How We Create a Marriage That Feels Fair Even When Life Isn't

Hi, hello.

It’s been a while.

Please forgive me for disappearing during Maycember.

Between the end-of-school-year chaos, dance recitals, baseball playoffs, field days, spirit weeks, four birthdays in our immediate family, and all the other things that somehow get crammed into six weeks, I blinked and my newsletter became another thing on the to-do list that didn’t get done.

And if you’re wondering whether things have calmed down, our school doesn’t get out until the end of June, so I would describe myself as back-ish.

But I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately, and I wanted to come back and write about it.

Because I get some version of the same question all the time.

I spend a lot of time talking about the mental load, building equitable partnerships, and figuring out how to manage work, home, marriage, parenting, and all the invisible things that come with keeping a family running.

And whenever I share something that has worked in my own relationship, I’ll inevitably get a response that sounds something like:

“Okay, but that works for your family. My situation is different.”

And honestly?

Most of the time, they’re right.Because their situation is different.

Maybe their husband works long hours.

Maybe they’re a stay-at-home parent.

Maybe they work from home.

Maybe their partner travels.

Maybe one person’s job is flexible and the other’s isn’t.

Maybe they don’t have family nearby.

Maybe they can’t afford additional childcare.

Maybe they’re navigating health issues, caregiving responsibilities, or a season of life that feels impossible.

Those things matter. A lot.

In fact, one of the reasons I think conversations about equity can become so frustrating is because people hear someone else’s solution and immediately start listing all the reasons it won’t work for their family.

And to be clear, I’m a huge believer in taking what works for you and leaving what doesn’t.

I’m not interested in convincing anyone that they need to run their marriage the way I run mine.

But I do think there’s a bigger lesson underneath all of these conversations.

Because when people tell me why a particular solution won’t work for them, what they’re often really describing are the constraints of their life.

And every family has them.

The question isn’t whether your family has constraints. The question is what you do with them. Because equity isn’t about creating identical lives. It’s about building a partnership that feels fair within the reality of the life you actually have.

And I think that’s where a lot of us get stuck. We identify something that feels unfair, decide it’s unchangeable, and then conclude that equity itself is impossible.

But those are two different things.

And learning the difference has completely changed the way my husband and I approach our marriage.

One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that equity means everyone does the exact same amount of everything.

It doesn’t. Equity isn’t 50/50. It’s not keeping score. It’s not making sure every task is perfectly divided down the middle.

It’s asking:

Given the reality of our lives, how do we create a relationship where both people have time, rest, opportunity, and support?

I’ve wrestled with this in my own marriage. For years, I was frustrated by our mornings.

My husband leaves for work before anyone in our house wakes up, which means I’ve spent the better part of the last seven years doing mornings on my own. I’m the one getting four kids dressed, fed, packed, and out the door while trying to keep track of appointments, spirit days, forgotten water bottles, and whatever last-minute crisis decides to show up that day.

As a result, I spend more time solo parenting than he does during an average week.

That’s just the reality of our life. Could we change it?

Not really.

Not without him changing careers entirely, and that’s not a realistic option for us right now. His job provides healthcare, stability, and benefits that are important to our family.

For a long time, though, I kept getting stuck on the fact that it felt unfair.

And the more I focused on it, the more frustrated I became.

Because no amount of frustration was going to change what time his alarm went off every morning.

And once I accepted that, it forced me to ask a different question:

If mornings aren’t changing, why does this feel so unfair?

That’s when I realized I wasn’t actually angry about mornings.

I was angry because I never got a break.

At the time, my days felt like one long relay race.

I’d spend the morning getting everyone where they needed to be, jump immediately into work, and then use whatever small pockets of time I had during the day to keep the household running. If I had thirty minutes between meetings, I was throwing in laundry. If I took a lunch break, I was making appointments, ordering groceries, or tackling some other task that felt too urgent to wait.

Then the kids would come home. The evening shift would begin.

Dinner, activities, homework, baths, bedtime.

Rinse and repeat.

I felt so depleted all the time.From the moment I woke up until the moment I went to bed, I was always on.

Working.

Parenting.

Managing.

Planning.

There was never a point in my day where I was simply a person.

