Season One Finale: Gratitude, Chaos, and Still Not Being His Alexa

After more than 40 episodes, we’re wrapping up season one of The Mental Load Chronicles and taking a summer break before returning for season two in September.

In this episode, we look back on what this first season has actually done for our marriage, our household, and the way we talk about the mental load. Spoiler: we have not magically solved it. There are still moments where one of us feels like the household Alexa.

But there has also been progress. Weekly conversations have helped us name what is happening, notice what each of us is carrying, and find more gratitude in the middle of the chaos. With one kid heading to college, two still at home, two demanding jobs, activities, reading support, a possible new dog, and all the normal life logistics, the load is not disappearing anytime soon.

So maybe the goal was never to “fix” it completely. Maybe the goal is to keep talking, keep noticing, keep adjusting, and keep coming back to the conversation.

We’ll be back in September for season two. Until then, enjoy the summer — and enjoy not having to hear from us every Monday.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back to the Mental Load Chronicles. We are wrapping up season one today. Can you believe it?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

I can't.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Over 40 episodes.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

I didn't even know what a season in podcasting is. So it's a big surprise.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

No, I mean it was sort of like when should we end the season? How does that work? Yeah. And you know, it's summertime. Kids are out of school. Kids are out of school. There's a lot going on. We need a break.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Yep. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Yeah. So we're going to take a brief break and be back for season two in the fall. In the meantime, however, we wanted to do just kind of a little recap of season one. So what are your thoughts on we've been doing this podcast for months now? What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

I I I think it's, I don't know. I here's the like I hate to like just turn it right back around on you and be like, hey, what are your thoughts? But you know, this was your idea. You're the creative force or behind it. You're the one who does all the editing. It was your idea to do this. I, you know, to me, I'm I'm doing this because you want to do it, right? And it was a way to help lighten your mental load. And this was kind of, I think, your smart way of getting me to talk about this stuff. So uh to me, I'm getting what I want to get out of it. I I think everything's good on my end, but I'd be curious to hear what what you think about it so far.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, I think for the most part, there's been there have been a lot of successes with this. I think the first success is simply us talking about this on a regular basis. Yep, because 100,000 percent. I mean, look, 20 years of marriage, I brought I have brought this up not every year we've been married, but for many years of the marriage. And I truly, and and how do you keep it a consistent topic? Yep. How do you consistently start to have this as a dialogue, right? Because this is not a one and done thing. You don't sit your partner down and go, okay, mental load, let's break it down. All right, great. Yours, mine, done. Yep. And and even I think in the early episodes when we were trying through the deck of cards to do some of that, we've discovered even how hard that is because you forget about who took what and you forget about what you said you'd do or commitments you made. And we're still working on that. What are the accountability systems for both of us? Yeah. So there's a lot left to unpack. But I think even just having weekly conversations about it is is a success in and of itself.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

100%.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

And then there are also the little moments that creep up still that are so dang frustrating. So even this morning, you asked me for a rundown of the day, like a calendar sort of Alexa, what do I have going today? And I was like, I cannot continue to be your Alexa. And you're like, no, no, no, that's not what I'm asking you to do. And so I think even still we have those conversations or we have those moments. And I'm hoping as we do this longer, that that'll become fewer and like farther in between.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

But I don't, but I don't know. I mean, there's no promise. There's no guarantee.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

No, but I think that here's the thing. I think this will be a persistent problem as long as our our lives continue the way that they are. Right. And what I mean by that is, you know, we have one kid going off to college. We got two other ones, one going into middle school, one going into second grade. Uh we're getting ready to get another dog after our our beloved dog passed away earlier this year. So that'll be adding a second dog to the house. And again, as we always talk about, you know, you and I and our jobs are are stressful. So I think as long as we're gonna have two stressful jobs and kids, and it's it's just it's always gonna be like this. Yeah. It's just the way it's gonna be. So how do we how do we best set ourselves up to not go insane while we're doing it?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah. I mean, I think it that's spot on. It's it's a whirlwind of a life. It's a good life, I think. Great life, yeah. I think that's the other piece of these weekly conversations is I found a lot of gratitude within them. Yeah. That that when you start to unpack the quote unquote problems, you start to realize, oh, they're they're really not problems or they're good problems to have in a lot of cases. And I think it's easy to get caught up in the I have to, this crappy thing is happening, it's so stressful, there's such a whirlwind. And and it's helped me to shift my mindset a little bit about I get to. You know, I get to do these things with our kids. I I get to take them to these activities because they're able-bodied enough to do them. And, you know, all of those things, right? I I get to do all of those. Even that we have them.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah, even that we have them. We have them after all the fertility issues we had. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Amen. But like the fact that we get to do reading support with our son because we can afford to do reading support with our son, right? And so I think it has helped reframe some of that over the year as well. So, and the partnership that we have. Yeah, because I think you can take your partner for granted really, really easily when there's a lot of chaos.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

A thousand percent. Well, and and here's the thing like you you do so much that I never see that this is a good way of also, you know, bringing all that to light. You know what I mean? You mentioned, you know, gratitude, and of course I'm incredibly grateful for having a great partner like you that does all that stuff. So, but I think everything with this first year doing this uh has been very positive.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, I agree. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

I want to thank everybody who's gone with us on this journey. You know, it's uh it's only season one, but you mentioned gratitude, and you know, it's it's really great that we have community that's been popping up around the show. So thank you all very much. We hope you have a summer and we'll lighten your mental load for not having to think about listening to us every day.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, you don't have to hear us until September. So enjoy the break.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

See ya.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

All right, see you then.