Ep. 257: The Truth About Being Superwoman in Your Midlife Marriage

Have you ever had the feeling that you are the one making everything work?

That you are the one holding it all together—and that if you stopped, even for a day, everything would fall apart?

Not just physically.

Mentally.

Emotionally.

Relationally.

You're the one who remembers the dentist appointment nobody else put on the calendar. You're the one who notices when your kid is off before they say a word. You're the one quietly managing the emotional temperature of every room you walk into.

And nobody asked you to do it.

You just... do it.

Because you always have.

Today I want to talk about the truth about being Superwoman in your midlife marriage. Not as a compliment. Not as a badge of honor. But as what it often feels like from our perspective: a burden that none tof us knew we were signing up for when we got married. I’m pretty sure none of us were aware of the overfunctioning we’d find ourselves dealing with at this point in our lives. Or at any point, actually. 

We have real conversations here…the ones a lot of people are to afraid to have. But that’s now how we do things here. Because change can only start with awareness. And that awareness is what we’re after today. 

Resources mentioned in this episode: midlifemarriages.com

Get some powerful mantras to inspire, encourage, and life you up when you need as little something intentional to focus on. 

We have a beautiful pdf download of the 6 Mantras For Intentional Moms you can keep or print. Request them right HERE.

Visit The Intentional Mom

Follow us on Instagram HERE

Visit our YouTube Channel HERE

Rate & Review The Intentional Mom Podcast on Apple . We'd love to hear your thoughts on the podcast. If you listen on Spotify, you can rate & review us there, too. 

Transcript

Well, okay, here's what I see happening with so many women in midlife. It isn't that they're suddenly becoming unhappy. It's that they're becoming honest. They're becoming clear. And friend, clarity, it changes everything. So, welcome to the conversation today. I'm Jennifer Roskamp. I'm a certified and I'm a certified strategist and life coach, and also founder of The Intentional Mom, The Intentional Midlife Mom, and my amazing community accomplished lifestyle. So

I am so glad that you are here because this conversation is one that is probably gonna hit home, close to home, at least, for a lot of you. So today's conversation is one that I've been thinking about for a while, not because it's a comfortable conversation to have, it isn't actually, but it's necessary. And the reason I want to talk about this is because I keep talking to women, I keep coaching women, and I keep hearing the same story, but

Told in slightly different words. Literally everywhere women are talking about what we're talking about today. These are the women who are doing everything. These are the women who are carrying everything. And these are the women, women who are exhausted in a way that sleep does not fix. So here's the thing: for years, many women have been praised for their ability to handle it all. We hear things like: you're so capable, you're so organized, you just figure things out. I don't know how you do it.

And here's the thing, those qualities, they're they're real. You are capable, you are resourceful, you do figure things out. And I'm not here to take that from you or to minimize that in any way. Those are genuinely good things about you. But here's where it gets complicated. When your capability becomes an expectation, when other people start counting on you to handle everything because you always have.

It stops being a strength and it starts feeling a little bit more like a sentence. And there's a big difference between capability and responsibility. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that it was ever yours to do in the first place. Think about how this plays out in real life. You can manage the household schedule, so you do. You can remember the kids' activities, so you do.

You can track the grocery list in your head while simultaneously having a conversation and mentally drafting an email that you need to send tomorrow. And so you do all of that at the same time. You can sense when your husband is in a mood and just adjust the entire evening to accommodate that mood. And so you do. You're capable of all of it and more. But that doesn't mean that you are supposed to carry all of it alone, indefinitely, without question.

And here's what happens over time. The things that you're good at, the things that you step into once, maybe because you wanted to, maybe because someone had to, they slowly become yours by default. Not because anyone sat down and made a deliberate decision. Not because you agreed to it, but because you did it. And so it became your thing. And so you kept doing it. So it became expected. So now it would be an entire event.

To undo it. That's how the system gets built quietly, incrementally, without any single moment that you could point to and say, you know, that's where it started to go wrong. Many women mistake competence for obligation. And the longer they carry it, the more invisible the weight becomes to them and everyone around them. And so let me ask you something, and I want you just to really think on this for a second. When did being capable

Quietly become being responsible for everything for you. Because I promise you, there was a moment. It probably didn't happen all at once. It crept in slowly. One small thing was handed off. There was one need that was gonna go unmet. One gap that you stepped into because someone had to. And over time, those gaps became your territory, not by choice, but by default.

