""If one partner protects their creativity and rest and ambition or joy because the other partner is holding the system together, that joy is being heavily subsidized," she explains. "Not by money, but by someone else's nervous system.""
""And that debt compounds quietly until the person who's holding the mental load forces a stop. And that happens sometimes through burnout, through depression, through anxiety, autoimmune issues, loss of libido, emotional withdrawal, quiet quitting your marriage," she explains. "And when kids watch this all happen, they internalize that joy belongs to the powerful. Care is invisible. Self-sacrifice is love. And later, they either overgive or overtake in their relationships. A healthy family system doesn't ask one person to shrink so another can expand.""
When one partner pursues time-intensive hobbies or passion projects while the other manages household and child responsibilities, the pursuing partner's creativity and rest become subsidized by the other's unpaid labor. That imbalance generates 'emotional debt' in the load-owning partner, which compounds until a breaking point. Consequences may include burnout, depression, anxiety, autoimmune symptoms, loss of libido, emotional withdrawal, and quiet quitting within the relationship. Children who observe this pattern learn that joy belongs to the powerful, care is invisible, and self-sacrifice equals love, which can lead them to overgive or overtake in future relationships. Healthy family systems avoid unilateral shrinking.
Read at Scary Mommy
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]