This is a topic where the more I learned about it the more I opened my eyes to it and saw it happening on my own life.
I'm very easy going and there isn't much I get too worked up about. My wife, on the other hand, is a meticulous planner. I could see her getting stressed out making decisions for a vacation. I realized that by not caring, I wasn't helping and offloading the burden to her. Now I truly didn't care if we went to restaurant A or restaurant B, so she always had to make the decision. Since realizing this I've relieved her more from all the decision making, even if I really don't care about the outcome. Why should I do this? Well, because she's my wife and while I may not care which restaurant we go to, I care about her.
TL;DR It's real and I decided to do take up more of this emotional labor in life.
That resonates with me. But I struggle a lot. I feel like my wife's irrationality on some subjects forces us to both spend some of our very limited time here feeling anxious and negative. It's frustrating and feels very one sided. Why can't she meet me half way and stop being so anxious on half the events? Well.. because irrationality doesn't work that way; I get that.
I think that true zen for me is finding a way to just relax and be okay with emotional inefficiency. Not sure how to do that.
Conflict in relationship, especially intimate relationships, is rarely about the content.
It's typically that the context of the situation brings up an emotion that is taboo / off limits, one that the person has spent a life time avoiding.
This avoidance is typically do to previous developmental or shock trauma.
You can actually learn to use your conflicts as a psychedelic of sorts to do deep transformational work, if you have the right context, language and tools.
From my view, this inability to transform conflict is why most relationships end and why most people in relationships aren't happy (despite relationships being the single greatest predictor of health and life satisfaction.)
That's exactly how I view conflicts. It's the surfacing of something much deeper that is normally completely hidden, either suppressed or managed at the cost of Emotional Reserve.
When something flares up, I try to not let it go to waste and start digging. Instead, it's an opportunity. Either my wife or me (usually both) will then gain some insight about ourselves. We can then apologize for the content wich caused it and then move to the context.
We've been doing this since we were engaged and this has allowed us to grow a lot in terms of emotional stability, and build some strong reserves. Of course the flip side is that with deeper reserves, it can take a lot longer for conflicts to surface, so we now look at frustrations as the opportunities to introspect.
Are you in NYC by chance? I'd love to invite you and your partner to join us for a Psychedlic Love Workshop aka The Love Dojo (as our guest).
My partner and I curate a group of couples doing this work (and singles looking to find a relationship with this context), and practice some really cutting edge tools.
For example, we've pioneered a version of breathwork to be used in times of conflict with your partner that can transform long standing conflict patterns.
despite relationships being the single greatest predictor of health and life satisfaction.
That predictor isn't specifically referring to romantic relationships, but all social relationships.
That means family, friends, love, professional etc. It means that ideally, a person who has more of these things is more likely to be healthy and satisfied.
Having a wife but no friends for example, isn't ideal, and vice versa.
Please don't directly connect irrationality with anxiety.
Sure, there's a connection between the rational and emotional parts in humans, but this doesn't mean that being anxious automatically means being irrational.
Quite a few fears have their origin in the childhood, when the rational
parts of the brain haven't been that developed, and perhaps that's the
reason why these fears can have such a deep impact.
When these fears come up in an adult they might overwhelm him and it
can be quite hard for the rational part to counter them in any way.
When you don't have these fears it's less about being more rational and
perhaps a lot more about not having made harmful experiences in your
youth.
I think my point is: yes, the fear is irrational, but you're not irrational because you have the fear. Or saying it the other way, you can't be just rational and the fear will disappear.
So it's quite unempathic to think about someone being irrational because he's anxiously, and you don't have anxiety because you're rational.
Thanks for that! I suffer from some severe anxiety (diagnosable so, even) and one of the most difficult things for me to accept is that it is irrational. Removing the source of anxiety just makes my mind find something else to be anxious about, for example.
I find it extremely uncomfortable to admit to myself that my own mind, my 'self', can actually be the source of self-sabotage. My rational side, irrationally, often 'solves' the problem by simply denying this fact and carrying on dysfunctionally.
