Sharing the Mental Load in Marriage and It's Positive Correlation to Enjoying Great Sex: An Interview with Dr. Morgan Cutlip (Episode 283)
*Disclaimer* This episode contains adult content and is not recommended for young listeners.
Hebrews 12:15 NLT “Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.”
*Transcription Below*
About Dr. Morgan Cutlip:
It's hard to know where to start so I'll start with what matters most to me and that's my relationships.
I'm a mother to two kids, Effie (12) and Roy (9). They are hilarious, spirited, spicy, deeply thoughtful and emotional kids. I adore them and being their mother. They've challenged me in the most surprising and wonderful ways. I'm married to my high school sweetheart, Chad. I always feel like I lose a little street cred when I say that so, for the record, we didn't date that entire time and eventually reconnected years after college on MySpace (yup, now I've aged myself). He's the love of my life, an incredible man that loves others deeply, works so very hard, and continues to be open to growth and change.
I’ve worked in the field of relationship education for over 15 years alongside my father, Dr. John Van Epp, who is the founder of Love Thinks and developer of multiple relationship education courses that have been taught to over a million people worldwide. I started traveling to conferences with him when I was in junior high and so, in many ways, it feels like I’ve grown up in the relationship education field. He’s amazing and brilliant and I’m blessed to have learned so much from him over the years we worked together and just cherish our relationship.
I distinctly remember a conversation with my dad over 20 years ago where I said that someday I wanted to support women, but I just wasn’t sure how.
Fast forward 10 years and Effie (our oldest) was born and, holy moly, did motherhood hit me like a ton of bricks and I completely lost myself in motherhood (you can read the full story in my book). 🙂 I knew that one day when I came out of the fog of early motherhood I wanted to do something to help moms navigate it better.
I had a lot of skill and practice translating psychological theory, research, and concepts into tangible and practical advice so I got to work creating accessible content to help moms navigate their relationship with their kids, partners, and themselves differently.
Through my career, I created the My Love Thinks blog, the @DrMorganCutlip Instagram, the Love Thinks Podcast, and The Mother Load course along with other courses, workshops, and targeted eGuides and authored the book Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself: 5 Steps to Banish Guilt & Beat Burnout When You Already Have Too Much to Do. These tools have been accessed by hundreds of thousands of women worldwide.
Dr. Morgan’s Website
Thank you to Our Sponsor: Francie Hinrichsen, Founder of Founding Females and Author of Dream, Build, Grow
Other Related Episodes on The Savvy Sauce:
7 Easy Changes to Enhance Your Sexual Intimacy in Marriage with Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner
269 Questions for More Connection and Laughter in Marriage with Casey and Meygan Caston
Related Article from Savvy Snacks:
Marriage Scripture I am Loving
Topics and Questions We Discuss:
Will you define mental load and walk us through the reasons why it’s silently crushing marriages today…and will you also explain why universally, mothers are the ones impacted the most?
What’s the correlation between sharing the mental load and enjoying a more exhilarating sex life in marriage?
What’s the vision you can cast for us if we put systems in place to habitually converse about mental load in marriage, even if it feels cumbersome at first?
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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
*Transcription*
Music: (0:00 - 0:10)
Laura Dugger: (0:11 - 2:06) Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
Today's message is not intended for little ears. We'll be discussing some adult themes, and I want you to be aware before you listen to this message.
If you are looking to start a business or side hustle, but you're not sure how to begin, I want to encourage you to pick up your copy of Dream, Build, Grow: A Female's Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business. You can find it at foundingfemalesco.com.
First of all, I want to wish a very happy birthday to my amazing husband, Mark. I hope it's an awesome day, and thank you, babe, for leading this part of our marriage so well. I love you so much and hope it's a great day.
Today, I get to interview Dr. Morgan Cutlip, and she's a relationship expert and an author. And this second book that she released is entitled A Better Share: How Couples Can Tackle the Mental Load for More Fun, Less Resentment, and Great Sex. We're going to dive into each of those subcategories, and this chat is amazing for both husbands and wives.
And I think it's going to leave you with motivation and ideas rather than any shame or resentment. So especially if you're parents, I hope you listen in. Here's our chat.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Dr. Morgan.
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (1:54 – 1:56) Thank you so much for having me.
Laura Dugger: (1:57 – 2:06) I'd love to just start here, because you're a relationship expert. What does your daily life in work actually look like?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (2:07 - 3:07) Oh, my God. No one has ever asked me this. Okay, so we have two kids.
I'm married, been married for 17 years. We just celebrated our anniversary, and we have two kids, 12 and 9, and we do a homeschool hybrid. So, my work life, it might look like I work a lot, but it's usually cramming it into weird times.
But they go to an academy or a school with other homeschool families three days a week. So, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are the days that I try to do all of the things and get all of my work done. And then Mondays and Fridays, I am with the kids.
And then my husband travels just about every week for work. So, a lot of times I'm sort of just cruising solo and outsourcing as much as I can handle and can afford and feel okay about and just trying to squeeze as much out of my time and my energy that I can.
Laura Dugger: (3:08 - 3:14) I love it, and I'm relating. I'm a homeschooling mom as well, so fitting it all in when you can.
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (3:15 – 3:16) Yes, yes.
Laura Dugger: (3:17 – 3:22) And then those days that you are working or doing writing or different things, what does your work life look like?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (3:23 - 4:06) Yeah, so usually, you know, right now I just finished launching my second book. So, I'm really trying to move a little slower, take a little break. I launched two books in three years, wrote them and launched them.
