Mm-hmm

... who wins.

Sleep usually wins.

Um, and so there's a lot of, like, survival mode, so you don't have the time or space or brain power to focus on it.

And that's why I think, and I'm just gonna call out dads for a second, um, like I said, I'm very sassy and I, I call everyone out, um, it is your job then.

If your wife is preparing for labor and delivery because that's her role and her job right now, then you need to learn about the other things post.

Maybe not the relationship stuff, because who knows? It could be smooth, it could be easy, it could be wonderful.

What do people, what are little things that people could start doing?

What would be something that they could do today, right now, to start things moving in a different direction? A

few things.

I love this question because it's so practical.

It's so needed is start talking.

One of the things people do is that they're in this headspace that they don't want to be in this space.

They don't want to deal with this and they just stop.

communicating stop dealing with it try to avoid it it's not worth it last time i did i got yelled at last time i did it led to an argument i always say this sassy line to my clients arguing is still talking just loud don't be silent don't hide once you stop talking everything falls apart that is the beginning of the downward spiral of your marriage and relationship Communicate, sit down, have an agenda of what you want to talk about.

Yeah.

What would you say to that?

I love it.

And I think that's super important and that's where your role can be and embracing it and go, hey, You know, something we have to realize is that your role or your need is going to shift.

Like everyone said, there's seasons to it, right? There's ups and downs.

You know, there's going to be days where your wife can't deal with the baby.

And guess what? Step up and do it.

It's your time to shine.

Phil style? Why write that book? What made you have to draw blood from the stone?

Uh-huh

...

the check-in, right? Which is the idea that, well, whether every night or every morning, depending on your life structure and your life stressors and how you run your life.

I'm not here to tell you to do it every day.

But mostly Sunday nights, because I'm probably sitting scrolling and my wife's probably sitting and scrolling and we're not really talking or whatever, I'll stop that, like, 10 to 15, 20 minutes before we go to bed.

Be like, "Hey," and I have three questions.

She asks me the questions.

Yeah.

And systemically figuring that out.

Yeah, and, and in the chapter I also talk about the responsibility then on the other person to go, "Hey, I'm aware that a birthday is coming up," or, "I know we're having our family over," or, "XYZ is coming.

Is there anything I can take off your plate?" Do that, that, that, that's the sassiness I give to dads.

I'm like, "Hey, wake up.

I know you have your stuff.

I get it.

I know.

Mm-hmm

And it ends

up being what they call the devil's argument.

It's pointing, pointing fingers, leading you down to this hellish argument of pain.

Don't do that.

What you can do is say, I feel this is very heavy or I'm very overwhelmed.

Just like this openness, this vulnerability, this honesty that I am struggling.

Not that you're not struggling, but I am struggling.

couples that are feeling that like what would be a first step of feeling a little bit more connected

Yeah.

Because over time, and this is not a secret, men are usually not asked to talk about their emotions and feel and be vulnerable.

It's a weakness, all that kind of stuff, even though I think the trend is changing in a great way.

But the idea that there are emotions on the other side and feelings on the other side that are not focused on a lot, and not saying this in a bad way or a sassy way, but I am a no BS kind of therapist, so here's the sass, is that there are so many communities, so many Facebook groups, so many WhatsApp groups, so many mom accounts, so many books for mothers, and there's barely anything for men.

And I get why, right? The mom is the one who gave birth and is going through all those changes, pregnancy and birth.

so is the dad.

The dad is not doing the physical changes, even though some dads do, like sympathy, weight, and all that kind of stuff.

Is this possibly a case that those don't exist because there's not the interest and the audience, even though they know that this would be helpful, it's not the thing that's the draw.

Like, it sounds like there are things that maybe it is a change, but that disconnect is, can be avoided or-

I love that.

You're gonna hate your husband.

Get over it.

Yes, I thi- I think it's inevitable, but I don't think it has to be long term, and it has to be an active choice to counteract and fight that natural tendency, that loneliness, that individual change, that priority shifting.

We have to be very active.

Resentment is very easy to creep in during this time, right? We start comparing.

[laughs]

Mm

... what it meant emotionally, um, to feel in front of the other person.

Um, you know, a lot of couples don't get a lot of opportunities at a younger age to have, like, loss and pain as much as when you get older, when you're in your 40s or 50s and parents are getting older and grandparents passing away and, and a dog dying.

You know, a lot of stuff can happen when you get older.

When you're younger, you're kinda just, like, floating through life.

A lot of stuff doesn't happen.

Sometimes it does to people and, and that's a terrible thing, and thank God I don't know a lot about that.

So tell us about your book and where we can learn more from you.

Mm.

And it's a, you know, a hot topic everyone talks about.

I think one of the things that people misconstrue with mental load is that you need the other person to do something.

That's part of it.

Sometimes you do, and you ask for help if you can, and that's a whole another bag of tricks if you can.

But a lot of it is also just the fact that someone's actually aware of the context going on in your brain.

Sometimes I don't even know that my wife is looking at the world that way, that her vantage point is so different than mine.

Mm.

Which of these three do you see causing the biggest riff in relationships, maybe before or after children? And what's one practical way couples can reset this in real time? Or is it all three that are kind of rearing their ugly head?

The classic answer would be all three, but I'm going to really just nitpick at expectations.

Because I think if we're setting ourselves up to a certain standard, and in the book I talk about that, it's not about lowering your standards, it's being more realistic with them.

We're not here to put our standards at zero and saying, well, let's see what happens.

And the expectations to perception angle of that triangle is really where the trip up happens.

That little right in the middle of those two.

Because the example I usually give with this conversation is someone's working from home and the other person's not and they come home.

It's an