We hosted social media sensation Zach Watson in our latest episode of the Modern Husbands Podcast. Zach is an expert on invisible labor and mental load in home management. The discussion highlighted the often-overlooked emotional and cognitive burdens that many partners, particularly women, bear in managing household tasks.
Understanding the Mental Load
Watson emphasized that asking an open-ended question like, "How can I help?" can be overwhelming for someone already juggling multiple tasks. Instead, he suggested a more proactive approach: identify specific tasks and offer to handle them. For instance, noticing that a child is hungry and offering to prepare a snack, or taking over a particular household chore, can significantly lighten the mental load.
Implementing a System
Watson recommended a systematic approach to managing household responsibilities. He shared his experience with his wife, Alyssa, where they implemented regular weekly meetings to discuss and plan household tasks. Initially, these meetings focused on logistics, but over time, they included discussions about feelings and emotional burdens. This practice not only improved their emotional literacy but also created a safe space for addressing any issues before they escalated into conflicts.
The Fair Play Method
The podcast also highlighted the Fair Play method by Eve Rodsky, which Zach and his wife adopted. This system involves dividing household tasks into specific cards, each representing a responsibility. By clearly defining and owning these tasks, couples can reduce the ambiguity and resentment often associated with shared responsibilities.
Related: The Fair Play System - How it Works
Starting Small for Lasting Change
Watson advised against jumping in too quickly to take on multiple responsibilities, as this can lead to burnout and revert to old patterns. Instead, he recommended starting with one or two tasks and gradually building from there. This iterative process helps in maintaining the changes and building confidence in managing new responsibilities.
Seeking and Providing Feedback
One key takeaway from the discussion was the importance of feedback. Regularly seeking feedback from your partner about the tasks you're handling can help in making necessary adjustments and show your commitment to sharing the load. Watson stressed that open communication about expectations and standards is crucial for a harmonious household.
Practical Advice
For those looking to make immediate changes, Watson suggested transforming open-ended questions into specific, actionable offers of help. For example, instead of asking if they’ve seen your keys, list the places you’ve already checked before asking. This small change can significantly reduce the mental burden on your partner.
Follow Zach Watson
To dive deeper into Zach Watson's insights on managing invisible labor and mental load, follow him on Instagram at real Zach think share. His content offers valuable advice and practical tips for creating a balanced and cooperative home environment.
Related: Click here for a free preview of our Marriage Toolkit. Our our Toolkit to start, strengthen, or rebuild your marriage using our ideas to manage money and the home as a team.
Modern Husbands Podcast Episode
Episode Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Zach Watson
08:44 Creating a Fair and Balanced System
09:48 The Importance of Clear Communication
12:41 Providing Feedback to Share the Workload
17:23 Gradual Implementation of New Responsibilities
21:50 Challenges and Solutions for Couples
25:50 Handling Different Standards of Care
33:25 Simple and Actionable Advice
Subscribe
Click here to subscribe to the Modern Husbands Podcast.
Episode Transcript
Brian (00:01.89)
So here with Zach Watson, as you heard from the introduction to this podcast, boy, he is the man when it comes to understanding just the invisible labor and the mental load that comes with managing a home with your partner, with your spouse. I'm thrilled that Zach could join us today. He is a legend on social media. If you don't follow him, you're one of the few. He's all over Instagram and all the other platforms as well. So Zach, thanks for joining us.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (00:29.744)
Welcome, Brad. Thanks for having me.
Brian (00:31.458)
Okay, so here's the scenario. I hear it all the time from friends, family, some of our listeners, podcat or newsletter subscribers. Your wife is for whatever reason, she does all things in the kitchen. She does the dishes, she sweeps the floor, whatever it may be. And you ask your wife, hey, how can I help? Because you can tell she looks overwhelmed. And she just looks at you and she's like, don't worry about it, just go sit down. But you can tell she's
She's steaming inside. You don't know how to handle it. What's going on, Zach?
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (01:07.024)
Yeah, so I think of the many versions of that same scenario that I've put out in the past couple of years, I think a lot of women are experiencing a mental overload, or as you've probably heard them say before, they are carrying all of the mental load. And in a moment like that, they're, you know, try to get specific on like a moment that I had when we had when I was still working outside of the home. She's cooking dinner.