And so, it felt like a really just an extended season of just constant time famine and busyness. So right now, my work life is doing interviews like this. I'm working on developing some new courses.
I've developed two so far. I'm working on another one right now, launching those, creating some content, doing workshops. I'm speaking at a conference this weekend.
So, it varies every single week what my work life looks like.
Laura Dugger: (4:06 - 4:32) Very real picture. And I loved in your last book just how you define mental load. So, can you give us a definition of mental load and walk us through the reasons why it seems to be silently crushing marriages today and why it is that universally mothers are typically the ones who suffer the most?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (4:33 - 8:23) Yeah, so I'm just going to give if we need to go into a deeper definition, I will as we're chatting. So, I'm just going to give the 30,000-foot definition and then answer your other questions. So, the mental load is the seemingly never-ending running to do list that we carry around in our minds.
It has two key components. The first is that the majority of tasks in the mental load are invisible. The invisibility of these tasks makes it really hard to explain to our partners to get appreciation around for it even to be seen by members of our family and to outsource.
The second aspect is that the mental load takes up cognitive real estate. So, this just means that it takes up space in our brains that tends to crowd out energy and space that we need for other things like patients, like being present, remembering things. You know, a lot of us will say, oh, I have mom brain, you don't know, I put my keys.
Well, a lot of times it's because we have so much of our brain space occupied by other things. We're sort of become a bit more forgetful. It can crowd out space for creative energy and in relationships, it can crowd out the space to really find our desire around our sexual life.
So, the mental load is interesting because it's talked about on social media as a women's issue. But everybody has a mental load. This is not something that is unique to women.
Where it is unique to women is that in home and family life, the majority of tasks associated with the mental load is carried by women. And so even though women are working in massive amounts outside of the home or inside of the home or have side hustles or full-time jobs, we're still doing the majority of the labor involved in the mental load. And so, what happens in our relationships is that it starts to develop into a feeling of unfairness.
A lot of times the women tend to start to feel very overwhelmed. And then this unfairness starts to breed resentment. And one of the most common cycles that I see happening in relationships is that usually really kicks in after kids.
So mental load exists before kids, after kids, it gets real big, really fast. And it's that the woman will feel like her life has shifted in a pretty significant and just like palpable way. While her partners has sort of stayed relatively the same, even though that's not entirely true, but it feels that way.
And eventually she'll reach a place where she kind of gets, you know, depending on how comfortable she feels sharing what's going on with her. She gets overwhelmed. She approaches her partner.
Her partner doesn't fully understand it. Some of the most common and unfortunate responses are getting defensive around it. You know, I do a lot too.
You're saying I don't do enough. It's never enough for you. Minimizing it or the sort of hardship Olympics where the two people start competing around who's doing more.
And so over time she learns that she can't talk about this with her partner without going through all of that rigmarole. And so, she either starts to get louder, which shifts their marital dynamic in a really significant way because she becomes the nagging mother and he's the child she's sort of chasing after. Or she shoves it down and distance and disconnection really starts to take root.
And it's unfortunate because a lot of times, even though she's come to him, he still doesn't quite maybe understand what's going on. And so, both partners start to really disconnect. And it becomes, once you get years down the line, it can become hard to understand where this disconnection really originated from.
I think I'm missing a question in there, but I'm going to pause.
Laura Dugger: (8:24 - 8:34) No, you actually conquered all of those. Why it is that mothers have it and what the definition is and why it's silently crushing marriages.
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (8:34 - 12:18) Yeah, I'm happy to go into a little bit why women tend to carry it because I think it's really important to understand how this happens. I have a really strong belief that when it comes to this area of our relationships, we really need to come at it with a goal of understanding each other's perspectives, how these things developed, how we got to where we are. So that we can sort of depersonalize some of the patterns that have developed in our relationship and actually then confront them as a team.
So, part of the reason women tend to carry the mental load, there's several, I'll just cover a couple. But one is the socialization of women and just our society, which is that women are socialized to self-sacrifice for the preservation of our relationships. Men are socialized to provide financial and physical security.
So, what this means is that we enter into our relationships once they're committed and then parenthood with different set of priorities. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying this is what tends to happen.
And also, society holds us to standards around these different priorities. So, I remember not that long ago, our son was going to an event at school in the evening and it was cold and it was raining. And I was like, grab your coat.
And he kept arguing with me and he finally said, “Mom, I'm not going to wear it. So, then I'll probably lose it, which then you'll be upset with me for losing it. And I'm not wearing it anyway.”
And so, I was like, thanks for having some insight into yourself. But you know, the moms are going to see you freezing your butt off in the rain and they'll be like, why didn't his mom give him a coat? They're not asking why his dad didn't.
So, we're held to different standards around different areas. And so, we hold ourselves to these different sets of expectations around home and family life, how the kids are cared for, how the home's maintained. It's usually where women tend to focus, whereas men are like, I got to provide, you know, all these things.
And so that I say the game is rigged. That sets us up to really focus on different areas of our relationship. The second thing that I think happens is that because women are this way and there's also physiological component, but I want to talk about that piece, but because women are socialized this way, we tend to do things in our relationships way back when, even in dating, out of love and out of care for our partners.