That's the truth about what it means to be superwoman. It's not, it's not a title that women ever audition for. It's a role that they fall into, and then they spend years trying to carry that role without breaking underneath it all. So now let's talk about the load that nobody sees. Now, there this is kind of a buzzword right now. And yes, we're talking about the invisible load, but stick with me here because you're gonna want to hear how I talk about it. So

There's this particular kind of exhaustion that comes from doing work that is invisible. And I think this is one of the most under-discussed realities of modern marriage, especially for women in midlife who have been at this for 20 plus years. So she remembers the birthdays, not just the kids' birthdays, but also the in-laws and the cousins and the neighbor who was kind to them five years ago. She schedules the appointments.

There's the pediatrician and the dentist and that follow-up call that she's been meaning to make for her husband because she knows he won't remember, or he'll be too inconveniently busy to handle it himself, like he should. She notices when someone is upset before they say a word. She reads the room and she adjusts. She manages family relationships, she keeps the peace, she smooths things over, she makes sure that everyone feels included.

She tracks the groceries, the household supplies, the kids' school events, the permission slips, the teacher conference dates. She knows what needs to be done before anyone else in the room even knows it exists. And she does all of this on top of whatever else she carries professionally or personally, because it's just part of how she moves through the world. The hardest work in many marriages is the work that nobody can see.

And here's what makes it so draining. Invisible work doesn't get acknowledged because you can't acknowledge what you can't see. The people around her aren't necessarily bad people. They're just not carrying the mental load. They don't see it because they've never had to see it. Now, I want to share something personal here because I think it matters. This isn't just something that I coach women through from a distance. This actually is me, superwoman, right?

This is who I am and who I have been for a long time. I am not standing on the other side of this whole experience and looking back at a problem that I've fully solved. In reality, I'm only a few steps ahead of you, actively working my way out of being superwoman. And some days it doesn't feel like I've made many steps at all. In all honesty and transparency, again, because that's how I do things here, there have been a lot of uncomfortable conversations with my husband recently.

A lot and there will be more because this doesn't get untangled in one conversation, no matter how good that conversation goes. All of these things that you have been carrying get untangled slowly in a conversation that goes imperfectly, probably over a long span of time, with more honesty than is gonna feel comfortable, and more grace than feels easy. But

Here's the thing about my husband, I don't think he sees the Superwoman label as anything other than a compliment. And I get that. I understand where it comes from. He watches me manage and organize and hold everything together, and he thinks he's telling me that I'm incredible. But it just doesn't feel that way to me anymore. It feels like a description of a role that I didn't fully choose and I can't seem to put down. It feels like being seen for what I do rather than who I am.

And the longer I carry it, the less it feels like a compliment, and the more it feels like an expectation that I am trapped inside. And so if you're in this too, if you're still very much in the middle of being superwoman, not past it, not healed from it, just trying to figure out what's going on and trying to find your footing, I want you to know that I am right there with you. I don't have a tidy ending to offer on this one. I just have honesty.

And I have found that honesty, as uncomfortable as it is, is always the best starting place. And here's what that honesty has taught me about the burnout that can so often accompany this superwoman syndrome. Because here's the truth: burnout doesn't always come from doing too much. Sometimes it comes from what others should have been doing all along. And that distinction

Matters enormously because if you believe burnout is just about working too hard, the solution sounds like it would be working less, right? Taking a bubble bath, getting a massage, going to bed early. And yes, rest does matter, but rest does not and will not fix an unsustainable system. Rest is a band-aid when what you really need is a completely different structure in your home management and in your marriage. If you understand

That burnout can come from carrying an unfair distribution of labor for years, sometimes decades. Then the real issue isn't your output, it's the system. A system that depends on your overfunctioning. A system where your ability to hold everything together has become so normalized that nobody around you even sees it as labor anymore. It just looks like a typical Tuesday. It just looks like how you are.

And somewhere along the way, without realizing it, you became the load-bearing wall, the thing nobody thinks about until it starts to crack. Now, here's where things get complicated because often women are praised for this superwoman role, right? They're not criticized, they're praised for overfunctioning. We hear things like, you're amazing, and I don't know how you do it all, and we'd be lost without you, and you're the glue that holds everything together.