She's managing our toddler who was a little bit younger at the time. She's a little stressed out that she didn't get the laundry done that she wanted that day. There's still things on the countertops that are bringing her anxiety and she probably something just fell on the floor recently and now she's got little gritties on the bottom of her feet that she doesn't feel good about. When you come in and you're saying, what can I do with that open ended question? I'm gonna bring it back to when I was a math teacher.
If I wanted to make a math test hard for my students, I would make it 10 questions, all open response where they have to, they're all word problems. So taking numbers out of it, figuring out what equation they need, and then putting it together for a cohesive answer. If I wanna make a quiz easy, is I make a multiple choice 10 question thing where they just circle 10 of those responses. They can be done with that quiz in 10 seconds. The open response, it's not possible to finish.
probably at a minimum 10 minutes. So just thinking about that and like when you're fatigued with even SATs and like doing all those multiple choice questions, the difference in coming up with something on your own versus being able to choose from responses is the difference. So even when I'm writing a new email or something that I wanna send out to my subscribers,
I'm gonna throw it in GPT first to give me like a template and then I'll edit it to feel like me. Similarly, like we don't wanna come up with fresh stuff. Like blank canvas is a dangerous place to have for your mind. But when you're coming to your partner and you're saying, hey, I'm seeing that our, looks like our kid is about to get, is getting hungry. I'm gonna work on getting them a bottle or I'm gonna get them a snack.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (03:33.584)
looks like that needs to be cleaned up over there. I'm gonna do that right after I get them a snack and I'm happy to take over the cooking once I'm done with those two things so you can sit down or do whatever you want. That's what's gonna happen if you do nothing. You've now just created a multi, you've taken an open response question, turned it into multiple choice and you've told them which circles are gonna happen. When you do that, they can do nothing and.
field taken care of and I think a really good example of this. So in America, we have, if we look at most of our licenses, we had to choose whether we're gonna be organ donors. So when you go to fill out your first application, you have to check the box actively, you have to check it to say, I wanna be an organ donor. However, in other countries, it is a pre -filled checkbox. So it says,
choose that you don't wanna be an organ donor. So it's like pre -circled for you and you have to opt out of it actively. The difference, I don't know what the current state is now, but I remember when I first heard this a couple years ago is the difference of like, in America, like 20 % of people were organ donors. In other countries, it's like 80 % of them are organ donors because they're literally too lazy to check the box. Cause like, this is the standard. This is what people do. It's gonna take some...
some active thinking on my part to opt out of that. So similarly, when you present them with options and say, this is what's gonna happen, it's gonna take them actively thinking, like for them to choose something else. So you're doing them a favor by doing the thinking for them, telling you how things are gonna go. That's how you take the mental load off their plate and how you help them manage the emotional labor of considering what the highest priority is.
Brian (05:28.674)
And you know that default like opt in versus opt out, right? That statistic is across the board, whether it's managing money, whether it's managing the home, whether it's organ donation, it's really consistent. Vanguard pulled out some really good research on people who had to opt out of retirement contribution plans and most of those people didn't. They were just automatically contributing what was recommended.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (05:30.128)
Thank you.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (05:50.064)
Mm -hmm.
Brian (05:55.458)
And even if you opt out, you can opt out to contribute less or more or none. And we see time and time again that when on the money side, when people have to opt out of something, they just typically automatically do whatever the auto is. And that's one of the reasons that teacher retirements are so good because you were a teacher, I was a public school teacher. There's no, you just have your pension.
and 14 % of your paycheck or actually it was 16 % of your paycheck, it's just taken out of your paycheck. You don't really check anything and it's good because like you said, either people are too lazy to do it or there's decision inertia. They're like, I don't know what to do. So they feel like they're just not doing anything at all is a safer choice. And it's interesting that you brought it up in that way, but the scenario that we started out with is
you know, typically not something that is the visual of a great relationship at home. Like typically, if things are running well at home, you have systems in place where you know the roles and responsibilities that each of you have, and you just are a machine. Like you said, you're already doing it, you're an auto. And so, you know, one of the challenges that a lot of people face is that,
They don't even know about the challenges that societal norms bring. That women oftentimes just kind of shoulder the mental load or the invisible labor, because it's what they saw their mothers doing. They feel like that, you know, people judge them based on how clean their house is or how clean their kids are or whatever. So it's really up to us, right? Like we have to really sit down with them and say, okay, how can we create a system that is fair for both of us?