And the first time we do it, usually our partner is really grateful. “You're the best. What would I do without you? You're awesome.” And it feels good to give, which is wonderful. It's a beautiful thing.
The second time we do it, they're like, “Gee, thanks.” The third time they're not even recognizing it. It's invisible.
We have taken it on, and it has become removed from our partner's awareness. And now we own it. We do this, especially before kids, over and over and over again in our relationships.
We take something on. There's no discussion. There's no negotiation.
And so, our plates pile up pretty full. I often refer to women as the bounty quicker picker uppers. We're super absorbent.
So, we get really saturated by soaking all these things up. And then kids enter the picture. And overnight, the amount of responsibilities grow exponentially.
And then we reach a point where we're like, we can't do all this. How come you don't see all these things that need done when we've been doing it all these years? And it's not placing blame.
It's just pointing out a pattern that's pretty benign, pretty typical that we have to learn how to walk back in our relationships.
Laura Dugger: (12:19 - 13:05) It's so good. And as we're learning how to walk back in our relationships and navigate this, I love how you define kind of a vision for us on page five, where you talk about how you help couples to experience, I'll quote you, “greater feelings of love, attraction, trust, commitment, reliability, and usually a way more exhilarating sex life. All from simply handling this mental load in a way that works for both of them.”
So, Dr. Morgan, can you give some examples and share how we can do this in marriage, kind of moving to some of the solutions once we've identified this problem?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (13:07 - 15:52) Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to unpack around the solutions. So, I'll give a big picture one and then I'm happy to give like a really practical one. But one of the biggest is that couples have to learn how to talk about this area of their relationship without it spiraling into any sort of argument.
And the reason is, is because the mental is not going anywhere. You know, we keep trying to like solve it. This is one small example of how we handle everything in society.
It seems like we're trying to find that permanent fix. But the reality is, is that life changes every single day. New demands are thrown on our plates; curve balls come our way.
And so, it changes the demand and the intensity of the mental load. And so, if we're in a relationship, we have to be able to regularly touch base about these things and negotiate who's handling what. We have to be able to do that in a way that feels like we're in it together.
And so, one of the perspectives that I have that's maybe a little bit different than what's out there currently on this topic is that we have to approach the mental load as the shared enemy in our relationship. So, you externalize that. So, if you're going to talk to your partner, instead of saying something along the lines of like, you really need to step it up.
You're not doing enough. You don't, don't you see what needs done? I really need you to help more.
I'm, I'm drowning over here. Like, what's, what are you doing? I'm doing all these things.
It is a much more productive conversation. If we come to the table and we say, listen, as you notice, I have kind of an intensity about me. I'm stressed out a lot.
I'm overwhelmed. I don't like to live this way. I'm sure I'm not as much fun to be around.
And part of what's going on with me is something that has a name and it's called the mental load. And it is just relentless for modern families today. The amount of pressure to be productive, the amount of responsibilities on our plates, it is never ending.
And I know you feel this too, but the way that we're handling it right now in our relationship is it's not really working for me. I'm feeling so bogged down that I don't feel like I can show up as my best self in our relationship and in our family. And I want to talk about how we as a team can navigate this aspect of our lives differently.
Like, are you willing to have that conversation? And I think that approach can help to diffuse. I mean, it might not be as satisfying if you're in a place of being really angry about this.
And a lot of people are. And it's totally understandable. But that will often diffuse a lot of the defensiveness that could potentially arise in this conversation and help the conversation get to a better place.
Laura Dugger: (15:53 - 16:20) Oh, that's good. And can you share a story, even a personal one that I've heard you mention before, related to one time when you were anticipating a date night only to get this truth bomb dropped on you? I'm asking this in part because elaborating from that quote, it ties into that correlation between mental load and exhilarating sex life for males.
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (16:20 - 20:25) Yes. Now, I'm like, did I talk about this in the book? I can't remember.
I've talked about this before, though. Yeah. So, this is funny.
I shared this actually at a conference and my dad spoke at the conference. He was in the audience and had to listen to this story. And he's like, wow, you're comfortable sharing.
Like, I guess I am. OK, so my husband and I, this was several years ago, but we're sort of in that season where it was really hard to get out for a date night. And he something I'd wanted for a long time was him to initiate one.
So, he initiated the date night. I was really excited. We go to this nice restaurant.
He sits me down and he says something along the lines of, you know, I have to talk to you about something. And my husband's a man of few words. So, and I like to obviously, like, talk about a lot of things and talk a lot and unpack stuff and analyze it.
And so, when he said that, I immediately was excited. I was like, ooh, you know what he got for me? Let's go.
Like, let's have this conversation. And it was not what I expected. But what he said to me was, I'm not that happy with our sex life.
And, you know, in our relationship and I think about, you know, all of the things that I've learned and I've studied. And I know how important sex is to marriage and to my husband specifically. And I have a lower desire than he does.
And so, I keep track. I keep track of how often we have sex because I want to make sure that we're like hitting the target. And so, I remember like I was like really working hard overtime to sort of squash my defensiveness in this moment.
And I said, you know, I, I got to tell you, I feel like we're kind of having a lot of sex. And, you know, I've grown women talk. I know how much we're having.
And he's like, you know, it's not that it isn't good. And it's not that it's not enough. It's that it just doesn't always seem like you want me.
And so it was, it was like, it's kind of make light of it. But I'm like, it's an enthusiasm issue. Like he wanted more enthusiasm from me, and which is understandable.
