Mental stress in relationships: Who is responsible for keeping love alive?

Who took care to keep love alive?

“This is how you can breathe new life into your relationship.” – “This is what you should pay attention to during anal sex.” – “How do you distribute the mental load fairly?” – “Can a relationship with a narcissist work?”

As a lifestyle journalist, I’ve spent most of my career writing for media outlets whose primary audience was women. I’ve used all of these headlines before, and every single one of those articles was aimed at women: the girlfriends, the wives, the situationships, the exes, the cheated on.

Relationship and sex tips are most often written for women. Keeping a relationship going, navigating potential problems, getting the sex life back on track: all of these tasks fall on women’s shoulders. And women need to inform themselves about them. Magazines are full of these topics, bookstores are overflowing with expert titles. Relationship work is an additional mental stress that women have to deal with and that we don’t talk about enough. Because it is a huge problem and an enormous burden.

Mental Load: It’s her fault

But why is that? Many people still think that if a man is unhappy, he has the right to cheat, leave, abandon his wife, or simply be an asshole. After all, his partner didn’t care. When we talk about women as caretakers, we often forget that they not only have the job of looking after the people in their lives, but also the relationships that go with them. That’s how we were raised, that’s how we were socialized. The relationship and sex tips for women exist because they read them. They think about them more, google them, and exchange sex or relationship tips with friends.

As women, we have learned from this patriarchal system that it is our fault if the relationship does not work. Being a good woman is still almost impossible in our society. Because we have not convinced ourselves enough, we have let ourselves go, we cling too much, we do not give ourselves enough freedom, we are not pretty enough, we are too ambitious, we are not ambitious enough, we do not respond to his needs enough, we do not always feel like having sex or we have not cooked his favorite meal for a really long time. We love our children too much or too little. Either way, it is our fault if our partner is unhappy with the situation. And it is also our responsibility to change that. And that is not fair.

Slow progress

But how can it still be like this in 2024? The language in which the tips are formulated is slowly changing. It’s more about empowering women, more about trying out sex positions that give them pleasure, more about setting boundaries. But nevertheless, it is the women who have to work through these issues and are presented with them, who bring them into the relationship, who are prompted to try something. They read about date night ideas in the fall and probably have to suggest and organize them. Women read up on mental load, realize that they are affected, and learn how to address it in the relationship. They buy the new couples sex toy they found a review of and bring it into the bedroom. All of this is the definition of mental load, but in a context where we have normalized it.

But why do we talk about it so little? Personally, I don’t think it’s because women care more about relationships than men. I don’t think women love their men more than the other way around. I think the problem lies in the system we live in. Men have never learned to be the caretakers. Many of them can’t coordinate a weekly grocery shop, can’t be alone with their children for a week. Many don’t know how to look after a relationship. We live in a system where it’s normalized that many men don’t have the skills to buy a thoughtful, sensitive gift. They’ve never learned how to do it and are, in a way, helpless. It’s now the job of all of us to make sure that a next generation of men doesn’t drive to a gas station the day before Mother’s Day or on Christmas Eve to buy flowers and chocolate.

Educational Mission Social Media

But how is that supposed to work? There are more and more men on social media who are taking on this educational task. They show how to put together a beautiful bouquet of flowers for your girlfriend at a reasonable price, what you could get as a period care package if she’s not feeling well. There are men who show how they plan their date nights and what lists they keep to coordinate gifts. Others explain in short videos what gifts are appropriate when they’re invited somewhere. And then there are those (may they never step in a puddle and may the sun always shine for them) who explain the female body and what men should do with it to satisfy women.

All of these men are the heroes of the internet. At least in the eyes of women. Because the problem is that the majority of followers are female. And thanks to the algorithm, this content often doesn’t make it to the men who are interested in it.

But since I have faith in humanity and stick to my opinion that our problem is not that men love less, here is a small appeal: Send the videos on. Tag your loved one in the review of the couple’s toy, copy the link to the date ideas. Rave about the friend whose boyfriend organized a surprise day for her. And let him buy the Christmas presents for his mother himself. Ask him to read this article and ask: Do you have the feeling that it’s different for us? And see what happens.