How do you recommend having that conversation?
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (07:53.552)
So the way that I typically coach my clients to have those conversations, oftentimes I think a lot of the guys are, they're already like open to that before they come talk with me. They've probably seen my face a handful of times. They've hated it at one point of time. And then they've come around at some point because like, shoot, I just did that thing. I can't be mad at this guy anymore. Which I am pretty sure half of the guys that I now work with, really disliked my face at some point in time.
Brian (08:03.778)
Okay.
Brian (08:15.106)
you
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (08:24.12)
But having those conversations, what I tip the stages that I walked them through is starting with having a weekly meeting, which I think when I think for budgeting, we often do monthly, which we've gotten, we've gotten into some bad habits of not doing that. But what I coach to do is a weekly meeting with your partner to start out with just getting the habit down, talking about like logistical things, what's on the calendar, we have that wedding coming up next month to be
check in on the Airbnb, did you get your suit? We have to make sure we get a reservation to get or talk to my parents about watching the dogs for them. In that first stage is the first couple of weeks, we're getting the practice of a weekly meeting done. Second stage is talking about feelings. I think a lot of us guys are pretty bad at talking about feelings. I don't think culture has really prepared us well for that. I think a lot of that, you know.
for lack of a better word, toxic masculine culture, I think has taught us that anger is the only real appropriate emotion for men. Everything else, we can just throw that into the anger bucket. Like, you feel ashamed? Nah, you're angry. You feel lonely? Nope, you're angry. So getting us a better vocabulary around our emotions and building that weekly meeting into a safe emotional space. So I think a lot of times our partners wanna bring up.
things with us about the default labor that keeps falling onto the women. And when they're doing that, we're feeling very defensive. We're not completely sure why. That's because we feel shameful about it. We feel guilt about it. We feel lonely. We feel hurt by something. And we don't have access to that language. So it comes out as defensiveness and turns into an unproductive conversation. Once we improve our emotional literacy,
and we improve our ability to show up to that weekly meeting in a emotionally safe place where we come emotionally prepared to talk about hard things. From there, then I invite people to do, well, we read through the Fair Playbook. I think you've spoken with Eve Rodsky before. So reading through the Fair Playbook, that was where I first understood mental load, emotional labor, and the default parenting. And then the second piece I...
Brian (10:33.186)
Yeah, she's great.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (10:42.992)
often recommend the cards are great tactile experience when they wanna see and kind of feel. I recommend, I call it the 51 % activity, which if anyone's heard of the Persist app, which I recommend is sort of the digital version of those cards. So they do the Careload Assessment where you're looking at about a hundred different domestic responsibilities, identifying which of them belong in your home, which one are totally irrelevant.
about 40 % of them disappear if you don't have kids. Once you identify what exists in your home, saying who kind of owns most of this? Who owns 51 % of groceries? Who owns 51 % of car maintenance? Who owns 51 % of holiday gift giving? Who owns 51 % of tooth fairy and Easter bunny magical beings? Once you've done that, then you start identifying, okay, what?
I think what we typically see what we saw in the Fair Playbook and the documentary is that a lot of men gravitate towards execution and a lot of women are doing a lot of the planning. So I will make mom is making the grocery list. She is identifying all the needs of the home. She's ordering it. Dad goes and picks it up, brings it home, may or may not put it into the shelf. So she's doing the conception planning. He's doing a lot of the execution. He might even be doing the cooking.
he's not seeing all the invisible effort of the thinking and the feeling piece of it. And so from there, once we can identify one thing that he's already executing on, typically it's 60, 70, 80, 90 % of the work she's doing, especially the invisible labor, let's identify what is he mostly executing on that we can add the mental peace and or the emotional peace to it. So if he's already cooking, let's...
