional weight I carry is unnecessary
because of my anxiety. That's what I, I struggle with
that because yes, I do carry most of the emotional weight
because I make in my brain, I'm genuinely like, I make most of
the emotional weight to for myself.
So I don't know how to balance that well for us.
Yeah, yeah, that's my comment and.
I think it's, again, the, the more that we put these things
into practise, the more, more times we have these
conversations and the unpacking of these invisible baggages.
I guess, you know, I think that's going to be helping you
more and more. Again, I've said the first thing
is being aware of them. And it's not that you're not
aware of them. It's the continual awareness,
the continual chipping away at this stuff that's going to be
helping. Yeah.
Like you're doing a lot of different things rather than
just this, right? You're doing exercises, like in
mental exercises, You're journaling.
You're doing all those extra curricular activities, if you
want to call it to help you through that.
And we haven't got a answer and anything there is a answer.
It's the intentionality, the awareness of the continual
growth in that area. And that's what it is.
It's like again and that's the pathway that you have.
You have a pathway, which is you're doing your like, you're
journaling exercises, you're actually exercising, you're
focusing on your health, you're doing all these different
things. That's going to slowly work on
that. That's the strategy.
Yeah. If we didn't have anything,
that's where the issue would be. But it's like, no, you do, you
do have stuff and you are working on stuff.
It just takes time. On the iPad died Great, that's
right. I can remember.
Also, the next one is send a message of encouragement to your
partner. My batch is about to go for it.
It'd mess up my phone anyway. Yeah.
So, yeah, sending a message of encouragement to your partner
out of the blue, I think that's something that we've spoken
about. Gratitude.
Which I think is a little bit harder for us because we we're
always, we're at home all the time.
Like, you know, I'm literally saying it to you while you're in
the other room. But I think that's but in in
saying that like we can, we can say it, yeah.
But we can send it too like. I don't think there's anything
wrong with setting because it also breaks the norm.
It's, it's a special thing that's outside of that, but we
could say it as well. And there have been times where
I, I've been reminded for whatever reason that I need to
also vocalise what I'm grateful for, for you and for me.
Like I need to be training my muscle as well to be like, Oh
yeah, I'm grateful for these things.
I know I'm grateful for you, but I don't necessarily spend much
time being like, what are you grateful for or what do you like
about him or like what's special about your husband?
And I know that that there are, I think at the beginning when
you're dating, you have more time to, to just be like people
are asking you about your relationship and who they are
and they don't know you're learning them.
Everyone else is learning them. There's a lot of time to
reflect. With your values, yeah.
There's a lot of time to reflect on those things.
You're like the specifics of who they are is the biggest thing to
you in that process. They're planning to get married
and all the new parts of who they are coming out because of
the stress and all these different life stages.
But as you go into longer term relationships, I think that
practise fades. And so it is a really important
one to be staying appreciative and to be it even just letting
them know that you see them. So if they're carrying all this
mental or emotional load, you see them and you appreciate them
even if you don't fully understand it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then the future pace was to
project, we wake up tomorrow magically and our partner is the
perfect emotional support person for us.
What would that look like? And also, what would it look
like if you flip the script and you were that perfect emotional
support person for your partner? Well, I think I think it's The
thing is with that question, though, is you kind of already
are, but where the where the blockage is is my ability to
express those emotions. So it's not necessarily the
things that you need to change. It's more about the things that
I need to change and I need to grow on because I think like you
already do it like you createspace for me to share.
It's safe. There's no judgement.
There's, you know, all those things.
And I think that's where it's been, you know, we've really
worked on that. So that's why I don't think I
could really comment on what I would want more in you, but I
think it's more about what I would want more in myself.
It's like, well, when I'm stressed, I don't want my stress
to be taken out on you. When I'm low, I don't want my
low to be taken out on you. You know, like that's a lot of
me stuff that I wanna work on. Yeah, but there would be.
Things. Anything else different, I'm
gonna be offended. No.
Well. I've got a list and there will
be a lot of things that that I do that aren't helpful
necessarily. Even if it's over emotionalizing
it, like even if it's too far on the emotion because I know
things like me asking you what's wrong, what's wrong.
So that's. Different though, like that
you're asking me what's wrong when there's nothing wrong and
then you asking me over and over make something wrong, right,
That's that's the different thing.
But like when I'm actually struggling, feel like you, you
again, like I go when I struggle, I go internal, right,
because I'm a usually an external processor.
When I'm struggling, I go internal and you give me space
for that and then I eventually share.
I don't give you space. Well, you do.
You're. Practising giving you space for
that. Hey, I'm practising to give you
space for that. But I think you have like in my
in my hey, like I'm, I'm like, there'll be moments where, OK,
sure, if I had to pick something, give me more space
sometimes, right? Like that's me trying to find
something. Just give me some space, Amy.
But like overall, I think it's, yeah, I don't know.