And those comments are usually sincere. The people saying them genuinely mean them. They're not being sarcastic, and they really do think that you are incredible. They really do recognize on some level how much you carry, how much you contribute, how much would actually unravel without you. And yet, recognition is not the same thing as partnership. That probably hit home right there. That's

That's where we've been going a little off the rails, right? And we've not been able to see clearly what's happening. Recognition is not the same as partnership. Being appreciated and being supported are two completely different things. Yeah, this is starting to make sense now, right? A compliment doesn't change the distribution of labor. Again, I want to say that again because I need you to hear it. A compliment does not change the distribution of labor.

Being told that you're amazing does not mean that someone is gonna step up and start carrying more. Being called the glue does not mean that someone is gonna ask what holding it everything together is actually costing you. And this is the part that quietly destroys women over time because it is very hard to be frustrated about something that sounds like a compliment. It is very hard to say, I'm drowning, when the people around you are saying, you're incredible.

It creates a kind of cognitive dissonance that's hard to navigate because part of you wants to receive the appreciation because you have worked hard. You do deserve to be seen. But part of you also knows that the appreciation is landing in a place of something, is landing in place of something that you actually need. But you don't know how to figure any of that out. And so you just smile and you say thank you and you tell yourself, well, at least he notices, and you keep going.

And the phrase, I couldn't do it without you, it sounds loving. And you know what? I I really think that it is. But sometimes, maybe a lot of the times, it should also raise a question. And the question is: if you couldn't do it without me, if I am truly the thing holding this household and this family and this marriage together, why haven't we ever had a real conversation about what that is actually costing me? Why is the solution to my exhaustion?

Always more appreciation rather than more responsibility on your part. I couldn't do it without you is a beautiful thing to hear. But why do I still have to? Is the more important follow-up question that I think women are realizing they want to ask. I mean, what happens to the marriage when she hits the wall? What's gonna happen when the glue gives out? Because it does give out eventually, not dramatically, not all at once, but.

Slowly in things like growing resentment, in a closing off, in a woman who used to be warm and is now just flat out tired, in a couple that used to be connected and is now just functional. And by the time any of this becomes visible, it's been building for years. So here's a question for you. Have you been receiving appreciation when what you actually needed is partnership?

Because those aren't the same thing, and it is okay to want both and to say so. So in the reality of Superwoman, at least most times, eventually something shifts. And it's not because she decides to blow up her life, it's not because she suddenly becomes angry, although anger might be a part of it. It shifts because she starts to wake up. There's a moment, and it's almost always a quiet one. It could be loud, but more often it's quiet.

And it happens when a woman looks at her life and can start to see it clearly, maybe for the first time in years, maybe for the first time ever. And she says things like, This is where I am. And this is what it has cost me. And this is how long it's been going on. And I'm not willing to live this way for the rest of my life. Now I want to be clear about something. That declaration, the I'm not willing to live this way for the rest of my life, it is not a divorce declaration.

It doesn't mean that the marriage is over. It doesn't mean that she's ready to burn everything down. In fact, for most women that I know and I work with, it has nothing to do with leaving. It is simply and powerfully a truth declaration. It is the moment that she stops pretending. It is the moment that she stops calling her depletion normal. She stops telling herself she's fine, that she can handle it, that this is just what life looks like right now.

That I'll it'll get better when the kids get older, when things slow down, when she gets a minute to breathe. This is what she's telling herself. And she she has been telling herself. And now she's done with that. Because maybe she's starting to realize, maybe you're starting to realize that nothing changes until the truth is allowed to enter the room. And I know that that feels scary because once you say it out loud, once you admit that this isn't working and this isn't sustainable.

And this isn't fair. Once you admit that, even just to yourself, you can't unknow that. The lid is off, and you don't necessarily, in fact, you probably don't know what comes next. You don't know if your husband is going to hear you when you share this. You don't know if things are gonna get better or harder. You don't know if naming what's going on is gonna open a door or start a fight. But here's what I know with absolute certainty the women who are the most stuck in their lives.

Are the ones who have been lying to themselves the longest. And they're not doing it in a dramatic way. They're not doing it maliciously. They're just doing it quietly. They're just telling themselves it's fine when it isn't. They're absorbing the weight because fighting it feels harder. Minimizing themselves because everyone around them has treated this as normal for so long that they've actually started to believe it too.