Identify, okay, can he also own groceries? Can he also own meal planning for the week so that the family can be informed? And then I recommend they choose about one to two things a month. So when we first started the Fair Play method, we chose dishes and cleaning up the kitchen at the end of the night. So I remember I made my first list to Alyssa. I brought it to her and I said, all right, here's about.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (13:05.84)
17 things I think need to happen on a daily basis in our kitchen for it to be done Some of these things are like once a week, but most of them are daily and she laughed at me She was like there's no way you're doing all this. This is like this is this nice, honey But like this is what are we doing here? I was like, okay, I'm asking that you let me fail for two weeks Let me fall on my face and we'll we'll talk about it again in two weeks about how
Brian (13:34.018)
that's good.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (13:36.048)
how good or bad I did. Like I'm okay getting an F on the report card. I just want to, I just want you to give me the opportunity to get the F. Don't, don't hold my hand through it. Don't give me the A and do the problems for me. So the good news was two weeks went by and I said, okay, honey, like I feel like I did pretty good. How did I do? And she had this epiphany, like, wow, I've actually, we went from every night, her asking me to do the dishes, which I was probably already going to do or
Brian (13:43.97)
That's smart.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (14:06.192)
It would kill me inside when I would get up off the couch to go do the dishes. And as I was walking there, she'd be like, hey, honey, can you do the dishes? Like, no, no, I was going to do it myself because you've just took in my autonomy away from wanting to do domestic labor. And like now I don't feel like I'll even get the conception recognition for doing the chore is after those two weeks. She said, wow, I actually haven't thought about dishes for two weeks. That's that's wild.
Brian (14:14.594)
Yeah, right. I know. I hate that feeling. Yeah.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (14:34.64)
And so I successfully she gave me the space to fail and I rose to the occasion. And that was the system we created. We identified two more things we wanted to add to our list, which was she really wanted to make sure that if there's any gunk left over in the sink, that that gets thrown in the trash. And she really wanted me to give a quick. It was like the dawn dish spray and a quick rubdown of the sink for 15 seconds or something. Those are the only two items she wanted to add to the list.
I've owned dishes and cleaning up the kitchen ever since. Some months I might go down to like an 80 % job. Like I know that I can slip on the standard of like wiping down the surfaces, but for the most part I've been very consistent. And if she feels like things are getting out of control or like I'm really doing a bad job at my job, she has that weekly meeting to talk about it. She can say, hey, I feel like you've been kind of slacking in there.
rather than what happens in most homes is the resentment builds up and then it takes, you know, and she cleans up the sink and leaves a spoon and I leave a spoon in there and she explodes on me because she's like, like, I've like, you've been slipping all this time and I've been holding you up. But when you have that emotionally safe space to bring those things up, those resentful big arguments don't happen.
Brian (15:58.498)
So there are two key takeaways from that that I want to reinforce. The first is if you haven't listened to our past podcast episode with Eve Rotsky, please do. She wrote Fair Play. She's the one who devised the Fair Play cards. And I'm glad, Zach, that you brought that up, that if you are a couple who really wants to try to reassess where you are and make sure that the things at home are running smoothly and there's not any arguments or fights around just home management,
That's a great place to start. Cause like you said, you know, there's a system that the cards are something tactile. But I think what's most important with that is there's ownership. You know, you, you don't have to constantly communicate to get the stuff done at home. And I have three kids. I don't have time to do that. My wife doesn't have time to do that. We would rather spend our time communicating on things that we enjoy to talk about rather than what should I go pick up at the grocery? But the other thing that, that
is I really want our listeners to latch onto that you just said, was that you just simply told your wife, give me two weeks, let me pass or fail. Because ultimately what happens is, and this happened with me, is that any human being, I don't care if it's a man or a woman, but if they've been doing a certain task for a long period of time, and they have an acceptable standard of care, of course they're gonna be looking over your shoulder. Of course they're gonna be saying, why don't you try it this way? Why don't you try it that way? Like, cause deep down inside there, they wanna,
get you to the point where they feel happy with the end product, but they also have been doing it for a while. So like, maybe I can save them time and nobody likes to be micromanaged. I don't care if it's at work or at home. And just to have, like you said, the autonomy to say, look, I own dishes, I own cleaning the kitchen. Just let me do it. That in itself, that will greatly reduce the bickering, the resentment, the frustrations, and it will streamline the work that you need to do at home without all this excess communication that's required. So
What is it, let's say that you are listening to the podcast and your partner does most of the work at home and you know that that's not right, you wanna do more at home. What do you think is a better strategy? Like to jump all in, two feet into the pool at once or with the fair play cards, identify two or three things at a time that you'll now take on and then work from there.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (18:28.688)
I think the problem that comes with the jumping two feet at a time is that there's like almost a culture shock that happens around the home, as well as it reminds me almost of like when people go to have like an organ transplant or like a surgery and the body rejects the part, as I think that if I were to tell Alyssa, so when we...
