I feel alone in parenting, even though we are together

This feeling almost never comes from your partner doing nothing. It comes from him taking on tasks while you keep the thinking. He does what has been agreed. You know what needs to be agreed. This difference is the reason you are exhausted, even though the list between you may even look fair.

The difference that matters

There are two kinds of work in a family.

One is visible. Changing nappies, shopping, driving to sports, hanging up the washing. This work can be shared out, and in many families it now is.

The other is invisible. Remembering that the shoes are getting too small. Knowing when the next paediatric check-up is due. Noticing that the child is not quite themselves at the moment. Keeping in mind who has a birthday on Saturday and that a present is still missing.

This second kind of work has no end and no break. It runs while you brush your teeth and at three in the morning. And in the vast majority of families, it lies with one person.

When you tell him “I do everything on my own”, he will disagree, and from his point of view rightly so, because he is thinking of the visible work. You mean the other kind. That is why this conversation so often ends in an argument about numbers.

Why listing things doesn’t work

Almost every woman tries a list at some point. Everything she does, written down, so that he will finally see it.

I understand the impulse very well. It still rarely works.

A list comes across to the other person as an accusation, not as information. He does not hear “this is what I carry”, he hears “you are failing”. And anyone who feels accused starts counting back. Two hours later you are sitting there arguing about who did more on holiday two years ago.

The second point is even more important: even if he acknowledges the list, nothing changes. He now knows what needs doing, and waits for the next prompt. The thinking still lies with you.

What actually changes something

Not handing over tasks. Handing over responsibilities.

The difference looks like this:

Task: “Could you pack the nursery bag tomorrow?” Responsibility: “Nursery is completely yours from now on. The bag, the appointments, the parents’ evening, keeping in touch with the staff. I won’t ask about it any more.”

The second sentence is the one most women shy away from, and for a reason that is rarely talked about: it will be done differently from how you would do it. The bag will be packed differently. Something will be forgotten.

That is exactly where the price lies. Handing over a responsibility means giving up control over how it is done. Whoever checks up and corrects has not handed anything over, only delegated, and the thinking is back with her.

So don’t start with the most important area. Pick one where you can bear it if something goes wrong.

How to have the conversation

Don’t start with him, start with yourself. And not at eleven at night.

“I’d like to talk something through with you, and it has nothing to do with you doing too little. It’s about the fact that I do the thinking for everything on my own, and I can’t manage that any more.”

Then get specific:

“I’d like one area to belong completely to you. Not the tasks in it, the whole area. I don’t want to have to think about it any more.”

And then the hardest part:

“If you do it differently from me, I won’t say anything.”

You really have to mean that last sentence. Otherwise the conversation is not worth having.

When he says you should just tell him

That is the most common answer, and it sounds reasonable.

It is still exactly the problem. “Tell me what to do” means: you stay the project manager, I stay the one who carries it out. The asking, reminding and following up is the exhausting part, not hanging up the washing.

You can put it like this:

“The problem isn’t that you don’t do it. The problem is that I have to think of it. That’s exactly the part I want to hand over.”

Many men understand it for the first time in that moment, and not because they did not want to before, but because nobody had ever described it to them like that.

When nothing moves

There is the case where you have said all of this, several times, calmly, and things stay as they are.

Then it is no longer a misunderstanding. Then it is a decision your partner is making, even if he never says it out loud. And then it is no longer about the division of tasks, but about how much inequality your relationship is supposed to carry.

That is a bigger conversation, and it needs to be had before it turns into a silent bill after years.

What I would like you to take with you

Feeling alone while someone is standing next to you is one of the loneliest experiences there is. And it is hard to name, because from the outside everything looks fine.

You are not imagining it. There is just rarely a word for it in everyday life, which is why it comes across as ingratitude when you bring it up.

It is not ingratitude. It is a job that was never shared out.