And so, this, you know, conversation didn't end over dinner, kind of carried on through the rest of the night. It was not; it was not my favorite date night. You know, it wasn't the most enjoyable.
And we kind of unpacked it and we sort of; it was one of those conversations that we had to come back to a couple times. And I had to self-reflect on, you know, what is going on with my enthusiasm? Because I enjoy having sex with my husband, but there's truth to what he's saying.
And I really was honest with myself. Yeah, I'm like checking a box. You know, I'm keeping track.
And part of the conversation that was had was, and it's not meant to be tip for tap, but it was more like this is an insight I'm having, which is that I am not feeling as if you are showing much enthusiasm in our relationship around pursuing me. And in our home and family life around pursuing initiative taking, expressing appreciation. I'm not feeling good about our relationship outside the bedroom.
And so, our relationship inside the bedroom is not something that's exciting me. And we both had to step into that work. And he did in a major way.
And so, did I. And, you know, our sex life is not separate from our relationship as a whole. And I think it's really important that people understand that because a relationship that's suffering inside the bedroom will pour out outside the bedroom like it was for my husband and vice versa.
So, yeah.
Laura Dugger: (20:25 - 23:32) Thank you so much for being open about that. I'm first of all just wondering how many people think, wow, she just articulated something true in our marriage or for husbands to unlock that connection between the emotional or relational part of the marriage and intimate part.
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I love even how you describe that was maybe a little bit cumbersome at first to have to both of you do your work.
It paid off in the end. So, can you just kind of vision cast for us what it would look like if we put some healthy systems into place to habitually converse about mental load in marriage?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (23:33 - 26:14) Yeah, so one of the biggest takeaways of my book in terms of a new system is to have a regular check-in around the mental load. And the benefits to doing this just are like expansive. But one of the main things is that because the mental load is always changing, it's helpful to have a regular check-in so you can just kind of turn the dials, make the adjustments.
You know, this is a busy week for me. This is where I need a bit of support. How are you doing?
And check in and make those changes as necessary. It's also helpful, like some of the peripheral benefits, because sometimes people need convincing, even though this is not new advice to have a marriage check-in. It's been around a long time, but people still resist doing this.
So, some of the side benefits. One is that a lot of times women are the ones who are managing the relationship. We're the ones who are like, hey, I think we need a date night.
I think we need to talk about this. I want it. We never finish that argument.
You know, we're the ones kind of running the show around that stuff. And that becomes part of our mental load and also can start to feel as if we don't have a partner who cares as much about the relationship as we do. And so, when you have a scheduled time to talk about this stuff, it shares part of that responsibility.
So right away, you're sharing some of the emotional labor of the home and family life. The other thing is that women often have a lot of anxiety around the things that we're carrying in our minds that we need to talk to our partners. But we're not sure when is the good time.
So, a lot of times what happens is that we'll just kind of like eke it out through the week. Like, oh, by the way, like you got to pick Roy up from baseball here and Effie needs this. And I've been wondering about this.
And it becomes this sort of barrage of things are going on in our head that we need to talk about with our partner. But it's just like spread out. It's not consolidated.
So, a lot of times the women carry the anxiety around when this is going to happen and if our partners really got a hold of it. And our partners a lot of times find it like nagging. And then we might feel like a nag, and it doesn't really feel good to either person.
And so, when you can anticipate having an opportunity to address all of those things, it can help you move through your week with a lesser amount of anxiety. And also, can reduce that sort of dynamic that starts to feel either like nagging or almost like the mother-child dynamic, which also does nothing for your sex life. So, there's lots more benefits.
But those are a couple that are really important.
Laura Dugger: (26:15 - 26:27) It's so good. And what can that conversation look like? And maybe do you have any stories of couples who have done this with how they set that up or what that actually looks like in their week?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (26:27 - 28:23) Yeah. So, in my book, I give an agenda so you can literally just print it out. You can get a QR code to a PDF to print it out and you can follow along.
You can come up with your own, but it needs a couple of components you want to keep consistent that you want to keep the meeting relatively short. If it goes too long, it gets sometimes into, you know, you didn't do this and now you're like into a negative dynamic and you want it to really stay contained to being a bit more logistical. And then we'll talk about the other components.
You also want it to go well so that you'll do it again. And it becomes a natural pattern in the relationships. You want to keep it short.
You want to really, you know, you can keep it very simple. How did we do last week? Where did you need me?
And when I wasn't there, like, was there a time you needed me to do something different? So, you can both sort of anticipate that we're going to get a little bit of corrective feedback and we can start to normalize that. Looking toward the next week, what are some things I need to be aware of?
What are some areas where you might need some more support? So, you can basically keep it as simple as that. You always end the meeting with an expression of affection and appreciation and then schedule your next meeting.
That's like the bare bones sort of touch base. And I find that as you know, when I've spoken with couples who do this, I mean, number one, they're all I mean, if couples are doing it, bottom line, it's helpful. Like, oh, my gosh, we actually addressed all of these things that normally we'd just be holding on to getting frustrated about.
We handled the week ahead much better. So, it's always a positive experience. And but the more you do it, the more automatic it will become and the more natural it will become over time, unless you'll need an agenda or any sort of, you know, template for those meetings.
Laura Dugger: (28:24 - 29:11) Yes, I echo it. Such a game changer. Just we just call it planning the week.