What makes all this worse is people who in various ways encourage this denial, even if they mean well.
Thankfully, I have at least two people in my life, as well as my mother, strange as it feels to admit this as a grown man, that I can confide in, and whenever I take the courage to at least express the irrational fears in all their irrationality, they help me by, well, observations like yours. Somehow merely the acknowledgement that my irrational fears are legitimate despite their irrationality is a tremendous help in dealing with them. I'd encourage everyone to keep this in mind when dealing with people suffering from what I guess we'd call 'mental disorders'. You have no idea how much just acknowledgement can do for them/us, and it doesn't have to take much effort!
I'm a grown man and I have in the past few years developed an understanding I didn't know about, but is definitely deeply rooted in my childhood: very busy places like farmer's markets, theme parks, etc. really stress me out and make me anxious. I know it's irrational. But being irrational doesn't invalidate my feelings. My feelings are valid by definition.
And my solution isn't, "be more rational." But acknowledging that they're not rational is important in investigating the issue.
You can't immediately make the irrational fears disappear, but you can consciously suppress those fears and grit it out to do what needs to be done, thus achieving most of the same benefits. Do this enough times and the irrational fears will gradually diminish (at least for some people).
> Are you sure? I find that mentally walking through a checklist of true-true facts makes my sweating/shaking/vomiting go away (for a while)
Calming thoughts certainly can help, that's the whole idea behind the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
But it might not work that easily for everyone and for every fear, and it
also depends how much you're feared, because you certainly can't calm down
a panic attack with a few thoughts.
One should just be aware that what works for one person might not work for
another.
Yes, but the irrationality is a property, not a cause, so "be more rational" is a terrible approach to dealing with anxiety because, on par with "just don't be depressed".
Anxiety is a relatively easy to address problem, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) works pretty well. It's also amenable to short-term talk therapy, usually.
Agree; in fact I'd go further and say that anxiety is by definition irrational. If it were rational, it would simply be "worry", which is useful. The difference is that in the case of worry, it makes sense to mitigate the external thing that is worrying you, while in the latter it is necessary to address/mitigate the emotions themselves.
Thank you for sharing. Yes I can see what you mean. I use the word irrational to describe behaviour and decision-making that has no logical founding. I'm not trying to suggest irrational equals wrong or invalid. How my wife or I feel about something is valid regardless of its rationality.
Your wife can meet you half way by getting some therapy for her anxiety disorder. I went to a CBT psychologist for four months to address General Anxiety Disorder, and it did a lot to make me aware of anxiety driven behaviours and teach me coping skills that were actually pretty easy to apply, in my case.
"Emotional efficiency" is probably not the best way to address this, but at root, if your wife's anxiety is causing problems for her and for your relationship, that's a treatable issue. It's as if your wife has a sprained ankle that's preventing you two from going on walks, and neither of you are addressing the sprain.
Not all problems are solved or can only be seen through a lens of rationality or irrationality.
Many things have to be understood with the heart, rather than the mind, or vice versa.
I don't believe women or men are more logical or emotional based on their gender alone - most are adults who do not continue to develop both emotional awareness and thoughtfulness.
When I'm presented with similar anxiety, instead of dismissing it, I try to embrace and understand it (like an entrepreneur) and try to work through what causes it, and if the worry actually resulted in the bad thing happening.
Emotional labour deficits in relationships (Paying attention, caring, demonstrating it in action) is real. It can go both ways too.
Doing something because someone else cares for it even when you might is a demonstration of care, because most likely you are receiving it.
A lot has to do with becoming an adult in reality too - first being able to take care of yourself, and then others, even when you might not want to most days, but because the long term benefit comes from caring and giving first, and ensuring a relationship lets giving happen easily.
It is true that worrying is like paying interest on money you may never borrow. Worries rarely materialize, not because one worries, but because things happen often largely out of our control, and learning to come to have a decent relationship with not being in control and open to the fact that change is constant has helped a lot in my relationships.
