The Invisible Load: What Women Wish Men Understood About Emotional Labor

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In this powerful episode of The Aligned Father, host Lirec Williams breaks down one of the most overlooked truths in relationships — the invisible load of emotional labor that women carry every day.

Men are taught to provide, protect, and perform, but few are taught how to truly partner.
 Drawing from sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s work on emotional labor and Dr. Darcy Lockman’s book All the Rage, this episode uncovers how modern relationships often fall into imbalance—where mothers and partners take on the emotional management, planning, and mental strain that keeps the home and family running.

Through honest reflection, real-life examples, and verified research, Lirec explores how fatherhood challenges, modern masculinity, and emotional healing intersect with relationship communication, mental health, and family empowerment.

This is a call for fathers to evolve—from “helping out” to sharing the load, from patriarchy to partnership, from emotional distance to emotional presence.
Because true leadership in modern fatherhood isn’t about control—it’s about connection.

🎯 What You’ll Learn:

• What emotional labor really means and why it matters in relationships
• How invisible work drains women and disconnects families
• Ways to build emotional intelligence and partnership in your home
• How awareness, empathy, and communication streng

 A grateful and energized intro that celebrates the global reach of 15 Minutes with Dad. Highlights impact across 403 cities and 57 countries, acknowledges listeners for their support and invites them to continue the mission through holiday engagement, podcast ratings, social sharing and picking up Man Up, From Our Trauma to Being an Impactful Father. 

 A warm, exciting closing message that reinforces the show’s growth in fatherhood, emotional healing and family empowerment. Thanks listeners for their support, encourages episode feedback, ratings and social media tags, and offers a holiday reminder to gift Man Up, From Our Trauma to Being an Impactful Father to someone focused on personal growth and healthier parenting. 

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (01:21):
Welcome back to 15 Minutes with Dad, the Align
Father series.
I'm your host, Lyric Williams,and today's episode is one I
wish every man would hear.
Because this conversationchanges relationships, it
changes families, and it changeshow we as men show up in our
families.
It's called the Invisible Load.

(01:42):
What women wish men understoodabout emotional labor.
Now, before you tune outthinking this is about blame,
it's not.
This is about awareness,empathy, and alignment.
Because if we're serious aboutbeing better fathers, better
partners, and better men, wehave to look at what the women
in our lives carry and whatwe've been too conditioned not

(02:06):
to see.
Now, I've had a fewconversations lately with women
in my life, and I can tell youit's been life-changing,
gut-wrenching because of how rawthis information has been.
So let's get into it.
I want to share this with youguys.
Now, before we get into all ofthe ins and outs of this topic,

(02:27):
I want to first define whatemotional labor actually means.
The term was first introduced bysociologist R.
Lee Hoschild in her 1983 book,The Managed Heart.
She described emotional labor asthe effort of managing feelings
and relationships, the invisiblework that keeps homes,

(02:49):
workplaces, and familiesemotionally functioning.
In modern family life, emotionallabor means remembering
birthdays, planning meals,coordinating childcare, sensing
tension before it erupts, beingthe emotional thermostat for
everyone.
According to a 2019 studypublished in the journal Sex

(03:12):
Roles, women still perform morethan twice the mental and
emotional workload inrelationships, even when both
partners work full time.
So that includes the invisibletasks of thinking, remembering,
managing, comforting, andanticipating.
It's a silent job, unpaid, butit never ends.

(03:36):
And here's the thing most mendon't even know it's happening.
So why men don't see the load?
Let's be honest.
Most of us were never taught tosee emotional work as work.
Growing up, many of us watchedour mothers do it all cook,

(03:57):
clean, hold everyone's emotionstogether while our fathers
helped out here and there.
And that phrase itself, helpingout, is the problem.
Because when you help, you'restill assuming someone else owns
the responsibility.
Psychologist Dr.