Let's see, about a year ago, we went into daycare and she had done some of the research, she had chosen the place, she had done the original tour. We went in together and signed the paperwork together and I said, all right, Alyssa, I think I feel good about, especially since this is not something that we have consistently already had in our home, this is a new responsibility is these communications. I think I feel good about taking over this responsibility.
And she had this moment of being like, I did all the work to get us here. Like, this feels like you're taking this away from me, like something that I want. And I think when that could have been a good moment where there was like a change in atmosphere and an opportunity for me to take over. But at the same time, now think about something that she has some sense of identity around. Maybe it's cleaning the kitchen, maybe it's.
I know in our home, it's taking care of the goats. It's summertime. She's she manages the swimming pool for the most part. I think trying to take over one and or multiple things is one too much of a culture shock for people to like, stay with it. But I think if you go with an iterative process and like you come back to it every two weeks or we can say, how did I do this week? Or like, here's where I think it's even better when the guy can say.
I took over this responsibility a week ago. This is where I felt like I felt short. This is where I felt like I did really well. Do you agree? So similarly, bring the options, letting them give feedback based on what you said first, rather than saying, how did I do with the open -ended question? I think that as you're doing it iteratively, it is much more palatable to continue improving your confidence. First, if you bite off more than you can chew, that's gonna...
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (20:53.936)
send you in the reverse confidence direction. I think furthermore, I think it's, I think I'm probably just repeating what I just said, but I think that the shock of it is often too much for people. And I think if your goal is long -term change, you gotta work on habits much more so than just like total output. And I think habits take time.
Brian (21:19.714)
You know, one of the things that you might be picking up on if you're listening is that you're actually asking for feedback from your partner about a chore that you're doing. And you might, if you're new to all this, you might think to yourself, this is ridiculous. I'm not gonna have a conversation where they're judging me on what I'm doing. And what I want our listeners to understand is that you're being judged. Whether or not you're talking about it, she's judging you.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (21:46.704)
Get the words out of my mouth, yo.
Brian (21:48.322)
And if you want her to resent you quietly and not understand why she's upset with you, you just keep on not talking about it, not being judged openly and honestly. And I found I love to cook. So I do all things, everything kitchen. I mean, I do most of the things around the house now anyway, but all things kitchen. And I can identify with what your wife went through with picking out where you decided to send your kid to childcare because
You have some ownership there. I love the grill. I love the smoked meat, et cetera. And, you know, I, because of that, I actually will ask them, what did you think? Do you want this meal again? Those, those little things, because ultimately when you get to the point where they're openly like, my God, I really appreciate it. I came home to a perfect house or this meal is unbelievable. Like the amount of joy that you give them. I see more joy out of my wife in providing for her that way than providing a paycheck.
And like there's so many myths around men just should only provide a paycheck. And I'm telling you that, that I've seen it for myself, that if you can provide an environment at home where she feels like she's liberated from owning all of the responsibilities, she will be very appreciative. What now I know you have quite a few clients and typically I'm assuming they're men who are facing some of these challenges at home. What are
one or two of the common challenges they face and how do you work through those challenges with them?
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (23:20.4)
I think my answer is gonna come back to kind of the process that I walked you through before, but I think some of the common things are, you know, almost similar to what you just said is they will try to take on things. They'll say like, okay, I'm just gonna jump in and do dishes here. Like I'm just gonna show initiative. And then they're operating 110 % for a week. Then they're operating 100 % for the next week. And then 90 % the week after.
Brian (23:48.162)
Hmm.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (23:49.04)
their wife is not acknowledging them. They're like, this is great, but like not giving them any feedback. And so they start to lose steam. And part of that was maybe they jumped in initially because their wife got pissed at them and was like, I do everything around. Can't you even just put the dishes in? And that's what prompted them. So they're operating off fear. The fear wears off. And then they go back to status quo, starts defaulting to their partner again. And then...
it takes another blow up for them to have another come to Jesus moment. And then like this cycle repeats and then it builds in not there's guilt at first, but then when you're in a relationship for a couple of years, shame starts to get built into that as well. And I think pessimism that there's change coming. So I think fighting that cycle by getting the repetitive feedback of how things are going and
Is it being implemented well? I think that's probably one of the biggest problems. I think that was something that Alyssa and I had back before we had our child. And even the first year of having our child was we weren't having regular conversations around the domestic labor that happened in the home, the care labor that happened with our kid. So building in the habits together so that you can have iterative feedback conversations that turn into
constructive feedback instead of painful and feedback that no one wants to give and no one wants to receive.