Dealing with anxiety/irrationality comes down to people being able, and available to do their inner work and growth. How we are ultimately results from whether we feed the worrier or the warrior in us.
The mind (thoughts) and the heart (feelings) don't speak the same language, are often at odds with each other to the point that the logicians rule out emotion as being valid, both are far less effective without the other.
Thoughts and feelings have a habit of straightening up when they know they are being watched by ourselves. Awareness is a gift.
I sometimes wonder if when we experience pain, it is in part because we are using our mind when we should be using our heart.
I wish I had something worth saying to pay back your contribution in kind. But I don't. You've got a lot of interesting thoughts there. Nothing I strongly agree or disagree with. Nothing that leaps out as demanding my curiosity.
I'm in a similar position. My wife's a planner. She over-thinks alot, creates lists for everthing and needs to discuss details with me/friends/parents which most of the time I deem unnecessary.
I realized that I can't change her. There's no single solution, but there are a few things she did, which helped her being more relaxed: Yoga, talk therapy, less coffee/more sleep, taking time outside of family. She also had iron deficiency; the doctor fixed this with iron infusions which really helped alot against feeling tired (also keep an eye on iron in food).
On the other hand, I try to be supportive and do not question everything she does or thinks anymore. Don't try to be a therapist, instead help her to fix herself :)
And in some cases satisfy the need/desire despite it seeming unnecessary or illogical (or even problematic). This is something I struggle with immensely, and ironically for no logical reason!
Yes! I've been working really hard to accept this and just go with it: sometimes it's perfectly okay to accept an irrational situation and move forward with it. This week it's to stop trying to fight the concept that we're grown adults and it shouldn't matter how our family judges the quality of our yard. Instead, it's to go out there and do what I deem to be an unnecessary mow and trim. The absolute bottom line is that I got more exercise, enjoyed the waning summer weather, and my wife feels happier.
Be careful with the iron rich foods if you're eating the same meals as your wife. Some research shows a positive correlation between higher iron consumption and heart attacks / strokes.
Typically anxiety causes irrationality rather than the other way around. And people with anxiety problems can get treatment, but the treatment is not to just "stop being so anxious."
Irrational thinking is never rational. That's something we've both had to consciously realize. We're both irrational about our own things and we've learned to just make it work with each other. Usually the type of things that crop up are never worth getting too upset or worked up over.
I've found that simply being more invested in the decision or issue, it eases some of the tension. That anxiety may have been a result of shouldering all the emotional labor in the first place.
You say she is a meticulous planner, and maybe that's the case, but maybe you are missing the point(as is most of the other commenters here). the point isn't whether it's Restaurant A or B, the point is you have to make a decision about A OR B, or even going out to a restaurant at all.
Someone has to think about: lets go out for dinner tonight @ restaurant A. Women generally do that thinking, because like you said, you just don't care. The point is, she is still doing the emotional labor, because she has to think about dinner tonight for both of you, and if it should be a restaurant, or making it at home or whatever.
or TL;DR: She is still holding the responsibility of making sure you both eat dinner.
You're exactly right, this was the point I was trying to make. I never realized this before. I used to only see it rationally, that she should choose since she cares and I don't. But then it turned into her always choosing and having to decide and plan it. Once I realized this is what was happening I made a conscious effort to ease that burden and take my share of the emotional labor. Of course choosing a restaurant is only a single, low-impact example.
My relationship has this dynamic too for eating meals and other chores. The alternative IME is that I'll make a decision and then she complains about it. At which point we are both stuck with the hassle.
exactly right. It's taking the responsibility for X happening, and dinner is just the icing on the cake as it were :)
Maybe it's taking the responsibility for deciding what to do over the thanksgiving holiday, or christmas.. Do we go to in-laws, travel, do we do it here local, etc. It's not really making the decision, it's the responsibility for making it happen.
Right, choosing a restaurant in an easy example. It's managing the groceries too, it's keeping track of our social schedule, it's even keeping our chore tracker up-to-date (something I currently need to work on).
