Why You're Fighting More... and Having Sex Less
Mental Load 101: What it is, Why it Matters, and Why Your Sex Life Feels Off
If you've ever found yourself arguing about the dishes and then somehow end up not having sex for three weeks, you are not imagining the connection. There is a silent invisible force running your household, your stress levels and your intimacy... And it's not your partner.
It's the mental load.
And once you see it, the entire dynamic between you and your partner starts to make sense.
Watch or listen to the episode here:
What's the Mental Load?
The mental load is the nonstop, behind the scenes thinking that keeps a household functioning.
It's not doing the task. It's remembering, planning, tracking, anticipating, delegating and making sure everything actually happens.
Packing lunches is not just packing lunches.
It's trying to remember who suddenly hates fruit cups, who needs a cold lunch for a field trip and whether you have enough bread to make it through the week.
It's invisible.
It's constant.
It's exhausting.
And guess what, most couples never talk about it until resentment is already baked in.
The Two Fold Problem No One Warned You About
From where I sit, the challenges around the mental load come from two interconnected issues. You can fix one and still be drowning in the other. Most couples are dealing with both at once.
1. The Jobs Problem: Who Does What and Why It Matters
Every home runs on visible and invisible labour.
Visible labour is the stuff you can visually observe like dishes, vacuuming, cooking and taking the bins out.
Invisible labour is the thinking behind all of it like planning meals, tracking appointments, knowing the kids’ shoe sizes, anticipating needs and carrying the emotional tone of the household in general.
Here is the kicker.
If you do not actively negotiate who is responsible for what, gender scripts will decide for you.
Gender scripts are those old cultural rules that assign women the nurturing, daily, never ending tasks and men the occasional, defined, one and done tasks. Even the most progressive, intentional couples tend to slip back into these patterns after kids arrive.
When you assume who will do what instead of agreeing on it, resentment sets in fast.
It builds itself silently, eroding your trust and winding up killing your desire.
And it convinces both partners that the other person simply does not care.
This is why chore charts never solve the deeper problem. The real issue is the invisible decision making underneath who carries what and why.
2. The Nervous System Problem: When Stress Hijacks Both of You
Now for the second part of the mental load issue. You can divide everything perfectly on paper, you can have the most beautifully balanced Fair Play board in the world, but if you're both stressed, overwhelmed, or feeling unrecognized, the dynamic still blows up.
Here's why.
We all have a stress threshold. Once we are past it, our nervous system flips into old survival patterns.
One partner will often move into hyper arousal.
This looks like control, criticism, perfectionism, repeating the same instructions for the tenth time and the constant feeling that letting go will make everything fall apart.
The other partner will often move into hypo arousal.
This looks like shutdown, avoidance, procrastination, feeling useless and quietly believing they can never get it right anyway.
Put those two states together and you get a potent and painful dynamic.
Hyper meets hypo.
Criticism meets withdrawal.
Pressure meets collapse.
No one feels supported.
No one feels appreciated.
And intimacy simply cannot survive the emotional distance that forms.
This is why so many couples say "We are doing all the right things, and nothing is changing."
That's because the problem is not only the division of labour, it's the nervous system dance underneath it.
Why the Mental Load Destroys Intimacy
Sex requires emotional safety, play, and presence. It needs a body that can relax and a relationship that feels like a team.
But if one partner feels like the only functioning adult and the other feels constantly criticized or unseen, desire gets replaced by resentment and shutdown.
It is not because you are mismatched.
It is not because one of you wants sex more than the other.
It is because the mental load has pushed you into two different worlds.
The Good News: This Is All Fixable!
You do not have to stay stuck in the blame cycle. Once you see the two fold problem, you can start changing it.
Over the next episodes, we will walk through:
What the mental load is doing to your connection
How to rewrite your gender scripts with intention
How my husband and I rebuilt our balance using Fair Play principles
How to create a partnership model that brings back peace and desire
Awareness is the first step, and the moment you name the pattern you are no longer trapped inside it.
Want support starting this conversation?
Let's talk it through in a free 30 minute Spark Session. You bring the dynamic and I will help you map your first steps out of resentment and back into closeness.
Or download my free guide, Touch Again Tonight, for a pressure free way to rebuild connection today.