Brian (25:23.522)
Did your wife appreciate the fact that you're asking for feedback as much as mine? Like that look of like, wow, you really care.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (25:37.84)
I think she's gotten used to it since we've been doing this the past two years. I think two years ago it was refreshing. Now it's kind of just a part of the way that we do things. I think there are some things that I slack on sometimes. I know that I have not been super consistent the past couple months with our alarm system in making sure that it gets done every night and that all the doors are locked.
And I'm, I know that it's, to answer your question, I don't know that she gives me enough feedback about me asking for feedback to know like how satisfied she is with it. I do think she appreciates it though. That one's a little hard to answer.
Brian (26:26.882)
So.
Brian (26:30.882)
I think how I want to ask this question.
Brian (26:38.018)
it's an important question.
Brian (26:45.378)
So we, most people have different standards of care for what the inside of their home looks like. And you see those standards of care change when like companies coming over. Typically that's when my wife has a little bit of an anxiety about what our house looks like. How do you handle it when one spouse has a standard of care?
that is far lower than the other one.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (27:19.728)
I'll give you a great example is so right now I'm at my friend Brian's house in New Hampshire, his parents house. He's visiting from out west. He visited last September, a little under a year ago. And I remember, Alyssa had higher standards for how things were going to be when he arrived. It was about an hour. I think we got the ETA, he was going to get there in 45 minutes. And she looked at me with this face of terror of like,
what have you been doing all day? Like, were you not gonna clean? Like, are we not living in the same house? This is a disaster. And we had a really painfully angry, upset 45 minutes until he got there. We kind of resolved things saying, she's like, if this is gonna be the experience of how the house gets cleaned before a company gets here, we're not having company. And you're the extrovert that wants the people over, so.
Brian (27:55.266)
Yeah.
Brian (28:14.338)
you
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (28:17.488)
That's just a natural consequence of you not doing your share. And what I think we did a really good, I did a really good job of learning from that. So we had our meetings coming up to Thanksgiving. We're hosting for the first time. We just moved into this house really excited. And I said, okay, Alyssa, I'm not willing to be gritting my teeth behind a fake smile as people get into Thanksgiving. Cause we've just been screaming at each other.
previous couple hours. Let's talk very in depth about like what your standards are and like let me kind of have feedback on what I think is a priority and not a priority. For three weeks prior to Thanksgiving, we nailed down the minimum standard of care for communication about food with what family members, is it gonna be group text, is it gonna be an individual text, was she gonna manage it, was I gonna manage it?
If it was my side of the family, how do we want to manage that down to, you know, what does a good dusting job look like on the on the floorboards? And we made a the six, eight days before Thanksgiving, we took an hour and a half walked around our house, made an exhaustive list of all of her requests for cleanliness. I took.
another 30 minutes to adjust the priority and day on which they should be done. So this should be probably be done Saturday because like it's not going to get that dirty in the next five days before Thanksgiving. She sprung on me. Zach, I think I want to paint an accent wall right next to our front door. Right before it, I said, OK, all right, well, we got a week. I'll tell you what.
Brian (30:02.05)
HAHAHAHA
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (30:09.136)
you can have your accent wall if you're doing no more Home Depot runs by noon on Saturday. You have to be done with all of your Home Depot runs if by noon on Saturday you still have more to do, we're not doing it. And she's like, okay, game on, like I can do that. She was very stressed out Friday. She was stressed out Saturday morning. She's like, exactly, this is a lot. I was like, I would rather be upset with each other right now than the morning of Thanksgiving. She ended up breaking that
boundary by about four hours. There's one more Home Depot run late Saturday. But I think because we kept a really, really high, we had a really good conversation about what standards looked like for the cleanliness upfront. I was willing to upgrade my standard. I think as we created that list and prioritize them, she was able to drop some of her standards of like, okay, maybe we don't need to polish all the furniture that they're gonna be sitting on like.
It doesn't look bad. It's a very low, it's a high time, low value task. We're able to drop some long way. I think another really viable one was, which is ancillary to what your question was, was that as we're walking through, we're talking about she was gonna do a lot of cooking, a lot of baking. She wanted to do two turkeys, like the savage that she is. And.