My spouse has assumed the responsibility for ensuring that the family has a dinner every evening. I have assumed the responsibility for ensuring that every individual family member is capable of providing their own dinner from available materials every evening, if they choose to eat a dinner.
This is "give a man a fish" versus "teach him how to fish".
In this, we are at cross-purposes. I can prepare salubrious meals. I rarely have the opportunity to do so, because the spouse oversupplies the household needs, such that on days when no meal is freshly prepared, there are still 3 to 4 different choices for which leftovers to eat.
I frequently get asked about what requests I have for the grocery shopping. My response is always "get nothing", because our standards for the conditions differ so widely. This is not "get nothing specifically for me," but "do not go grocery shopping at all." When I look in the pantry and see enough food to last for three months, my spouse sees the same, and thinks "OMFG, we literally have nothing to eat; I need to buy more food right now." I could draw up an inventory and 90 meal plans using nothing but what we have on hand, and hear, "We're not eating that."
In a sense, the burden of that "emotional labor" is piled upon a great sleigh of my spouse's own making. I cannot explain, "You should not be worrying about doing this, because this is a thing that no one needs to do." It gets done anyway. Often, the emotional and communications effort of worrying about doing the thing, or convincing me to do the thing, is greater than the actual physical effort of actually doing it and being satisfied with the result.
Like some cousin posts, I often have no specific preference for what I may eat for dinner. I will literally eat garbage (if it's on top--the Costanza rule). As such, about any restaurant with a food safety inspection score rated at "Waffle House" or higher works for me. In the rare instance where I actually do want something specific, my suggestion is usually countermanded by, "I don't want that. Pick something else." You can imagine my "WTF face".
It is largely self-flagellation. The only way I could ease the burden is by taking away my spouse's freedom to make those irrational choices, which results in a different set of problems. Or maybe by springing for some deluxe anxiety counseling. In this instance, choosing the restaurant is like volunteering to wash a compulsive hand-washer's hands once a day. Even if you are a surgery nurse, and have perfect scrub-in technique, your hand-washing will not relieve the emotional burden, because the irrational compulsion is still there. It's not something you can share.
I'm not sure your preference for running the gas tank down to empty before refilling it is more logical than her preference to keep it topped off.
It sounds like you each have your preferences, and the tension comes from one (or both?) of you assume that your emotional preference is somehow objectively or factually correct.
Maybe if you indulge her on the pantry situation to assist in her happiness, she can indulge some preference of yours that's particularly important to you?
It's not even a matter of running it down to empty. It's actually using some fraction of the capacity of the tank built into the vehicle instead of always using a 50gal bypass tank that takes up all the trunk space.
And I never specified whether either of us were male or female. (On the Internet, no one knows if you're a dog.) I'm not going to say whether you assumed correctly with your choice of pronoun.
In our household, my spouse overfills the pantry regardless of my preference. I don't get worked up over it, or keep score. It's just something that happens, and isn't important enough to turn into a point of contention. Each issue exists independently, so it would be unfair argumentation to drag that one into a separate issue to try to score points and "win" instead of addressing the issue itself. So we have a pantry that is difficult to walk through without turning sideways.
I don't worry about it. It's a first world problem. My spouse knows I don't like it, and that's all that needs to be done from my end.
>Someone has to think about: lets go out for dinner tonight @ restaurant A. Women generally do that thinking, because like you said, you just don't care. The point is, she is still doing the emotional labor, because she has to think about dinner tonight for both of you, and if it should be a restaurant, or making it at home or whatever.
You say that someone has to think about it. But do they?
When I'm suffering from decision fatigue and I have to make a decision on something I don't find too valuable (where to eat), I'll literally flip a coin or use a random generator.
It offloads the burden tremendously.
The issue the author has is not that the burden isn't being shared. It's that the values are different. I don't know about her, but I've met people for whom flipping a coin is not an acceptable answer - because they care, and they don't want a flippant method of deciding.
The conflict is that one side cares and the other doesn't.
And part of the problem is that not everyone takes ownership of the issues they care about. If you care about a lot of things, then yes, you will feel the burden.
