“How do you not see this?”
I hear some version of that question all the time.
‘This’ might be dishes in the sink. Garbage that needs to go out. An appointment nobody booked. Something that was missed at the store.
One person genuinely cannot understand how their partner didn’t notice. The other person can’t understand why they didn’t just ask.
“I’m sorry, I forgot.”
“Okay, but why do I even have to ask you in the first place?”
“I said I’ll do it.”
“Well, that’s not really the point.”
To be fair, usually it isn’t the point.
For the person who is upset, having to ask is a big part of what is upsetting them. They don’t want to feel that they alone carry the burden of tracking what needs to happen, submitting an official request for help and awaiting results that never seem to come. They want their partner to notice too. Maybe, heaven forbid, even before they do.
Most of the couples I work with are heterosexual, and while this dynamic is by no means exclusive to them, it’s the particular relationship I am talking about here.
A woman will sit across from me and describe everything she is keeping track of at home. This list usually covers…almost everything. Her husband, sitting beside her, will listen and agree, but he’ll usually end up saying something along the lines of, “I know I could do more, I’m sorry. BUT whenever I do something, she tells me I did it wrong.” Many times, his wife is mouthing the words at me while he is saying them. Clearly, she’s heard it before.
Neither person would tell you that this is the kind of marriage they wanted.
They built this life together on purpose. They can be thoughtful and generous with each other and still somehow end up in the kitchen arguing about whether the garbage is full.
They believe in equality. They certainly aren’t consciously trying to recreate their grandparents’ marriages. But we don’t start from nothing. We grow up watching relationships and picking up ideas about what husbands and wives do, what fathers should provide and mothers should know.
These days both might work full-time. They may share cooking, cleaning, laundry and transporting the kids all over the place. I don’t see a lot of men who want to come home from work, sit on the couch and wait for dinner. When I ask men these questions without their partners present, the answer is the same.
And yet, she may still feel like she’s running the house.
To me, the difference is often in the noticing. More specifically, what that noticing means.
Noticing isn’t just seeing that something needs to be done. It’s carrying enough of the life you’ve built together with you in your head that you’re looking for what might need your attention.
Someone has to notice there’s only a mouthful of milk left in the fridge, the sheets need to be changed, everyone desperately needs to see the dentist, or a child has outgrown their shoes and is starting to limp.
But if you’re always the one to notice it, remember it, ask someone else to do it and then check that it got done, you have given away a task. The responsibility is still yours.
There is some research on this. Sociologist Allison Daminger interviewed heterosexual couples about what she calls the cognitive part of household labour. She separated it into anticipating needs, figuring out the options, making decisions and monitoring the results. In the couples she studied, women did more of this work overall, especially in anticipation and monitoring.
Over time, the dishes often aren’t the point anymore. They just become the easiest thing to point to when you don’t know how else to show your partner what you feel they’re missing.
“I shouldn’t have to ask” can sound like a request for clairvoyance, which is why the response is often, “I’m not a mind reader.” But usually what I hear underneath is closer to, “I need to know that this life, our life, is on your mind too.”
That’s a very different thing to ask for.
I hear something different from the men sitting on the other side of this. The more their partner becomes frustrated by the things they don’t do, the less what they do seems to matter. They may be working hard, constantly worrying about money. They fold laundry, cook meals, care for the kids, handle repairs, manage bills or whatever parts of the household have become theirs over time.
Then what gets attention are the things they have missed. Rinse and repeat that argument and “you forgot again” can start to mean something to him too.
“I don’t think you see anything I do.”
That doesn’t mean they are carrying the same amount. Sometimes they aren’t even close. Understanding what something means to the other person doesn’t require pretending things are equal.
But by this point, they are often both bringing evidence.
She points to what he missed because she is trying to show him what it feels like to carry so much of their life in her head. He points to everything he does because he is trying to show her that he is contributing to that life too.
And somehow the evidence each person offers can make the other feel even less understood.
“Look at everything you missed.”
“What about everything I do?”
Neither one really answers the other.
So they keep going.
Sometimes there is another complication: people really do have different standards.
One person can’t stand going to bed with dishes in the sink. The other sees no issue with splashing them with water and leaving them for the morning. One person sees the garbage overflowing, the other tamps it down to squeeze a few more inches out of it. One person thinks the bathroom needs cleaning, the other thinks it has a few more days left in it. (I might push back on this one.)
If the higher standard always wins out, it can feel controlling and overbearing. If the lower standard wins out, the person with the higher standard usually ends up doing the work just to find some peace. I have yet to come across a rule that can make that fair.
And once these arguments have happened enough, people start hearing things their partner hasn’t actually said.
“I shouldn’t have to ask” is heard as, “You’re useless.”
“Nothing I do is good enough” is heard as, “Stop expecting anything from me.”
Maybe neither person meant things that way. But they have been here before, and it takes very little to get back there.
When people start thinking about children, what is already happening between them can suddenly feel a lot more consequential.
A woman who already feels like she is keeping track of most of their life may wonder:
“If I have to ask now, what could this possibly look like when we have a child?”
Her head may be filled with diapers, appointments, daycare bags and a thousand other things she doesn’t even know yet. She may also be wondering if he’ll notice when she is exhausted without waiting for her to collapse.
Her husband may be looking at the same future and wondering something different. If he experiences the relationship as a steady stream of lists, tasks and ways he’s falling short, he may wonder what happens to whatever is left of the two of them. Time together, friendships, sex, and the parts of their lives that are their own.
Then children arrive and there is suddenly a lot more opportunity for both of them to be right.
Of course, this isn’t how they are with each other all the time.
People can know each other extraordinarily well. The person who somehow doesn’t notice what has been sitting in front of them for three days may also notice something is wrong with their partner before a word has been said.
That part of their relationship is real too. It can be hard to remember when they’re having this argument again.
By then, “I shouldn’t have to ask” barely needs to be finished before the reply is ready. He’s heard it. She’s heard his answer. Neither expects to learn much from what comes next.
But “I need to know that our life is on your mind too” might be something he hasn’t heard before. And she may not know how much of his answer is about wanting her to believe he cares.
There is still work to divide. Someone may still be carrying far too much of it. Feeling understood won’t book the dentist.
But it might make a difference to the conversation that follows. She might be able to talk about how tired she is without him hearing a verdict on everything he does. He might be able to acknowledge how much she’s carrying without feeling that he’s admitting he contributes nothing.
They’ll probably still disagree about when the garbage is full. But perhaps the next time she says she’s exhausted, they can stay with that for a while.