But sitting down and looking at the next week, I just wonder how you would function in a family without knowing that because it takes out the questionable expectations or the silent things that we're holding on to and just makes that covert overt, which is healthier in marriage. But then I guess it's sometimes easier to see something through its opposite. So, walk us through what it would look like if couples refuse to do this and choose to neglect these conversations and don't check in with each other as it relates to the mental load and shared partnership tasks.
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (29:13 - 32:06) Yeah, I think a lot of couples are here and there's different degrees of severity that it can affect your relationship. And some people are better at just kind of like letting things go and functioning with a little bit of baseline frustration or rationalizing it and others are not. So, there's a lot of variables here.
But what often happens is usually it's the woman who feels the overwhelm and the stress and she'll come to her partner and try to talk about that. And it usually in the worst-case scenarios doesn't go well or even in great. You know, the first time I talked about it with my husband, it didn't go well.
So, it happens. And so, partners start to at that point. So, let's say she gets louder.
So, I've tried to talk about it. He's not getting it. I'm going to get louder.
I'm going to get a little angry. So, she's going to start kind of making side comments. Potentially, you know, don't you see that?
I guess I'm going to handle this again. Guess it's all on me. Totally typical, actually, in relationships for these things to come out.
He starts to perceive her as critical as nagging him as tense. Oh, you're so stressed out. Why are you making such a big deal over these little things?
You need to lower your expectations. You make things harder than you need to. That sort of stuff starts to come out.
So, both of them begin to develop some almost like storylines about each other. So, the story she tells herself about him is he's selfish, unhelpful, doesn't care about her. Everything falls on her.
The storyline he starts to tell is it's never enough for her. She's critical. She won't get off my back.
She'll leave me alone. She doesn't appreciate all that I already do. And they start to sort of retreat to their own worlds.
And this is where the disconnection happens. No one's really, you know, taking the time to check their assumptions, to get in each other's perspectives, to think about what is it like to be you in this relationship? What's it like to be you in this relationship?
And work through it together. So, they start to retreat to their own worlds. The distance develops.
Eventually it probably affects what their sex life looks like. And some couples go on like this for years. And you just, you know, the interactions become shorter, more logistical, less relational.
You start to forget why you even married the person. You start to forget what you like about them. And it becomes a really just sad state of affairs for a relationship when these things are not addressed and worked through.
And it's not always, you know, easy to do. But it's definitely something worth the effort and the energy.
Laura Dugger: (32:08 - 33:07) I like that because it's not easy to do. It will require time and energy and intentionality. It's also not easy to be in that type of marriage.
I would argue it's even more difficult and draining. And just is not the abundant life that we're hoping to enjoy in Christ and in our relationships. So, we don't want that.
But I love your book gives plenty of practical tips for navigating this. And I thought it was really wise. One piece where you just talked about, we kind of get in a rut.
Maybe where we both have our assigned roles in marriage or tasks that we naturally take care of. But both of us forget there are seasons of extra. And when extra things come up, it's just helpful to reflect and evaluate who's picking up all of those extra invisible tasks.
So, do you have any wisdom to share for recognizing that or managing that tension?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (33:09 - 37:33) Yeah, I think. So back when I was explaining how it got heavy for women, why it primarily happens the way it does, that concept I explained of her doing the things out of just goodness of her heart and loving her partner and her family. I call that something called piling on of precedence.
And so, part of the problem when we do that is that a lot of times we take things on, like I said, with no discussion, no negotiation. And what that does is it keeps the thing that we do in the dark. It keeps it invisible.
So, as we move through family life with different seasons with our kids and our careers and all the things, new stuff comes up. Like we're in the season of youth sports. And so, youth sports are like, I mean, holy moly, hours sometimes to even just sign up for a sport.
It's wild, all that you got to navigate. And so, I think it's really important to be aware of what you are taking on with no discussion or conversation. So, I talk about in the book, I believe I talk about in the book, I do these experiments on my husband, and he doesn't know to this day, and I'm not shy about talking about it, but it's on him to listen to a podcast.
And then he can figure it out. But I started doing this one experiment in the attempt to try to make more of the invisible visible. And part of why this is important is because a lot of times one task with a mental load unpacks to contain multiple tasks.
This is why we get really overwhelmed even though our to-do list looks totally manageable. It's like, well, dinner's not just cooking dinner. It's all these other things involved.
So, I started doing this thing called narration and just to see what would happen. And it's not narration in the sense that it's like this petty laundry list of all that I do. But I would pick one task, and I would just narrate to my husband what I did.
And so, it sounds like this. I would say, oh, hey, babe, just so you know, I signed Roy up for Little League. He'd be like, oh, OK.
I'd be like, I filled out the forms. Start to list. I filled out the forms.
I found his birth certificate. That took me a while, but I found it and I uploaded it. I paid all the fees.
I downloaded two apps. You got to get those two. Here's what they're called.
But I just wanted you to know I handled it. So, a couple of things would always get accomplished. Number one, now he knows all that's involved in signing our son up for Little League.
He would never know. It would just be something that it's just done. He was not even thinking about it.
It's something I handle. It's off his plate. So now he knows all of the steps that are involved.
He has a greater awareness of what I'm doing. It saves me from later because sometimes we don't mind doing stuff like this. And then by the end of the week when we're at our limit and one more thing piles on and we're kind of annoyed, we might resent the thing that we didn't originally.