I like a clean house. It makes me feel much better than an untidy house. But I also feel that burden of cleaning, and the burden is worse than the feeling I get in an untidy house. So I keep it tidy enough such that there is a balance. Not too overburdened, and not too untidy.
In my experience, most people do not understand this tradeoff. They'll have high standards, but will not to bear the burden of those standards, and will be impatient with everyone who has lower standards.
Well, someone needs to take the responsibility on for making sure you eat. Generally that's yourself. Flipping a coin is making a decision. When in a relationship, however, that could be your partner, especially if you are male and your partner is female. Because it's generally expected that partners/families eat meals together.
There absolutely is, with any responsibility a give/take about how you handle those responsibilities, especially if they involve another person. How you handle those decisions can be critical to your relationship. If they have very high standards, and you have very low standards, then you either compromise, or one of you changes your standards. Ideally you would talk about it, and come to an agreement, but that doesn't usually happen. Usually the high-standard person just takes responsibility and keeps it up to their high standards and stays upset with the low-standards partner.
> The conflict is that one side cares and the other doesn't.
So definitely there can be conflict here, the question is, does the conflict stay hidden, or do one or both of you bring it out, talk about it and reach a mutual decision around it? If you want a nice healthy relationship, I would hope you would talk about it. :)
I know I have definitely felt upset about lower-standards before I finally wised up; now I force communication about it whenever I find myself owning responsibility for something because my partner has lower-standards than I do about something. I hope my partner(s) do the same thing, I know we have talked about it, but I don't get to control their thinking... yet :P haha
While dating, the trope (especially with platforms like OkCupid) is that the man has to perform all the emotional labor:
He has to write tons of messages just to get a first date, pick a good restaurant (and pay for it!), be witty and entertaining all evening, and be just the right amount of seductive (but not come on too strong) in order to "win" a second date.
Dating isn't one-sided. A woman is still expected to be charming/interesting/fun to talk to. If a man sees dating as one-sided, are they really that interested in the person they're conversing with or are they just trying to trick them into bed?
Initiating a relationship is indisputably one sided. The gender roles are so strong that many girls would rather say "when are you going to ask me out" than "will you go out with me"?
The woman often takes that role on herself and refuses to relinquish it ever, though. If the man constantly decides, she will complain and second guess his usurpation of her emotional labor.
They are both adults. Neither of them needs to take responsibility for the other eating dinner. It's not like he's going to starve to death without her intervention.
The trick is deciding, period. The key is recognising that when she says "But restaurant B has X", she is not really suggesting that you go to B. She is offering you a chance to show that you have thought it through, that you have mastery over the situation, or at the very least are prepared to stand up for your opinions. When you shrug your shoulders and immediately defer to her, it's upsetting; it makes her feel as if you believe that she is more competent than you, or that her opinions are worth more.
The correct response to "But restaurant B has X" is "Perhaps, but I'm in the mood for A today." After all, she asked you in the first place. Don't be a pushover.
> She is offering you a chance to show that you have thought it through, that you have mastery over the situation, or at the very least are prepared to stand up for your opinions.
Or, she could respect the fact that it doesn't matter for him which restaurant they go to.
> When you shrug your shoulders and immediately defer to her, it's upsetting; it makes her feel as if you believe that she is more competent than you, or that her opinions are worth more.
No, it doesn't. And if that's what she feels, it's her problem. He doesn't see the difference between A or B. He may say something like "A is closer" or "B is cheaper", but maybe that's all he cares about. She sees differences he doesn't, so why should he be burdened? My girlfriend relies on me to buy electronics. I rely on her to buy healthy food. If she wants my input she asks. If I reply with "I don't care", she just picks something in two seconds. We never argue about it.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but if you care much more about trivialities than your partner, and you expect the other person to change or to exert extra effort just to match your expectations, then you're simply not a good match for each other and things will never work out the way you expect.
Choosing between restaurant A or B when the other person doesn't care or see a difference is something you do FOR YOURSELF. If you expect the other person to make this choice for you, you're asking for a favor.
