In your marriage, the attacks rarely come when the kitchen is full, and the romance is peaking. The enemy does not fight fair. The crisis - be it financial ruin, the sudden emotional withdrawal of a spouse, the intrusive toxicity of in-laws, or the subtle, creeping vine of health issues - arrives when you are depleted. It strikes the “rear ranks” of your union: when the baby hasn’t slept in three weeks, when the intimacy has dried up, when the bank account is red, and when you are too tired

This is the hidden, generational cost of the imbalanced marriage. The problem is not just that Sarah is exhausted and John is oblivious. The problem is that they are, with every passing day, modeling a blueprint for future relationships that their children will internalize as “normal.” The home is the first classroom for love. It is where children learn the definitions of “husband,” “wife,” “mother,” and “father"

Before you can fix the problem, you must first learn to see it. The "mental load" is not the tasks themselves. It is the cognitive work of managing the tasks. It is the 100-tab browser open in her mind, 24/7. Your browser has one tab open: "Work Project." Her browser has: "Buy birthday gift for your nephew," "Schedule dentist appointment for daughter," "Figure out what's for dinner," "Notice you're almost out of toothpaste," "Pay the electric bill," and "Worry about son's weird cough."