Healing and changing begins the moment that you stop calling depletion normal. Not when everything is fixed, not when your husband suddenly transforms into a fully present partner, not when the kids are grown and the workload lightens. It starts when you stop pretending. That's what the declaration does. And it's one of the bravest things that a woman can do. So here's the question that I want to leave with you.

What truth have you been minimizing because everyone around you has called it normal? What is the thing that you keep swallowing back down because the timing isn't right? Because you don't want to rock the boat, because you've told yourself it's not that bad, but you know you can't swallow it anymore? What if it is that bad? What if the fact that you've normalized it is exactly the problem? You're allowed to say so.

Out loud, even just to yourself today. So let me ask you some questions that most people never ask. When we're talking about the super role, superwoman role, did anyone ask if you wanted this role? Did anyone sit down with you at the beginning of your marriage or somewhere in the middle of it and say, hey, here's what the division of labor is gonna look like in our home? Does this work for you? Is this sustainable? Is this what you want? I'm guessing not, right? Because that's not usually how it happens.

It doesn't happen from a deliberate conversation. It comes from a thousand small moments when, again, there's that gap that nobody else was gonna fill, a need that you stepped into because it was easier than watching it go unmet, a pattern that slowly calcified into your permanent job description. Here's some more questions. Did anyone ask if this was sustainable? Did anyone ask what carrying all of this would cost you?

Not in a week, not in a month, but over a period of 10, 15, 20 years? Here's another question. Did or does anyone ask how you're doing, really doing, underneath all of that capability, underneath all of that reliability, underneath all of that incredible execution?

And here's another question. Why is dependence often praised instead of examined? Because here's what I see. Women are called superwoman and everyone applauds, but nobody stops to ask whether that role was chosen or simply assigned. Nobody asks if she's okay being superwoman. Nobody asks what it's costing her to hold it all together. The cape looks good on her, and so everyone assumes she's fine.

But largely she's not fine. She's exhausted. And she's been exhausted for a long time. And here's something I want you to hear because I think this one can bring a lot of relief. Many women didn't consciously choose to become the default carrier of everything. That's what Superwoman is, right? They adapted to it. They inherited it often from their mothers who did the same thing, from their grandmothers before them, from a culture that equated self-sacrifice.

With good motherhood and called it a virtue. They learned it, they survived through it, and they got good at it. And getting good at something that's hurting you is not necessarily healthy. I coach women all the time who are incredibly efficient, incredibly capable, incredibly good at making decisions and managing impossible loads. They have or are raising families, some are raising grandchildren and managing aging parents.

They work and they do most of the things at home. They worry about their loved ones. They make countless decisions and solve countless problems on the daily. They look like they have it together on the outside. And when I ask them what they want, not what they do, not what they're good at, not what they're responsible for, but what they actually want for their life, they're quiet. Sometimes for a long time because nobody has asked them that in a very long time. And that question, what do you actually want?

It can feel almost dangerous when you've spent years defining yourself entirely by what everyone else needs. But it is such an important question to ask yourself. Not because your needs matter more than anyone else's, but because they get to matter as well. And somewhere along the way, that truth got buried underneath a very long to-do list. So why does all of this unsettling and all of this

I'm seeing it now and all of this uncertainty come to head in a midli in midlife. Because midlife doesn't create the problem, midlife just exposes it. Here's what I mean. In your 20s and 30s, you could outrun it. You had more energy. The kids were younger and the chaos was just expected. You were building something, a family, a marriage, a life, and the work felt purposeful, even when it was exhausting.

And you know what? You could white knuckle through the hard seasons and tell yourself it would get easier. And then midlife hits. The body gets louder. You can't push through the way you used to. Sleep deprivation used to be manageable. Now it wrecks you for days. You used to be able to stay late and wake up early and run on fumes. And now your body is sending you very clear signals that that era is over. And the exhaustion, it gets harder to ignore. It's not just.

A tired exhaustion, it's weariness that settles into your bones. It's a heaviness that you can't shake. And then resentment starts surfacing. Things you've quietly been absorbing for years without consciously deciding to absorb them, they start coming up now. And you feel guilty for feeling resentful, which adds another layer of weight. And somewhere in the middle of all of this, there's a growing unwillingness to disappear inside your own roles.

A sense that this version of your life is not actually who you are. A voice, maybe a quiet one, maybe not so quiet, that says, I have more to give than this. I am more than this. And if this is all there is, something has to change. Midlife has a way of making the unsustainable feel sustainable. And that is not a crisis, that is clarity.

