It's Not 50/50 and It Was Never Supposed to Be
I want to talk about something that took me longer than it should have to understand: relationships are not 50/50. Not friendships, not partnerships, not collaborations. In fact nothing in life is 50/50. And the sooner we stop measuring everything that way, the better.
But here's what I've come to understand: the right relationships don't ask for equal. They ask for honest.
I was talking with a friend recently — someone whose husband trains for ultramarathons. Twenty hours a week of running. And I just kept thinking: that's twenty hours a week that she is covering. Twenty hours of childcare, home management, juggling her own business as well as the kid, dog, home. The invisible work that doesn't get logged anywhere.
Another friend put it plainly: ”Why do these men get to have hobbies while their wives do nothing for themselves?” She isn't wrong.
Women have absorbed an enormous amount without naming it. And the first step isn't resentment — it's awareness and curiosity. Okay, that’s two steps.
Let’s start with awareness. Awareness is not just seeing the thing, but recognizing that the thing needs changing. And that change is possible. Is there an imbalance in a relationship in your life?
Can you name it? (insert relationship here: __________________________________ )
Does it need to change? yes / no
Is change possible? yes / no
Great. Sit with that.
And then get curious about the relationship.
Whose time is actually being spent on what? What does the real time split look like?
Who can take on more of one thing right now and less of another?
Who has more to give? Who has been giving and giving and giving?
Whose time are we considering more valuable? Why?
Who is deserving? What activities have we deemed more deserving than others?
Who is multitasking? Who is doing invisible labor that we aren’t even counting?
In my own partnerships, the ones that work are not the ones where everything is equal. They're the ones where everything is named. I know what I bring. I know what the other person brings. I know what I love doing and what I'm happy to take off someone else's plate, and I know what I need from them in return.
A marriage or coupling is probably the easiest relationship in which to apply this framework. It’s estimated that women perform 2 1/2 hours of invisible labor (more on this in a later post, but think about all the planning, remembering, and organizing that goes into a household) than men. I know that’s true in my marriage. In addition to the family management, I also work, am a business owner, primary parent, and take care of the majority of household tasks. My husband manages the money and works fulltime in a job that has a roughly 50% travel requirement.
Do I plan, remember, and organize better than Ezra? Yes. Does he manage the family budget better than me? Yes.
Does he want to market, sell, and do all the things it takes to grow a business? No. Do I want to travel to rural areas in far away countries and send messages to my spouse that say “There’s a huge roach walking around on the ceiling right above me, but I’m too tired to deal with it.”? 100% no.
Would it be best for our family if he gave up the job with benefits so that he could do exactly half of the childcare? Certainly not. Would it be easiest for our family if I gave up my own business and all its flexibility and instead got a fulltime jobby job? Logistically, no way. Financially, it’s debatable.
Right now Ezra is in Guatemala. He’s nine hours behind us and working 14 hour days. It’s not okay — nor possible — to expect him to pick-up 50% of parenting. He’s mentally and physically exhausted. Ever since Elon Musk put USAID into the wood chipper he has been doing two jobs on a team of people doing the jobs of their laid off colleagues. They have half the budget and twice the work.
I, on the other hand, left my jobby job in December. I dealt with my health, and created a spaciousness that allows me to pick up 99% of the parenting, the lion’s share of the invisible labor (I’m not claiming that we have this part down pat, but that’s for another post), at the same time I work with clients and create new leads. He knows that he can lean on me for support right now.
But, when I was in the thick of the beginnings of perimenopause and it’s best friends depression, anxiety, sleep issues, brain fog, and fatigue, I had no spoons to give. He had to take on more parenting and invisible labor and we both had to understand that my income was what it was at the moment and there was nothing I could do about it.
But all this sounds hard, you say. Isn’t it just easier to just go with the flow and not put all this under the microscope? Maybe. But there are trade offs. For me, if we don’t actively look at our relationship and who is doing what and talk about it and actually do something about it, I end up resenting that I’ve taken on too much.
I was telling my friend about this the other day and she agreed. “It’s the resentment if I do it all and the guilt if I get help,” she said. “It’s like I can’t win.”
Instead of throwing our hands up and just admitting defeat, I’d ask of myself, my friend, and you — get curious and creative. Every time we give ourselves permission to center ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to look out for ourselves, we give women everywhere permission to do the same.
