Howdy, I'm Josh, married 13 years, living in Alberta, Canada with our 6year-old son, 2 cats, & 2 dogs. Got here after getting called out by some tiktoks that hit too close to home. Hoping to take the steps to break the loop.

Hello! I'm a 32 year old from Nebraska. I'm really excited about this journey to help learn my partners true mental load. We have been together going on 3 years, married for just under a year now. Throughout our time together, we have done a ton of work. We started with couples therapy as a foundation to our relationship. Over the years, my partner has talked more and more about the mental load to things. Not just with household tasks but with the emotional load as well. I'm not the best with knowing my emotions or emotional intelligence at that, but I am learning and have grown a lot in the area and am proud of the progress I've made. We have 4 children, 1 of which is our own and the others are a combination of hers and mine. We both view all of the kids as our kids, so no worries on that end! I am a law enforcement administrator and currently a full time student studying for my pre law degree! Things I want to get from the community: 1. A community of other men in the same position as I 2. Ideas and literature on growth opportunities 3. People to call me on my wrong doings when I am falling short. Things my partner fell in love with me for: 1. My humor 2. My confidence 3. My parenting ability.

If you’re open to it I’d love to hear what your family looks like too?

Thank you for having me it’s great to be here. To start I’m a 31 year old man on the autism spectrum looking to learn more about the mental load and how to be a better partner. My girlfriend and I have been together for 4 years and for the most part we have a great life together. The issue that has been consistent though is not fully understanding mental load balance and have also been struggling with being able to do certain things around our home. Growing up as an only child I was very privileged in a lot of ways, mainly not having to do a lot around the house as my parents took care of a lot of things. This has transferred very poorly into adulthood as I continuously struggle to do certain tasks in the correct manner. I love my girlfriend very much and want to continue to have a happy life with her but in order to do that I need to learn how to take care of my own end of things so I do not become a burden or worst case scenario a manchild that is incapable of being a good partner. I am looking forward to speaking with people here and accepting any criticism or feedback that will help me be a better man for myself and my loved one’s.

Hey there, I'm really glad to find a community like this. I really want to become a full team with my wife in caring for our lives, but all the aspiration in the world doesn't help when we hit real world situations, and I'm hopeful I can have some breakthroughs by getting others' perspectives and input and through some of the guided materials here. The largest mental barrier for me in my efforts so far has been agreeing on the urgency or importance of different tasks. I tend to feel like everything important is more or less covered, and it doesn't matter if X isn't taken care of. I can sense that she's often actually correct in her view of things, but I struggle to fully see it that way without a clear explanation that brings me into feeling it the same way and/or seeing it as objectively true and not simply a preference that she has. It seems wrong to me to insist on anything that's a preference. Of course, asking for that kind of explanation is further mental load. One example is laundry. I would be fully comfortable if the laundry was never fully put away for the rest of our lives, and it seems to me that it does not in fact matter. She sees it as a barrier to enjoying our home as much as we could because it creates clutter in the guest room where clean clothes collect on the bed. I can get by for a while on the thought that "it's okay to do things only because that's how she wants them—that's love, right?" but after a while I find I can't sustain the effort when the truth is I just don't believe it's a real problem, and I'm ultimately just doing it to keep her from being mad at me. I just watched Zach's video on the "do better" loop last night and found a LOT to relate to in there. I've not seen this specific angle of things brought up anywhere, so I'm grateful for any insight you all might have in this area.