You don't need to burn it all down. I want to be really clear about that. You don't need to blow up your marriage or your family or your life. But you do need to tell the truth. You can love your family and still be honest with yourself. You can stay committed without staying depleted. You can serve your people without disappearing inside your responsibilities. The goal isn't to stop caring.

The goal is to stop carrying everything alone. We've covered a lot of ground, and I want to give you four main takeaways to make sure you don't miss the bulk of the conversation today. Number one, capability is not the same as obligation. Just because you can carry it doesn't mean it was always yours to carry. The fact that you're good at managing everything doesn't mean you're supposed to manage everything alone.

Number two, being appreciated and being supported are not the same thing. Compliments don't change the distribution of labor. You can be deeply admired by the people around you and still be profoundly unsupported. It is okay to want and to ask for both. Number three, midlife exposes what's been there all along, the exhaustion.

The resentment, the growing unwillingness to disappear, those aren't signs that something is suddenly wrong. They're signals that something has been wrong for a long time, and your body and your heart are finally done pretending otherwise. Takeaway number four: nothing is going to change until the truth is allowed to enter the room. Now you don't have to blow up your life to start changing it, but you do have to stop lying to yourself.

About what all of this carrying and all of this super woman woman things are are costing you. The declaration of I don't think I could do this for the rest of my life, it's not about leaving. It's just about honesty. And honesty is always the beginning. So let's bring this all to kind of a close today. Maybe you're sitting with this right now and nothing looks different.

You're looking around and you've got the same marriage, you've got the same house, you've got the same responsibilities waiting for you when we're done here and you walk back into your life. The dishes, they're still there. The mental load didn't download itself onto someone else while we were talking. Your husband didn't suddenly have an awakening while you were listening. I get it. And I'm not gonna tell you that listening to a conversation like this is gonna fix any of that. But here's what I do know. Today you can tell the truth, maybe just to yourself for now.

Maybe you're not ready to say it out loud to your husband yet. Maybe you're still figuring out what's true and what's just exhaustion talking. That's okay. You don't have to have it all figured out before you're allowed to acknowledge that what's going on and what you feel is real. Maybe it's time to stop pretending that all of this hasn't cost you something. Maybe it's time to stop calling depletion normal, to stop measuring your worth by your ability to sustain a system that was never built to take care of you at all.

And seeing these things and having this honesty, it doesn't mean that you're not grateful for the life that you have. You're not selfish for wanting more than a life of invisible labor and self-surface-level appreciation. There's nothing that's wrong with you. You're just waking up. And waking up is the beginning of everything. The women that I work with, the ones who make the most powerful shifts in their marriages and in their own sense of self, they're the ones who issued.

They're not the ones, let me clarify, they're not the ones who had heated conversations and issued ultimatums or really laid down the law, right? They're the ones who just got honest. They're the ones who stopped tolerating their own disappearance. They're the ones who decided quietly, firmly, with zero drama, that this version of their life was not theirs forever. And they started there.

Not with a plan, not with a perfect conversation, not with every answer figured out. They just started with the truth. Friend, you're allowed to start there too. You are allowed to want a different kind of life, a different kind of partnership, a different relationship with your own needs and your own worth. You can love your family and also love yourself. You can stay committed.

Without staying depleted. You can serve your people without disappearing inside your responsibilities. And you can start again at any moment. Well, if this conversation hit close to home, if you found yourself nodding along or getting a little teary-eyed, or maybe you felt kind of that quiet ache of recognition, I want to hear from you. Leave a comment down below and tell me what part of this episode felt the most true for you.

Because naming it and naming it out loud is often the first step towards changing it. And if you're ready to start actually moving forward, not just feeling seen, but taking real action, I want to invite you to come jump on a coaching call with me sometime. We've linked a page in the notes where you can find out more about how to do that. And if you want help with these conversations in your marriage, I've created a marriage conversation guide. And after that, you'll be ready for the marriage maps. The guide is free and there it's right for you.

Down below. And those marriage maps, they take it one step further because there's a set for you and a set for him. You can get started though with that free guide at midlifemarriages.com. And friend, you don't have to keep carrying all of this alone. It's okay to start setting some of it down. And so, until we talk again, lead yourself well, friend.