28- How To Rebuild Self Trust When Your Labor Is Dismissed

In this episode, I name the double burden of carrying invisible labor while also being trained to doubt what I’m carrying. I walk through why your perception is not the problem, how suppressed anger changes shape, and what it looks like to turn inward so you can rebuild self-trust without waiting for your partner to finally validate you. 
• role reversal in my family and how it exposed the mental load imbalance 
• gaslighting as dismissiveness and defensiveness, not only overt cruelty 
• “receipts” for invisible labor through load mapping and tools like Fair Play 
• the damage of shame narratives about stay-at-home parents 
• suppressed accurate anger becoming resentment, contempt, and self-blame 
• self-doubt shifting from a feeling into an identity 
• validating your reality without needing agreement or recognition 
• allowing grief and gratitude to coexist when recognition comes late 
• the U-turn toward the underlying wound beneath advocacy and escalation 
• why tending the wound restores choice and reverses gaslighting effects 
If you're ready to do that work, not bypassing the wounds, but through the wounds, Glass Wing, my mental load owner group coaching program is where that happens. The link is in the show notes and in my Instagram page. My handle is mentalloadcoach. Come find me, not because the relationship requires you to do that, but because you deserve to feel at home with yourself.

Come follow me on instagram @MentalLoadCoach and subscribe to my newsletter here. 

Schedule a free consult with me for my group coaching programs:

1) If you are the primary mental load carrier, click here

2) if you are the partner of the mental load owner, click here

Transcript

Role Reversal And The Backstory

0:01

All right, I've broken this podcast up into three episodes, and if you haven't checked out the first two episodes, feel free to do so before we move on, because a lot of this probably won't make sense unless you do so I've been talking about how Herman and I switched roles in our family, and he is a primary parent, stay-at-home parent right now with our three homeschooling kids, and I'm the full-time working parent outside the home. And there were years of conversation around the mental load imbalance, and my partner unintentionally gaslit me and dismissed me and, put a lot of doubt in me around our mental load imbalance, and we had continual fights around how he was convinced he was doing just as much as I was, and that eroded my own trust in myself and my perceptions of reality, but also eroded my trust in my partner because my partner wasn't really able to see and to be curious about my own experience rather than rather he was really very defensive in his own experience of his own reality. And so those basically are the main points of the first-- the last two episodes, but it's really important that you listen to them in its fullness because that was-- there's a lot of things that I flesh out that are more nuanced than that. And for this third episode, I wanted to dive into where you might be right now. You might be and perhaps what kind of practical things you can do if you are in my position that I was in a-- for a decade and a half that I'm no longer in. But I'm really familiar with that pain because I experienced that for so long. And this is what you might be experiencing right now. You might be carrying the majority of the invisible labor burden in your household, and you might also be carrying the doubt about how much you're carrying. There's a double burden of invisible labor and self-questioning that happens that creates its own exhaustion. Not just you doing everything, which is probably what you're doing, but wondering whether or not you're, what you're doing is as much as you think you're doing, which is the gaslighting's most lasting damage.

The Double Burden Of Doubt

2:45

So this is why I feel like a lot of mental load writers and folks that are really trying to do a lot of this data work and research like Leah Rupiner, who is wrote a book recently called "Drained," and Eve Rodsky, of course, "Fair Play," and "Releasing the Motherload" by Erica Dujosa. I hope I'm pronouncing her name right. They have worked so hard, and many others that I have not mentioned have worked so hard in really laying out the breadth and the depth of all the invisible labor that we do to put it-- to make the invisible labor visible. And There's a huge effort in the community to do that, to combat the gaslighting that's in our water, w- in our air, in our food, and it's everywhere. The gaslighting is everywhere in our society. And I think that is why A lot of the writers in these books