(04:18):
Darcy Lockman, in her book Allthe Rage, Mothers, Fathers, and
the Myth of Equal Partnership,writes that modern dads often
believe they're doing more thanever.
But in most homes, women stillshoulder 70% of domestic
coordination and emotionalmanagement.

(04:38):
Not because men don't care, butbecause we've been socialized to
focus on visible work, bills,repairs, money, fixing problems.
Meanwhile, our partners aredoing invisible work, nurturing,
organizing, worrying, feelingfor everyone.

(05:00):
And the result, women areexhausted, and men are confused
about why their relationshipfeels distant, tense, or on the
brink of separation.
Here's the damage emotionalimbalance creates.

(05:20):
When women carry all of theemotional labor, they often feel
unseen, like the glue holdingeverything together while no one
notices the effort.
That leads to resentment,emotional burnout, and sometimes
detachment.
A 2022 Pew Research Centerreport found that while nearly

(05:44):
80% of fathers say they'reinvolved parents, only 56% of
mothers agree.
Now that gap comes down toemotional load, not physical
presence.
When men say, I'm doing my best,and women still feel
unsupported, it's not abouteffort, it's about awareness.

(06:08):
And fellas, this is where weneed to check our ego because
sometimes I'm doing my bestisn't the same as I'm doing
what's needed.
So let's talk solutions, notguilt.
I got five ways to share theemotional load and create real

(06:28):
partnership in your family.
First, I want you to see theinvisible.
When's the last time youinitiated something?
A meal plan, a school email, agrocery run without being asked.

(06:48):
Two, ask, don't assume.
Don't say, you should have toldme.
Ask what's something you've beencarrying that I haven't noticed.
Just ask.
The third is try and take fullresponsibility, full ownership
of a task.
Don't just help own the task.

(07:12):
Be responsible, like handlingbedtime and handle all of it.
The bath, the pajamas, theroutine.
Fourth, communicate withoutdefense.
When she says, I'm tired, don'tjump to prove your contribution.
Listen, validate and respondwith, I hear you.

(07:32):
What can I take off your platethis week?
Instead of, well, I'm tired too,or comparing what you've done
this week and why you're nottired and why she should not be
tired.
That's a one-way streak to likeending your relationship.
I'm not gonna lie.
And the last one is toacknowledge the emotional labor

(07:53):
itself.
Simple words like, thank you forkeeping us together.
Thank you for having this donethis week, and it really made
our life a lot easier.
It carries more power than youthink.
According to the GottmanInstitute, gratitude and
acknowledgement are two of thestrongest predictor of long-term

(08:13):
relationship satisfaction.
The strongest predictor.
They truly believe that manhoodand fatherhood are supposed to
be about being these hunters ofthe of nature and have to find

(08:38):
ways to make things bend to yourwill because all things is built
for your existence.
And that's not, I don't thinkthat's true.
I think that there's a balanceof of specie between man and
woman.
I think there's a balance.
And I think that as men, we havenot evolved as well as women

(09:01):
throughout the last couple ofdecades.
There were women didn't have theability to choose much about the
man that they dated.
Now they have options.
Now they have options, and wedon't have many options as men
because some of us, most of us,are still following the

(09:21):
patriarchal status that we holdin society.
And yes, that's cool.
Some women are gonna follow forit because there's a there's
women out there that want that.
But there are also men out herethat want some kind of balance
in their life and and wantstructure in their life and
don't want to be divorced in thein the first five years of their
marriage.

(09:41):
Women are seeking moreemotionally aware and adapt men.
All of your accomplishments andachievements doesn't matter
anymore.
All the money you have, itdoesn't matter anymore.
Women seek to connect with theman that they want to be with.