Classic. I sort of hate that kind of statement, because it doesn't state what the person wants to do. Are you saying that because you want to go to B, or because you want me to consider going to B?
It's so much better when it is "Nah, let's go to B because it has X and I know you like it too." Desire clearly stated, everyone in agreement, let's go.
> I think the trick may be deciding before it becomes a decision on her radar in the first place.
One way my wife and I handle this is to have separate responsibilities that we each own. For instance, I handle bills. Not because I'm better at it, but because it causes her more stress than it causes me. I also proactively communicate our financial status, so that she isn't surprised by anything.
If there's a "trick," it's to have an interesting, playful discussion about it, previewing and anticipating all the choices and their potential sensory impacts and feelings and emotions of the whole experience, including the trip there and back.
With both of you visualizing and making connections and learning about each other, you're making fun, exciting memories to the point that the dinner just restates or cements the pre-experienced sensorium. :)
Right, she is holding the responsibility of making sure you both eat dinner. It's on her radar, it's been there since last month, and it will be there next month too. Until you two talk about it, and decide, gee maybe I should handle making sure we have dinner every night next month, so you don't have to.
My wife is not a meticulous planner. Now she is required to be. Now she runs a household, two teens, school, bills, planning, holidays, all of it.
Some programmers here have said "Well, I bring in the money, its fine for my wife to have this as a full time job".
Imagine if suddenly, instead of being a programmer, your job was now procurement and planning for a stockroom including suppliers. Like, wait, what? Imagine if this was the only job you could get now (its a thought experiment ok).
So you went from "what your day looks like as a programmer" to "what your day looks like running a warehouse, calling suppliers, negotiating deals, negotiating better deals, dealing with employees who are sick, employees who steal things, blah blah".
There are people who like that job, or are at least good at it. I would hate that job. Now imagine your new job is "running a household": making calls, dealing with mental illness (maybe thats just my family), school, school reports, children dealing with school pressure, hiring a cleaner, firing the shitty cleaner you hired, reporting the stolen jewelry to the police, hiring a new cleaner with better references, etc
Again, thats not a job that I want. I make a ton of money, I do have conversations with other people and I enjoy it. I would die in this other job. I'm not qualified and I don't have the personality for it.
Neither does my wife. But its her full time job. And she has no choice. For the next 8 years at least.
It doesn't matter that your job makes more or all the money. It matters that your wife (or partner) is trapped in a dead-end job that she hates and sucks at and she cannot quit.
I am going to go and have a conversation with her about taking over some of her "duties".
We've started using this for simpler decisions ala choosing a restaurant or a movie to watch.
The 5-2-1 game... You pick 5 things, she selects 2, you select the final. Or vice versa. Stops the back and forth and shares responsibility. It's literally removed the mental drain and occasional arguments about simple decisions. Sometimes we simplify it to 3-1, if the choices aren't available ... I pick 3 and she picks 1 or vice versa.
It is merely a single example. There are far more meaningful examples that I won't share simply because they're much more private issues. Nitpick the example, if you like, it doesn't change my point.
Besides, the issue isn't picking what restaurant we go to, it's always being the one who has to decide, to weigh the options. And not just restaurants, but what time should we go? When do we leave? Should we drive? Take the bus? When do we need to get more groceries? What dinners do we have planned for the week? Are we running low on laundry detergent? Was I supposed to call the doctor yesterday? She was handling all that an more, nearly all the time. I wasn't doing as much as I could have been doing. Now I make an effort to do more and our relationship is better for it.
Look at it like a garden. If someone decides they want a nice looking garden or lawn, then they work on it. But another person can be perfectly fine with some grass that gets cut on a Saturday when it looks too long.
If my partner wants a garden and works on it, they aren't removing any work from me since I don't want a garden. In the same way, all these decisions don't have to be planned out. Using emotional labor to plan it out is their choice, much like working on a garden.
That's what I don't get about the concept of emotional labor. Most of it involves things that I don't care about and which my life is perfectly fine without any care being given to.
