Is "Emotional Labor Creep" Happening In Your Relationship?

Emotional labor is a loaded term, and one that’s become mainstream over the years — for good reason. The term “emotional labor” is meant to reflect the work one person does, emotionally and mentally, for another without any help or partnership. Like moms being the ones to remember a kid’s entire nap and feeding schedule, or stay-at-home parents who have to be in charge of all the clothing sizes for everyone in their family, or keeping up with what everyone’s eating each week as they grocery shop.

But it can also be focused on the relationship itself, says Arkadiy Volkov, RP, clinical director at Feel Your Way Therapy. Volkov has been a psychotherapist for 11 years, and says this is something he sees often with clients. “Emotional labor is a kind of invisible work we do in a relationship. We check on the temperature of a relationship to make sure it doesn't get too low or high, and that our partner is fine. Checking in, we remember what is important to our partner. We know their needs, worries, experiences, and we are constantly aware of where they are at,” he says. It’s more than just listening; it’s planning for the future, noticing things, tracking and absorbing what our partners share with us, and then responding. “That is a beautiful thing when we can make the relationship so valuable for us. However, it can also be a lot to bear at times. That happens when it is shifting in one direction. It is a lot of weight to carry and becomes like a second job,” Volkov says.

And then there’s the whole managing a family aspect of emotional labor. Caleb Simonyi-Gindele, a clinical counselor with Therapevo Counseling, tells Scary Mommy that emotional labor can also be the “burden of managing or carrying emotions in a family context,” like one partner carrying most or all of the worry of financial troubles or a struggling child.

Because it’s been talked about so much, it feels like relationships are getting better at making sure the emotional labor is evenly distributed. But what if there’s an “emotional labor creep,” and how do you know if it’s happening in your relationship?

What is “emotional labor creep,” and how do you know if it’s happening in your relationship?

“I hear about this a lot from my clients. It creeps very slowly because the partners go from being there for each other, and then it changes. One partner becomes the ‘emotional manager’ of the other,” Volkov says. “It builds up to a point where there is frustration and resentment and a lot of hurt. One client described it to me as being an emotional ‘shock absorber.’ Whenever something happens to the other partner, they become the one who has to absorb it.”

He says a good way to tell if this is happening in your relationship is to ask yourself if you feel responsible for keeping peace in the relationship, or if you have to maintain your partner’s emotional balance. “Ask, ‘Do I get the same support when I'm under pressure? Sad? Hurt?’ Check in with yourself. Are you able to share your struggles with your partner, or is there no space for that?”

Simonyi-Gindele agrees, saying, “I think a good standard to determine how this is balanced in one's relationship is to examine who is bringing up unresolved issues more? Are you both asserting yourselves equally, or has one person become responsible to table all the concerns, chores, and planning for the family unit?”

Even if you feel like your partner is trying and you feel like the two of you work well together to avoid one person taking on the brunt of the work, it can be easy to slip into the habits that make “emotional labor creep” happen. Maybe you’re exhausted or agitated by the work, or you feel resentment building when you’re asked — again — about the soccer practice times, even though you have it on a calendar. And maybe even broaching the subject with your partner and asking them to help you figure out this imbalance feels like more work.

“If you're the only one who seems concerned about the challenges your family is facing, you're probably carrying the bulk of the emotional burden,” says Simonyi-Gindele. “Somehow, you've become responsible for the emotional labor. You may also notice it if you're the one in the relationship who is reminding your partner more often about things that need to be taken care of, or providing initiative for dealing with either chores or challenges, or if you're the one to frequently raise unresolved points of conflict.”

Melissa Gluck, founding partner and psychologist at Gluck Psychology Collective, adds, “If a partner takes full ownership of a task, from noticing it needs to be done to following it through without reminders, it significantly lightens the mental load. If you’re constantly quarterbacking the day-to-day needs of your relationship or home — and maybe even feeling a little resentful every time you have to remind your partner to do that simple task they had already agreed to do — that’s a sign emotional labor is likely weighing on you.”

How to talk about “emotional labor creep” with your partner?

So now what? How do you fix this imbalance?

“Culturally, women in heterosexual partnerships have been socialized to take on more of the emotional labor, and men to affirm this role. Couples who find themselves in an unfairly balanced situation will need to scrutinize the interpersonal factors as well as cultural or family of origin — socialization — factors that contribute to an imbalance,” Simonyi-Gindele says.

He adds that in some families, partners may complement each other, with one providing planning and the other bringing spontaneity to the relationship. This is fine, but he says at the end of the day, it’s about the equal distribution of emotional labor. And that means you have to talk to your partner about what is fair. It may not be that the solution is 50/50, but rather that both people should contribute to collective tasks and challenges of their family in ways that can play to their respective strengths while also being fair. (Meaning, one of you can’t decide that grocery shopping is never your strength, you know?)

“For example, even if partner A is the one physically going grocery shopping, if partner B is the one figuring out which recipes to make for the week, writing out the grocery list, and noticing which ingredients are almost gone, then partner B is still doing a significant portion of the work,” says Gluck. “Even if partner A wipes down the table, does the dishes, and takes out the garbage, if they only do it after partner B has asked or reminded them to do so, then partner B is the one carrying the responsibility of remembering, delegating, and following up — aka carrying the mental load.”

Gluck recommends navigating conversations about mental load and emotional labor with the Fair Play Deck, based on Eve Rodsky’s book of the same name. “It’s an incredible tool for bringing hidden — or not-so-hidden — dynamics into light. It reframes household and relationship responsibilities as ‘cards’ that can be actively and consciously divided so that both partners share not only the doing, but also the thinking and planning that keeps the ship moving.”