So, it's sort of saving me from that. And it gives him the opportunity to express appreciation, which every time I've done that, that's what ends up happening. Thank you so much for handling that.
I really appreciate you. You're so great at taking care of that stuff. And over time, I've just selected things and I've started doing that.
And over time, what's really interesting is that my husband has started doing it too. So, I never told him that I did this, but now he'll be like, hey, babe, just so you know, I submitted our taxes. I paid your LLC fee for you, and I did this and I did that.
And I get to then see all that he's doing and express appreciation. So, what it's done is it's made invisible things visible. And it has also, and this is really important, normalized expressing appreciation over the value each of us contribute in our home and family life.
And appreciation is one of the most desired things women want from their partners around the mental load. It's initiative taking and appreciation. And so, we have normalized this mutual exchange of sharing how we add value to our family and giving appreciation around it.
Laura Dugger: (37:34 - 39:25) That is so good. And as you were sharing, I was thinking too of times that my husband, Mark, I love it when he'll walk me through something he did at work or taxes actually came to mind too, where he said, this is how long it took me to do all these steps. And your first response is like, oh my gosh, thank you so much.
And just really just falling in love with them a little bit more and appreciating them. So, I love how that can be a positive cycle that goes both ways. And its intimacy because you're getting to see into each other's lives and that invisible brain space for both of them. Yes.
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You mention in your book that you recommend considering time and energy as each spouse's currency.
So, their currency rather than how much money they make. So, this is especially for maybe parents who have one stay-at-home mom or dad. So, consider time and energy as each spouse's currency rather than how much money we make.
So, there's this paragraph on page 34 that I hope everybody gets and reads just about the value of a stay-at-home parent. But is there anything you could share to elaborate on that topic?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (39:26 - 42:29) Yeah, so this part of the book was really important for me to include for a couple of reasons. One, I remember early on when my husband and I were trying to develop a shared language around the mental load and he would get prickly about certain things and where he always got stuck was around the money piece. Well, you know, typically, you know, he thinks a bit traditionally.
So, he'd be like, well, men are like, well, not always. That's actually not true. Look at the amount of female breadwinners.
It's like pretty high percentage at this point in our American society. So, I knew this was a common just point of contention in this conversation. I also interviewed men for my book.
I interviewed men and women. I surveyed women and that came up a lot. Don't forget that life costs money.
Don't forget the value that we add. And also, when I talked about, you know, this socialization for men, really around providing financial and physical safety is this really, you know, it's prevalent. A lot of men, even if they're not the breadwinner, will feel an increase in pressure and responsibility to provide financially after kids enter the picture.
So, it's a real thing. And so, in that sense, it was really important for me to include it. But the other is because I talk to mostly, you know, stay at home moms all the time.
And it's like, but he makes the money and I don't know what to say to that. And so, I really wanted to provide the permission to, you know, women or just parents who don't make the most money to ask for more participation from their partners in a way that feels good. So, the whole premise is that, you know, obviously we use money as our currency in our society, but that template doesn't work for home and family life.
And it doesn't take a lot of reasoning to get to that place. If you just I use the example in the book of if I worked one hour a week and made a million dollars, and my husband worked 60 hours a week and made 50,000. Does it make sense for me to say, well, I make more.
So, you do everything or you do. You know, I should feel entitled to do less because I make more, which is often what happens. And so, with the template doesn't really translate in the same way.
And so, I put forward that the currency in our home and family life should be time and energy. People have different capacities when it comes to their energy, people's time looks different. It changes often, you know, week to week.
And so, it can also be a really quick way to check in with one another. I'm imagining that time when one parent is like reentering family life. And that's often kind of a dicey time for a lot of families, especially with young kids.
And to be able to say, hey, how's your time? How's your energy? I'm at a 10 here.
I'm at a, you know, I'm at a two here. So, and how can you then jump in and sort of support one another based on how you're each doing in terms of time and energy?
Laura Dugger: (42:31 - 43:39) Yeah, because I think if we paint that picture, my background is marriage and family therapy. And I would say so many times, I don't want to be stereotypical, but this is what it was. The wife would either be working, or it would be a stay-at-home mom.
The husband was more of the provider. But consistently, they would say he comes home from work and just lays on the couch or on a Sunday. He just sits around and relaxes.
And yet maybe he's working 40, maybe he's even working 60 hours a week. But that still leaves over 100 hours in the week beyond work. And that would be the constant complaint.
You could see that root bitterness. So how would you encourage both of them? I would say, especially in this situation, how would you encourage the husbands?
That's really not fulfilling your responsibility. And one more thing, just thinking of that scripture in Corinthians. I believe it's in the love chapter, which would be 1 Corinthians 13.
And it talks about when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (43:39 - 43:40) Yeah.
Laura Dugger: (43:41 - 43:43) I threw a lot at you. How would you like to respond?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (43:45 - 46:00) I think it's almost like that type of behavior feels very, is it like leave it to beaver? Almost of like the guy comes home and sits and reads the paper type of thing. And we're just not really living in that world as much anymore.
And even if we are, there's plenty of studies that look at the amount of hours a stay-at-home mom works. And it's around an average of about 97 hours a week, which is two and a half full time jobs. And so, I mean, this is why I wanted to have this section of my book is because the person who works outside the home often feels entitled to do less inside the home.
And so, I think part of it is undoing this belief system that you have checked all the boxes because you went to work. And then everything else is sort of like sugar, like, you know, like gravy on top. And that's actually not true.