(10:02):
And if you the only way you canconnect fully is to understand
this part of your journey inlife.
If you can get this, it'll fallalso to your kids.
And if you ignore the emotionalload, it doesn't just hurt your
partner, it affects your kidstoo.
When children see one parentconstantly exhausted and the

(10:26):
other detached, they internalizeand balance as normal.
Your son may grow up expectingwomen to do more emotional work.
Your daughters may grow upbelieving love means carrying
everyone else's burden.
And if I need to put this intopractical terms for you guys,

(10:47):
this looks like a woman worksfull-time, man works full-time,
woman comes home, man comeshome, woman cleans, cooks.
She's expected to clean, cook,take care of the kids, pick them
up from daycare, manage toschedule.
Man is expected to maybe takethe kids to a football game or

(11:12):
football practice, come home,and they're tired or we're
exhausted from our day.
And because we're exhausted, wewant to drink a beer or
something, we want to go andhang out with the guys, whatever
that may be, while the womanmakes sure the kids get to bed,
they're showered, they're, youknow, the the routine is all in
place.
And the men maybe sometimes kickin and do a couple things here

(11:33):
and there, and and but they wantto be rewarded.
And we feel like that'ssacrifice.
We feel like we're doing aboveand beyond because we're taking
on those roles, and we thinklike, oh, we're great fathers
because I put my kids to bedevery now and then, or I play
with my kids every now and then.
Brother, that's standard.

(11:54):
But women have to carry, theycreate the routine.
Make sure the routine is aroutine for most of us.
They make sure the routine is aroutine and you get to where you
got to get to.
The schedules where everythingthat like that is an emotional
load that we don't even talkabout.
Do you want your daughtergrowing up carrying everyone
else's burden, or your sonexpecting women to do all of the

(12:19):
extra work?
And that's how the cyclerepeats.
But when they see sharedemotional responsibility, they
grow up expecting equality, notmartyrdom.
They learn that family isteamwork, not hierarchy.
And that's what real leadershiplooks like in modern fatherhood.

(12:44):
You can create your family tolook exactly how you grew up,
but I can assure you there wassome form of an imbalance simply
because that's how society wasback then when women was not
expected to work or didn't havethe opportunities to work as
much as men did.
Life is changing now.

(13:06):
We're both in we're both in aworkforce, almost equally,
trying to make it happen.
And when the mother of your kidsor your partner comes home,
they're tired just like you'retired.
Probably more because of thejourney that they have to go
through in their day to navigatetheir life with all the people
at work, talking about theirlooks, talking about their

(13:30):
contributions, thinking thatthey're less than or their voice
isn't being heard, or being shutdown from ideas that they want
to give out.
It's all draining, and they comehome and have to do the same for
the they have to like navigatethis whole family structure.
And I think in modernfatherhood, we're both equally
responsible for the trajectoryof how our family goes.

(13:53):
Now I know that there'sreligious folks that say the man
is the man of the house and thisand that.
That's all titles.
That's all titles.
Doesn't mean it works.
How we were then sociallydoesn't have the same
constraints and requirementsthat it does today.

(14:13):
So I know that this conversationcan feel uncomfortable.
You might be thinking, man, Ialready do a lot.
And you probably do.
But leadership isn't about doingeverything, it's about creating
a balance.
We've inherited a patriarchalmodel of family life where men

(14:35):
provide and women nurture.
But in today's world, women areproviding, leading, and carrying
the emotional load too.
It's time for us to help balancethe scales.
Partnership is not a threat tomasculinity, it's an evolution

(14:56):
of it.
Dr.
Brene Brown said it best.
We can't love people fully whenwe're afraid to be accountable
to them.
Accountability is love, sharedeffort is love, presence is
love.
And I am challenging you guyssomething bigger than I've ever

(15:19):
challenged you before.
We talked about present a lot,and this is another stage in
this journey on being presentand emotionally present and
healed fathers.
For this week, ask your partnerthis question.
What's something you've beenmanaging that I've never
noticed?

(15:39):
Then don't fix it right away.
Just listen, let her talk.
Then take one of those thingsand fully own it this week.
And that's how you startalignment.
Love isn't proven by how much wesacrifice, it's shown by how

(16:01):
much we share.
I'm Lyric Williams, and this isthe Aligned Father series.
Keep showing up, keep listening,and keep growing.
Because when you see her load,you lighten both your lives.