The invisible load doesn't show up on the calendar. (223/365)
It lives in someone's head. All day. Every day. And that someone might not be you.
You believe you are doing most of the work around the house.
You go to work, support the family. You are showing up.
But what if you are only seeing what is on the surface.
The visual stuff.
I’m a stay-at-home, work-from-home dad.
And I thought I was crushing it.
I was doing all the school drop-offs, pick-ups, making their lunches, taking them to after school activities.
I was crushing it in my eyes.
On a drive to the coast for a holiday, my partner and I listened to a podcast about a card game called Fair Play.
The concept is simple. A stack of cards with all the household tasks and responsibilities.
You plan a date night with your partner, sit down and go through the deck one card at a time.
Discussing who is responsible for each card.
At the end, you compare your stacks.
I was blown away when my stack was much lower than hers.
She was carrying the invisible load, while I was carrying the physical load.
She was the one who booked appointments, spoke with the school, got the kids uniforms, talked to our real estate agent.
All the little things that take up so much space in our heads. Well, in my case. My partner’s head.
In a spicy ND household, that list runs all day, every day, in the background.
It doesn’t show up on the calendar. And sometimes we forget to thank that person for it.
And most of the time, we don’t even know it exists. We’re so unaware of it, we don’t see how much it can weigh someone down.
It’s not that you don’t care. It’s because you lack the capacity to see it.
When your stress cup is overflowing, you’re managing your chaos.
You’re reactive. You see only what’s in front of you and block out everything else.
You can’t see her getting pulled down by the invisible load because you are battling to survive yourself.
That’s why Being The Man starts in the same place it always does.
With you.
Your feel-good zone. Your stress cup in check. Doing your own work every day.
Not because it’s selfish. But because when you have capacity in your stress cup, you have the space to take the load off your partner.
You can talk about what she is carrying.
You can see who is doing what instead of guessing and silently keeping score.
That’s what showing up for your partner actually looks like.
Grand gestures are all well and good.
But it’s showing up with enough capacity to hold space for your partner.
And lighten the load.
— Coach Chris
P.S. If your relationship feels like it’s running on empty, it’s probably because one of you is.
That’s where the ND Dad OS starts.
Reply “OS” and I’ll send you the details.