I, because I typically when I would manage the dishes, I made this comment of like, man, like, can you please use like a few less dishes? Like if there's crumbs on it, can we please reuse a plate? And she had this, I'm really proud of her in this moment. She said, I really didn't like that you said that. And we ended up kind of uncovering like a deeper reasoning for that, which had to do with the fact that when she was younger in her life, she had
She dealt with an eating disorder and she would kind of lie to her parents that she was eating by getting crumbs on a plate and showing that she had in fact eaten so that they wouldn't worry about her. But if we hadn't, we figured that out like three weeks later, like, cause it was like, we weren't able to identify it. But what was really important was I identified in that walkthrough, okay, don't.
Brian (32:16.162)
Hmm.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (32:30.928)
morning of Thanksgiving, let's not make comments about how many dishes there are, just deal with it. And because we were able to create that expectation upfront, we had a much smoother ride and like, I just, I knew not to complain about it. And it was like, I think there's so many moments in parenthood where if we just set better expectations upfront, the actual work getting done didn't matter. For example, tonight, so I'm in New Hampshire, we live in Massachusetts.
I know that when I hang out with my friend Brian, there's a good chance we're gonna hang out till, you know, 10, 11, 12 o 'clock. And I know she's gonna be managing all of our toddler tonight. The fact that she knows upfront that she's just accountable for the entire bedtime routine, it doesn't matter as much that she's doing the whole bedtime routine. It's that she knows upfront what to expect. And now if I had said, hey, you know, I'll be home by seven, eight o 'clock.
She's like, cool. Like, I'll have some relief around seven or eight o 'clock when I've been with her for a couple hours and she's in her terrible twos right now. And then I would be like, you know what? It looks like I'm going to be home closer at nine. She would be livid, even though it's like, even though it's like still I'd be getting home at nine versus like 12 or one. So I think the expectations we set are significantly more important than what the limit.
or the boundary is. I'm hoping that made sense.
Brian (33:59.586)
No, that makes total sense. I mean, everything you're saying is just, it really comes down to one thing and you're a team at home and that you're operating as a team and that you get the MVP for the accent wall because I think that would have put me over the top, man. I don't know if that would have happened in my house. You're a great man. So, and again, goes to the level, standards of care. When we got married, my wife,
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (34:10.896)
Yeah
Brian (34:27.778)
told me it's time to grow up because I had a futon and I had like something I bought at a garage sale as a desk and that was it. So that's kind of like my, what I would live in if I wasn't married. Anyhow, one question, one final question. If you were to try to provide our listeners like with one piece of simple and actual advice that they can use right now in their relationship, what would it be?
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (34:54.992)
and just to double -text, mostly male or female audience.
Brian (34:58.978)
It's probably more men than women.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (35:01.488)
Okay, I would say I'm gonna come back to the multiple choice questions. I think that if, especially if your wife's ever sent one of my videos over your way or hopefully you beat her to the punch and see me before she does, I think if you were to simply change your questioning that you often ask her of like, let's say it's something stupid around the house, like I forgot where my keys are again. Hey honey, have you seen my keys? Instead,
saying similar to I had said multiple choice. Hey, honey, I checked the dish where they normally are. They're not in the car. They're not on my desk where they normally are. I checked my pockets from yesterday. Have you seen my keys? That is the equivalent to coming home while she's making dinner with five things and asking what can I do to help? And instead you saying I'm seeing X, Y and Z. I'm going to do Y. And then when I'm done with that, I'm going to do Z. Let me know if there's any other priorities that you would rather me do.
Brian (35:40.642)
That's good! Yeah!
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (36:01.168)
Like, I think if you're doing that and asking exponentially less open -ended questions, you're gonna be a happier couple and so much more of that mental load is being internalized in your brain and you're caring more of it than she is.
Brian (36:01.218)
I love it.
Brian (36:16.61)
And so where can people follow you on social media?
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (36:19.76)
I think the account that I probably spend the most time on is Instagram real Zach think share, which was originally Zach thinks it was Zach just sharing what he was thinking about. But over time, since I talk about mental, it's sharing the thinking around the home sort of.
Brian (36:37.474)
Love it, Zach. Thanks for your time today.
Zach Watson (Invisible Labor Coach) (36:40.272)
Welcome. Thanks, Brian.