I counsel women going through a divorce. Here's what they tell me

I recently turned down an invitation to a destination wedding because the dates don’t work for me. Mostly I’m disappointed that I’ll miss the celebration, but I’ll admit I’m also a little relieved. For the past 15 years, my therapy practice has focused on treating women navigating divorce. Feeling uneasy at weddings has become an occupational hazard. Gone are the days of sitting on a white folding chair gazing at a new couple believing, like they do, that they will stay together forever. These days I can’t help but ponder whether or when their knots will untie.

It's not that I’m a curmudgeon or anti-marriage. I believe in love and long-term relationships. But I am a realist with a front-row seat to hundreds of marriages that have unraveled. While the divorce rate in this country is the lowest it’s been in decades, 42% of first marriages, 60% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages still end in divorce.

Overall, marriage in the U.S. works better for men than it does for women. Men enjoy numerous physical, mental health and financial benefits while women are often saddled with a disproportionate amount of domestic work. Despite continued pay gaps and workplace bias, women’s earning power is catching up to men’s. But while women have surged forward financially in the last few decades, men have not matched that momentum in the domestic sphere. The result is an imbalance that strains relationships and contributes to lower marriage rates and rising rates of divorce initiated by women. Among heterosexual couples, divorce is initiated by women nearly 70% of the time. And once women are divorced, they are less likely than men to marry again.

Overall, marriage in the U.S. works better for men than it does for women.

Each week I talk with women who are navigating divorce. Many of them are in their 40s or 50s and met their spouse in college or shortly afterward. Nearly all of them describe a decline in marital satisfaction when their children were born. Partnerships that were somewhat disproportionate before kids suddenly became grossly unequal. Many of these women worked full-time, yet became default caretakers — of their home, their children, and for many, their husbands, too.

Although my clients come from a variety of backgrounds, the way they divide unpaid labor seems to fall into one of three categories. The most common is the marriage in which one spouse (usually the husband) works full-time, earns a higher income and expects his wife to manage the house, the kids, the family’s social life — basically every unpaid aspect of their lives together, even if she is also working full-time.

The second kind of marriage is one where the woman does the bulk of the domestic and parenting labor, but her husband thinks he is contributing equally. Maybe he coaches the kids’ soccer teams, drops them off at school every day and takes care of the yard. He believes he is an equal partner, yet in reality he leaves two-thirds of the physical care and 90% of the invisible labor of parenting to his wife. The invisible stuff — remembering when to replace the toothbrushes, when camp registration opens, which day is Pajama Day at school and who needs new soccer cleats — are all examples of the mental and emotional labor of parenting often referred to as the “mother load.”

The third kind of marriage is one in which the woman does almost all the domestic work but assigns certain tasks to her partner. This model still leaves her planning and following up on unfinished business. A common refrain I hear is “I ask him to go to the grocery store, but he needs me to make him a list and then he forgets several things and I have to go back.” Or, “I ask him to schedule a dentist appointment for our kids and he assures me he will, but then he doesn’t do it. It’s just easier to do it myself.” Over time, this form of weaponized incompetence can erode goodwill in partnerships.

While parenting doesn’t cause divorce, it increases the workload at home exponentially and can amplify existing cracks in the marital foundation. There are persistent gender disparities in unpaid labor, particularly in households with children under 18. On average, mothers spend more than twice the time as fathers taking care of the house and children. This disparity persists even when both parents are working full-time.

Certainly not all inequitable marriages end in divorce, but the ongoing inequality and what it signifies leaves many women feeling exhausted, underappreciated and disrespected in their marriages. Many women who initiate divorce tell me their spouse was more like an unreliable assistant than a true partner. Eventually, after years of unproductive conversations, the imbalance tipped so far that the marriage fell over.

Some couples have benefitted from Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play system, a method for dividing household labor more equitably. Rodsky advocates divvying up all the household tasks fairly including the conception, planning and execution of each task. While an equal division of labor would have each member of a couple doing exactly half of everything, in equitable relationships, each partner contributes in a way that reflects their strengths and circumstances. Supporters like the reset Fair Play offers if both partners are willing to follow through. But critics cite patriarchy, rather than information, as the root of domestic inequality and worry that women are still the ones to initiate and maintain these systems.

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My best advice to all couples is to talk early and often about sharing their household and parenting workload. Long before wedding bells, and certainly well before children arrive, couples need to talk openly and honestly about how to structure their lives equitably. What did they learn about work from their parents’ marriages? What patterns should they keep and what habits do they need to unlearn? How do they value paid vs. unpaid work? Having these kinds of conversations in an ongoing way at each new stage of their relationship can help couples keep imbalances at bay.

There is a fourth category of marriage, but it’s one I rarely hear about in my work with women getting divorced. This last type is a truly equitable partnership in which both members actively participate in parenting and household labor. Caregiving isn’t defaulted to one party and power is shared. In this arrangement, couples are honest, communicative and collaborative and schedule ongoing conversations to check on the status of their relationship.

Their partnerships prioritize balance over symmetry and value both paid and unpaid contributions equally. It doesn't surprise me that these couples are not the ones in my office.

Although I won’t be attending that wedding in France, I will send my best wishes, a card and a gift from their registry. I’ll also include the Fair Play book in the hope that they'll read it.

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