Making Invisible Labor Visible

3:55

feel like it's, and myself too, feel like it's really important to put out there that the gaslighting is real, and there's damaging and lasting impacts for the gaslighting. And the books around laying out through Fair Play cards, laying out through detailed chapters in Erika's book. Erika does a good job around every every chapter, in the beginning of the chapter, really naming all the things that you're managing. So this is an example. This is a list of the things that she labeled as managing doing the load map. The-- She has load maps of infant feeding, and she spends time really laying all the labor out. Like why does Erika do this? It's because, A, we've been gaslit for so long to say that we don't do as much as we think we do, and then we're shamed. A lot of stay-at-home parents are shamed for being moochers, for being people who have the privilege of eating bonbons every day and sitting on the couch and doing nothing while their partner goes out and, takes home the bread or something, whatever that term is, breadwinner. That gaslighting and that shaming of female-identified folks just being moochers is so damaging. And so you might be experiencing the weight of that right now, and it's really important, I think, that you would know that the gaslighting is real, and you do a lot of work. You do so much work. You're not m- a moocher. It takes a lot of work to do that invisible labor of upholding and upkeeping a family system. And this is another thing that you might be experiencing right now. You might have learned to minimize your anger, dismiss your anger, squash your anger, suppress your anger into something that's more manageable and more palatable. And so many times that you no longer recognize the original signal that your anger brought to you. And the repeated suppression of accurate anger does not make it disappear. It drives it deeper inside, where it shapes everything without being nameable. And part of the work is excavating, decoding, unearthing what the original signal actually was before it started to become suppressed. And that is a big theme in my work. So you'll hear me talk about resentment, contempt, anger and frustration, annoyance towards your partner, 'cause we're trying to look for the original signal before it started to get repressed or suppressed. And the anger that you repeatedly suppress changes its form and then

Suppressed Anger Turns Into Resentment

7:05

is no longer recognizable and in its original signal, and then you start to... I started to blame myself for being, like, an ungrateful person. The other thing you might be experiencing is that you might be questioning your own perception so much that the questioning has started to feel like a personality. So when self-doubt becomes the default way of relating to yourself, it's no longer experienced as a doubt, but it's experienced as who you are. And that's the most complete form of gaslighting success, is that you start believing that you're just a doubtful person, that you're just so-- your perception is so off, and you're just-- you don't trust yourself. You don't s- you don't really-- you don't trust that you have a accurate representation of what reality is. And this is the truth. Your-- the truth is that your perception is not the problem Right now, your perception is not the problem and was not the problem The present tense matters because the gaslighting instilled a belief that still operates in real time. That, and Just really wanting to convey that your perception is not the problem. That your accounting of reality is accurate. There's receipts involved, the invisible labor, the anticipation, the load map and the mental calculations that don't turn off. It's an honest record, not an exaggeration, and it's really important to name that the receipts are real. And the other thing is I had to wait until my partner stepped into the role of being a stay-at-home

Your Perception Is Not The Problem

9:15

dad to feel like my experience was real. But you know what? I wish I knew this sooner, that I don't need for my partner to step into my own role for my reality to reality to be real. My reality of me validating my own labor and my efforts put in, and my husband never name-called me. He never said I was a moocher. He never said I was some privileged person that just sat on the couch and watched TV and ate Bonbons all day. My husband was never a name-caller, and he never shamed me for being a stay-home parent. But there is harm in his dismissiveness of my labor, and devaluing of my labor, and his unwillingness to see my labor. What happened was I felt like my reality was all of a sudden justified when he stepped into that role. But this is what I wanna tell you, that you don't have to wait until your partner steps into the role for your experience to be justified. You could justify it now. You don't need his, your partner, to agree with you for your reality to be justified. I realized that I didn't lock my car and I don't want someone just, like randomly opening my door, which I'm sure they won't, but anyways. I'm in my car right now recording this podcast, for those who are not on YouTube, and it is really beautiful to be parked by Lake Washington and to have a lookout o- over the water. But I'm in a parking lot, and the reality is that people are opening and closing their doors and getting in and out of their cars, so it's kinda distracting. So anyways, all I wanna say is that you don't have to wait for your partner to step inside the role before your experience is validated because your experience is real even before your partner sees it. Even bef- if he never sees it, it will remain real, and that's really important, for us to, for you to feel into that validation. And maybe right now you're the only person that sees it. Even your kids don't see it. Your mother-in-law doesn't see it. Your friends don't see it. And your partner sure doesn't see it, and that's- Not okay. But, a- and maybe it is okay that they don't see it. That's just where they are. It doesn't justify their gaslighting. It doesn't justify their defensiveness. It doesn't justify the harm and the impact that causes. But you don't need to have your partner see it for it to be real because your validation of your own perception of reality is valid, and it stands on its own. It's real on its own, whether or not there's recognit- external recognition of it. So the next thing is you are allowed to feel your grief alongside the relief when your partner finally does see it. I am giving myself permission to grieve the lateness of my partner seeing my labor and also feel gratitude for my partner's labor 'cause it's really not honoring to myself if I shame myself out of the feeling of grief. My grief does not cancel my gratitude. And so that's my last point, is that my grief, can sit alongside my gratitude, and they don't cancel each other out. They can be next to each other, and I owe it to myself to really sit with that grief. So the internal work that is required for you to do if you're the female-identifying person that's carrying the mental load is that there is a part of you that's working tirelessly to make your experience legible