But I think one of the questions men really need to wrestle with is what kind of husband and father do you want to be? You know, do you want, you know, I would be willing to bet that in this type of relationship situation, the woman is ragged. And definitely starting to develop roots of bitterness and frustration and hurts.
And so how do you want her to feel in the relationship? How do you want to really step in and lead your family? I think these are, you know, and these are questions that if you're sitting down with your partner, I think are totally acceptable to ask.
How do you want me to feel in our relationship? What do you want when I see you on the couch at the end of the day? And I've been working too all day, whether it's with the kids, whether it's outside the home.
And I see you on the couch and you're watching a game. What conclusion do you want me to draw about how you feel about my value and my contribution to this family and what we're doing? And I'm not saying this in a way of snarkiness, saying it genuine.
It's genuine conversation. I think that these partners have to take a moment and reflect on their behavior and how they're showing up in their family life.
Laura Dugger: (46:02 - 46:31) I like that even how you model the tone, that you're approaching it truly with a sense of curiosity with the goal being a better, healthier relationship. And it makes me think, OK, again, solutions, which I think ties in. You had briefly mentioned what women are wanting related to the mental load.
I'd love to cover that a little bit more in depth and also what men are wanting and wish that women knew as it relates to the mental load.
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (46:32 - 51:06) Yeah, so there's sort of two parts of this for women. So, I in the chapter, there's four areas in the meat of the book that I talk about that couples need to learn to share. So, there's a chapter on sharing perspective.
And in those chapters, I talk about what do women want in their relationship and what do men want in their relationship with women, though? I also surveyed women and asked them specifically, what do you want from your partners around the mental load? And what they wanted was, number one, more initiative taking and number two, more appreciation, which appreciation is an easy one to give.
It's really hard for a lot of people to give, but it costs you almost nothing. It almost costs you no time. So, it's a really easy one.
And it was it was actually like a pretty close percentage. And so, I'll give just a little bit of information around initiative taking, because that's vague. I find that when we're asking for change from partners, it's helpful to be as specific as possible, because a lot of times we're sort of vague with our requests and then nothing changes.
So, initiative taking requires knowing plus action. So, you can't step into initiative or leadership or like however you want to label this. If you don't know people's preferences, if you don't know where things are kept in the house, if you don't know what's on the schedule.
And so, if there are any husbands listening, I would encourage you to increase your knowing around your home and family life. And part of that might be like increasing your awareness. You might get home from work and maybe you need a minute.
But then are you tuning out the rest of the night, just kind of numbly going through the motions or are you like paying attention and absorbing information? And so, I spoke to couples before and when I speak to the men, I always challenge them to employ something called the Buffett formula, which comes from Warren Buffett around the accumulation of information and knowledge. And he basically says, go to bed every night knowing more than when you woke up that morning.
So, as a husband and a father, get to know three new things a day. Get to know one new thing about your significant other, one new thing about each of your kids if you have them, and one new thing about how your home and family life functions. That will accumulate quickly and will help you step into initiative taking with competence and competence, which is a lot of times the reasons they'll give for not stepping into it.
I don't know how to do it. So, gather that information. You said, what do men want in their relationships?
So then in the chapters on perspective, I use the acronym PAR, and I use the same acronym for both men and women, but it stands for different things. And so, I talk about what are the three things men want most in their relationships. And the first is peace.
And I think we should just talk about this more in general when we talk about relationships, because I think a lot of men will really do some hurtful things in the pursuit of peace. And it always backfires, you know, like a defensive. I don't want to have an argument.
It's too emotional. I want to deal with this right now. So, you know, they might shove it away.
But a lot of men really are after they just want peace. They want you to be happy, easy breezy. But a lot of times in order to get to a peaceful place, you might have to go through a little bit of difficult conversations to get there.
The second thing is affection. And that is, you know, words, how we speak to each other all the way through our sexual relationship. Not for every man, but for a lot of men, sex is how they feel loved and desired in their relationship.
And so, it plays a very important role. And then the last is respect. And everybody wants to be respected.
This is not necessarily just a man thing, but men in particular have a high need for respect. And so, when I was talking about how relationships kind of like can start to degrade when the mental load isn't handled well, part of what happens is that she will start to become more disrespectful because she doesn't respect him. And he will feel disrespected because he is being disrespected.
But there's a whole history as to why you got to this place. And so, yeah, it's very important to understand these things when we're entering into these conversations that can sometimes be a little bit tricky.
Laura Dugger: (51:08 - 51:24) You've given us so many jumping off points to proactively enhance our marriages and spoken to both sides, the men, the women. Is there anything else you want to make sure we don't miss? Is our time starting to near a close?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (51:25 - 53:28) Oh, my goodness. I feel like we covered quite a bit. I mean, I would just say something that was really on my heart when I wrote my book, A Better Share, is that in the world of social media, which is a big part of our lives, unfortunately, and fortunately in some ways.
But, you know, in the land of this content area on social media, it can be a pretty hostile ground, especially for men. So, it's a charged topic. It's wild.
So yesterday I shared a post based on my interviews with men where I just shared some of their perspectives. And if you read the comments section, it's wild how people are angry about a perspective like it's not allowed. And something that was on my heart was I want to write a book that welcomes men to the table, because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, if we're being truly honest, we want men to change a bit.