When ever I go out to eat lunch, I often don't plan it all when I start. I walk out the door of my office and if it looks nice I walk, if it isn't nice I drive. Snap decision with no planning. Where I end up? I just go until I find someplace I find acceptable and stop. Why is there any need for emotional labor? Emotional labor in this case isn't to achieve a necessity.
I also haven't seen people address how single people handle it. They have to deal with all of their own emotional labor and have no benefits from economics of scale (if that even applies to emotional labor).
To sum it up, consider the years I lived as a single man. Either I handled all my emotional labor and understand it just fine, or it didn't need to be handled in which case all this work is a nicety that shouldn't be treated as a necessity.
Well if you're single this is all moot anyway, the point I'm making is about a relationship. I'm also not talking about hobbies, there's no problem there. I'm also not talking about when I go for lunch while at work, because it's just me. I'm talking about the sorts of things that are necessary to run the household my wife and I share.
The thing is, yes, maybe one doesn't need to plan all this out and this emotional labor isn't necessary. But you know what? I'm married to her and I love her and she's my best friend so it is my problem, because I don't plan on leaving her. Life and love is not rational.
>Most of it involves things that I don't care about and which my life is perfectly fine without any care being given to.
I'm the same way. My wife is not. We've both changed to accommodate one another because we want to.
For what it's worth, our strong relationship is even stronger now that I've become more aware of this and done something about it.
>The thing is, yes, maybe one doesn't need to plan all this out and this emotional labor isn't necessary. But you know what? I'm married to her and I love her and she's my best friend so it is my problem, because I don't plan on leaving her.
And perhaps I want to surprise my partner who wants a garden by planting them one when they have to spend a week traveling with their job. But looking at it as something that you do out of love for a partner is vastly different than how this article looks at it and vastly different from it being some gendered issue that I've seen emotional labor presented as in the past.
Imagine it a different way. Say I was a big dog person, by my partner was not. But we compromised and got a dog (and assume that compromises happen on many issues, which I think is a sign of a healthy relationship).
Now imagine if I wrote up an article like this. "Dog loving is the unpaid job women still don't understand." That would be absurd.
I don't want to argue with you, because I admire those that consider the needs of others and put that consideration into practice, but I can see BearGoesChirp's point too.
Let's take food as an example. Having a well stocked kitchen is something that requires planning, but how much planning is required for each meal? Sometimes when you have something particular in mind that takes extra preparation time, but it's often possible to improvise an evening meal and still come out with something that's just as satisfying/healthy. Is it irresponsible to not plan every part of how a household runs?
Another example is holidays. People's ideas of what constitutes a good holiday vary wildly. I'm guessing you've found what works for you and your partner, but let's imagine a scenario with a different couple. One person wants to plan everything they'll do before the holiday starts. Their partner wants to just turn up and see how things unfold. Both are valid (I have my own preference, but I'm not going to muddy the waters with that). How are these two people meant to resolve these different preferences for how they like to organise their holidays?
I don't mean to argue since this is entirely personal and different for other people. If that's the dynamic you have and everyone is happy, great. My point was I thought that's the dynamic we had, but it really wasn't. I became aware of it and made an effort to share the effort.
I think everybody that has lived on their own understands what the author is calling emotional labor. Different people demand different amounts (with some floor) of emotional labor from themselves though. When two individuals with different levels of emotional labor get into a relationship, the one with a higher level expects that the labor has now doubled and should be split evenly. Every time the delta between their natural preferences arises, one partner feels that the other is slacking off.
I'm very easy going and there isn't much I get too worked up about. My wife, on the other hand, is a meticulous planner. I could see her getting stressed out making decisions for a vacation. I realized that by not caring, I wasn't helping and offloading the burden to her. Now I truly didn't care if we went to restaurant A or restaurant B, so she always had to make the decision. Since realizing this I've relieved her more from all the decision making, even if I really don't care about the outcome. Why should I do this? Well, because she's my wife and while I may not care which restaurant we go to, I care about her.
TL;DR It's real and I decided to do take up more of this emotional labor in life.