Grief And Gratitude Can Coexist

13:41

to your partner who cannot see it. And maybe that's why you bought the Fair Play cards. Maybe that's why you're endlessly listing out all the things that you're doing to your partner for them to acknowledge it And that part of you is exhausted, and it feels like it can't take a break because it needs your husband to see or your partner to see something different. And I believe that part is a part that really deserves your attention and your support through and being held, with a lot of compassion with a coach or a therapist or a friend. And what I invite you to look is underneath that part of you that wants that acknowledgement of all the labor, underneath all the advocating, the escalating that part is doing,

Stop Proving Yourself And Go Inward

14:40

is something more tender, and that tenderness also deserves some attention, and that is the part that absorbed a belief that your needs do not fully matter. The demanding behavior is not the root. It's the protective strategy that was built around a much older wound, and that work is to turn towards that wound and direct- di-directly rather than indirectly. The indirect way to bypass that wound is to continue to advocate to a person who's not invested in listening to you, which is your partner. But a way that you can directly address that wound is to go inside and to tend to that younger part of you, that inner child that has the belief that they do not matter That wound was not created by your partner. And that was something that's r- was-- took me years to really sit with. That it was deepened by my partner, but it was not created by my partner, and this predates this relationship. And for me, it was important for me to look with my current therapist, our couples therapist to locate the origin of that wound and really notice how as I was doing this work with this wound, my healing became less dependent on my partner repairing with me. And that was mind-blowingly connective. Me working on my wound and tending to my own wounds created less of a dependency on my partner to heal my wound, because I noticed that it was not created by my partner. And my healing I just had this pivot in my journey where I noticed that my healing did not... I could to- radically devote myself to my healing, and it didn't-- his behavior didn't matter. Not that it excuse, ex-excuses harmful behavior, but my healing belongs to me regardless of what my partner says or does and so my work, and I invite-- this is the work I invite you to doing, is to turn towards that tender part of you underneath and witness your experience before you ask your partner to do the work to validate you. And so that's what we would, in this clinical framework, would call a U-turn. A U-turn is turning towards your own intern- internal experience, rather than outwards towards your partner's behavior, and it's... It-- And that doing so, like going inward, is not like a consolation prize, but it's actually the most important thing, and it restores access to yourself, and it restores connection to yourself. It actually reverses the gaslighting, the effect of the gaslighting. And when you tend to that part directly, the tenderness underneath that holds the belief that you don't matter, you begin to get choicefulness back. You begin to expand the way you respond to your partner's situation or words, and you notice that changes the patterns of communication with your partner. When that activation loses its grip- Around how your partner-- how you take it so personally that your partner does not see your perspective, then

The U Turn That Reverses Gaslighting

18:47

you have more choicefulness in how to respond. And I just wanna say that this is not about lowering your standards or asking for less. It's about coming to the conversation from the wound rather than from the bodyguards and the walls that you built around it. The armor that you built around it, the demands, the escalation, the requests, bringing the conversation back again and again, making sure that he, your partner, sees the mental load imbalance protects the wound, but it does not heal the wound. Only direct contact with the wound itself is what changes everything. So the invitation, and this is a work that I do with my clients, is the core of what Glass Wing is built around. It's-- My work is not around managing difficult emotions. It's a framework for building a relationship with every part of yourself, and it includes the parts that have been protecting you at great cost And in Glass Wing, we do not ask you to manage your anger better or advocate more skillfully or wait more patiently. Those are all surface-level interventions that leave the underlying wound untouched, and that when you leave an untouched wound untouched, it will keep activating the same protective strategies again and again, regardless of how many coping skills you have built. So we, and my... me and my team ask you to turn towards the part of you that believes that your needs don't matter, and stay with it long enough to offer it something that it's never received, which is witnessing and support, compassion, curiosity, and undefended, undivided attention. When you do that work, something shifts, not just in the conflict, but in the relationship you have with yourself, and that's actually the biggest thing that you can do with gaslighting being in the water and the air and in everything that we breathe and eat in our existence. The biggest gift that you can give yourself in the society, the culture of gaslighting that we're in, is to repair the relationship you have with yourself. And if you're ready to do that work, not bypassing the wounds, but through the wounds, Glass Wing, my mental load owner group coaching program is where that happens. And the link is in the show notes and in my Instagram page. My handle is mentalloadcoach. Come find me, not because the relationship requires you to do that, but because you deserve to feel at home with yourself. That's a gift that I believe everyone deserves to have Okay? I hope that you benefited from this podcast. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here with you, and I hope to see you soon. Peace out