I can't pinpoint something because I feel like it's we've
been working on it for so long and it's more about my mind.
More goes to how I want to be processing rather than what you.
So flipping the script, if you were suddenly the perfect
emotional support person for me, what would you think that looks
like in your brain like? And again, what we're unpacking
now is stop fixing it, you know, understanding more of the
questions to ask understanding, you know, again, like, so that's
a big one for a lot of people is how do I actively listen without
fixing and me actually feel like I'm doing a good job in that
space And that's what you need. Because at the end of it, if I
just listen, I'm like, was was that good for you?
I don't know, like it feels like so unfinished for me, you know,
like. Welcome to Women's.
Yeah, it's just that I'm just like, I'm left there like it's
just what you need to help you at all.
I got no gauge if this is because you guys just need that
or you specifically need that space to just share.
I'm like, no, it feels unfinished.
So I think just having that deeper understanding and be able
to respond to your needs better. Yeah, how funny.
I feel like your brain, at least, I don't know if it's all
guys, it's just so like it's this or it's this.
They talk a lot about guys compartmentalising, right?
So box, box thinking. So everything is in this box.
And so OK, now I'm focusing on this box and now I'm focusing on
this box. Sometimes boxes spill over and
that's where we get stressed and anxious and stuff like that, but
it's very boxed. Because in my mind I'm like, I
need, I love that practise of working and not fixing it.
But then I because you said it's unfinished.
I think it is unfinished if it's just listen.
Yeah, it is unfinished at the end.
But that's where I think like I need to start by listening.
I, I say this because I just cut you off.
I'm very aware of this right now.
Listening but then. But that's the first step and
then then learning the next step and stop being so complicated.
Sorry, but it's it is actually wild to me how complicated I'm
going to say women, but that's such a generalised majority,
majority of women in every way and I'm talking every way.
Why is this so complicated? I understand it because I mean
but. We don't know how to verbalise.
It but I don't know how to verbalise it I.
I haven't found someone that can actually verbalise it in a way
that a guy understands. I think if there's an
appreciation for the complexity of it, that is the best thing.
You don't have to understand the puzzle.
Honestly, there's an overwhelming response to the
complexity because we feel so I'll equipped to to be the the
saviour that we want to be. You know what I mean?
Like we want to be that rock and stuff.
But yeah, but if you think about like a really complex, like AI
for example, it's a really complex software technology.
We don't understand how it works.
We appreciate how to use it and what it gives us.
And so there's like an appreciation between.
It's not you understanding exactly how AI works.
It's an appreciation that I'm going to let AI do its job in
the way and I'm going to appreciate that this is where it
plays into place, this is how it works.
But I'm not going to try and be it or have the answers to it.
And so I think if you can find in your relationship, because
I'm the amazing software AI, if you can find a way to be like, I
don't understand this very complex brain.
I think a lot of the time women are made to feel silly for how
complex their brains are, how over dramatic it might be.
Like it. Those two tags have been thrown
over this stuff so much and it gets undermined.
And that's where it's sad instead of it being just a part
of the puzzle that you're working together.
Like the fact that you're compartmentalising things is
amazing. And that's why that works for
where it works. If I was just like, you're so
simple, You're so simple. Like you're so black and white
or you're so like. Categorised as well.
Exactly. It's dumb.
Simple minded, yeah. Yeah, it works together when you
can appreciate it. But once you start putting tags
on it because it's not how you work and it becomes a blockage
to under like understanding each other in a way that you don't
understand each other, Yeah. Then that's when it becomes
damaging. Yeah.
Cool. So to finish up really quickly,
which we need to do quickly because we got school pick up,
but so we've got some these homework questions, I'm going to
read to them now and then we'll put them up as notes as well for
you guys. But just really quickly, what
daily tasks or responsibilities is my partner handle that I
might overlook? And again, take your time to go
through these. There's no rush, all right.
And, and it's, I think it's a really healthy thing.
Again, observing, asking questions, even if you need to
take your time before you for yourself, don't go straight to
your partner because that could put a mental load on them that
you don't want to do. How often do I check in with my
partner about how they're feeling emotionally?
Are there any patterns in our interactions where they she they
seem particularly burdened or stressed?
What are some ways I can offer more support to share
responsibilities to lighten their load?
How do we all currently communicate about emotional
mental loads and how can we improve this dialogue?
These are just starting points. Again, like, even if you had a
word, that's that's fine. Just having something where you
can do would be awesome. Yeah.
Well done. Well done.
Cool. We'll send those out to you guys
on Patreon. You can see them there and work
through them. Use them as a reflection.
You might think you're all over this.
That's great, but it's worth reflecting anyway.
And. Again, let us know.
We wanna know if these things are helpful.
We wouldn't be bringing content. It is helpful.
No, it's not just noise. Yeah, great.
Good chat, guys. See you next week.
See you. Bye bye.