We want them to, like, step into this conversation in this work, to be more emotionally attuned, to express appreciation for the value we add to our family, to participate more as a leader in our home. So, we're wanting all these changes from them. But then we're like most people are coming at it from this very angry perspective.
And so, a really important part of my of my writing and putting the book together was I want to write a book men enjoy reading where they feel seen. They also feel challenged and they feel like they are equipped with these aha moments where they're like, oh, that's what's going on. And the feedback, if you read reviews on Amazon, it's like been really powerful to look at the response from men and how it's been received.
And so that's probably one of my something I'm most proud of with this with this work.
Laura Dugger: (53:29 - 53:52) Yes, I would say well done with that. And this is a great episode to share with our husband. That's the wife who is initially listening and then maybe to come back together and see how can I serve you better?
How can I love you better for both ways? But Dr. Morgan, you've also written another book. Do you want to share a little bit about that and where we can go to learn more from you after this chat?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (53:53 - 55:39) Sure. So, my first book was called Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself. And it's a book I wrote for moms.
And at the end of the day, it's really a book about our relationship with ourselves. And I just use examples in every chapter. I talk about how I apply the concept to our relationship with our kids.
And then I apply it back to your relationship with yourself. But, you know, women, we're so good at backburnering ourselves and getting to a place, though, of kind of living on the backburner. And we do it, you know, in this deep, wonderful place.
I think comes from a wonderful place to really serve our family and serve our kids. And if there's ever a cause to backburner yourself for, it is our kids. But at the same time, we do this self-sacrifice for the people we love the most.
And then we end up becoming so burnt out, so overwhelmed, that we end up resenting the people we love the most. And so, it ends up backfiring. And so, this is a book about not putting your oxygen mask on first.
That always bugs me. But it's about how us as moms can learn to take our turn, can learn to manage our relationship with ourself in a way that's actually doable in the little blips of time that we get to ourselves. So that we don't wake up after 18 years of raising kids or however, probably is like 22 now or something, but of all these years.
And we're like, I don't even know who I am anymore. You know, or those moms that their kids leave and start a family of their own. And then we're sort of like resentful that they abandoned us because we gave them everything.
And so, it's really about how do you stay connected to yourself in this busyness of life and raising kids.
Laura Dugger: (55:40 - 55:48) And we'll definitely add a link to that in the show notes for today's episode. Are there any other links or places that you would like to direct us to?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (55:48 - 56:50) Yeah, I mean, my Instagram is a place you can find me. It's just Dr. Morgan Cutlip. And also, I've been working on releasing and these two are out now.
I'll just mention one of them. I like to do audio courses. I feel like it's much easier to just listen and not sit down and watch a video.
But I just released a course called The Brief. And it's the No BS Guide to the Mental Load for Men. And it's a course for men.
And it's 90 minutes and it's broken up into 11 episodes. And it explains the mental load. It explains what it is, what women want, why it's important.
And it really breaks everything down in a way that doesn't induce shame or defensiveness. And a major complaint of women is not only do I carry the mental load, but now I carry the responsibility of educating my partner around it. And so, I figured if there's a way for me to take that burden in any way, obviously the partner has to be willing to listen.
Then I feel like I'm helping. So that's also available. All my stuff is very affordable.
So, yeah, it's called The Brief.
Laura Dugger: (56:50 - 57:07) The Brief, wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. And you may already be familiar that we're called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge.
And so, as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (57:09 - 57:45) These are the, I can talk about just about anything. But this question, that's like the one thing I'm terrible at. Collect the good.
I think in all of our relationships, in all of our relatively safe relationships, the more we collect the good rather than accumulate complaints and the bad, the better our relationships will be, the more we can appreciate the blessings that people add to our lives and how they enrich our lives. So, if you're in a committed relationship, see how you can collect up and gather up all the good.
Laura Dugger: (57:46 - 58:07) Love that, Dr. Morgan. And throughout this hour, I've just enjoyed how vulnerable and disciplined and extremely talented you are. But I especially notice and appreciate your desire to help.
So, thank you for wrapping all of that up into one chat. And thank you for being my guest.
Dr. Morgan Cutlip: (58:08 - 58:09) Thank you for having me.
Laura Dugger: (58:10 - 1:01:52) One more thing before you go, have you heard the term gospel before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you, but it starts with the bad news.
Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves. This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death, and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved.
We need a savior, but God loved us so much. He made a way for his only son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with him.
That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life. We could never live and died in our place for our sin.
This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished. If we choose to receive what he has done for us, Romans 10:9 says, “that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
So, you pray with me now. Heavenly father, thank you for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to you.
Will you clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare you as Lord of their life? We trust you to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring him for me. So, me for him, you get the opportunity to live your life for him.
And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So, you're ready to get started.
First, tell someone, say it out loud, get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes and Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible and I love it.
You can start by reading the book of John. Also get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too. So, feel free to leave a comment for us here. If you did make a decision to follow Christ, we also have show notes included where you can read scripture that describes this process.
And finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, “in the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
And if you've already received this good news, I pray you have someone to share it with. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce
Practical chats for intentional living
A faith-based podcast and resources to help you grow closer to Jesus and others. Expect encouragement, surprises, and hope here. Each episode offers lively interviews with fascinating guests such as therapists, authors, non-profit founders, and business leaders.
They share their best practices and savvy tips we can replicate to make our daily life and relationships more enjoyable!
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