Meanwhile, my husband had built-in moments of transition that I didn’t.

He had a commute.

He drank his coffee in peace.

He listened to podcasts.

He sat in his truck by himself.

He had lunch breaks.

And if I’m being completely honest, I resented it.

Not because he was doing anything wrong.

But because I didn’t have an equivalent version of that in my own life.

So in order to change that I stopped asking:

“How do we make mornings equal?”

And started asking:

“How do we make my life feel more sustainable?”

Those are very different questions.

Because once I accepted that mornings weren’t changing, we could focus on what could change.

And what could change was evenings.

What could change was weekends.

What could change was how much uninterrupted time I had to myself.

So that’s what we changed. I started going to workout classes several nights a week. I started leaving after dinner to meet friends. I started taking time for myself that wasn’t tied to errands, productivity, or caregiving.

We built more childcare into our lives. We protected time on weekends. We created space.

My morning routine didn’t change.

I still do mornings by myself. I still get four kids out the door. I still spend more hours solo parenting than my husband does during an average week.

But now I have protected space in my life.

The difference is that I finally gave myself permission to create it.

And if I’m being honest, that wasn’t easy.

Because like a lot of women, I got stuck.

I felt guilty anytime I chose myself over parenting. I felt guilty leaving for a workout class. I felt guilty getting dinner with a friend. I felt guilty anytime I wasn’t spending every available moment with my family.

I had convinced myself that being a good mom meant being there for all of it.

Dinner.

Bath time.

Bedtime.

The whole routine.

If I left my husband to handle those things on his own, it felt selfish. It felt like I was missing important moments with my kids. It felt like I was leaving him alone to deal with one of the hardest parts of the day.

But what I eventually realized was that my husband wasn’t the one standing in the way of the solution.

I was.

Women do this all the time.

Maybe work ends at four, but daycare doesn’t close until 5:30. You could take an hour for yourself, but instead you race to pickup because you feel guilty not doing it.

You want to meet a friend for dinner, but then you think about missing bedtime and decide not to go.

You have childcare available, but you feel like you need to justify using it for anything other than work.

The guilt shows up everywhere.

There’s this underlying belief that if we’re not actively working, actively parenting, or actively doing something for our family, we’re somehow falling short.

What finally helped me was realizing that my husband didn’t carry that same guilt.

He left before breakfast every morning because he was going to work. He wasn’t spending his commute worrying that the kids would be traumatized because he missed waffles and getting shoes on.

And my kids weren’t suffering because of it.

They adore their dad. They have a wonderful relationship with him.

Because what matters isn’t whether you’re present for every single moment. What matters is the quality of the time you spend together.

I had somehow convinced myself that I needed to be there for every dinner, every bath, every bedtime in order to be a good mother.

But I didn’t.

And once I let go of that idea, it became much easier to create the space I desperately needed.

Not because bedtime wasn’t hard.

Not because parenting wasn’t demanding.

But because I finally stopped believing that I had to carry all of it myself.

I grew up around a lot of people who attended AA meetings, and over the years I’ve sat in on quite a few myself. So even though I’m not particularly religious, there’s one prayer that has stuck with me for most of my life: the Serenity Prayer.

I think about it all the time.

Not just in life, but in marriage and parenting too.

Because there are always things that feel unfair. There are always things we’d change if we could. A work schedule. A difficult season. Financial realities. Childcare logistics. The fact that one parent has more flexibility than the other. The fact that one person travels.

And I think what happens sometimes is we become so focused on the thing that feels unfair that we lose sight of everything else.

We spend all our energy wishing that one thing were different.

But when I think about building equity with my husband, I’ve realized the more useful question isn’t, “How do we make this one thing fair?”

It’s, “Given the reality of our lives, what is actually within our control?”

What can we change?

What can we redistribute?

Where can we create more space?

How do we build a life that feels sustainable for both of us, even if some parts of it will never be perfectly equal?

Because the truth is, there are always going to be things we can’t change.

But there are usually a lot more things we can than we initially realize.

So, if you’re feeling stuck in something that feels unfair, here’s the question I’d encourage you to ask:

What part of this is truly unchangeable, and what part have we simply accepted as fixed?

Because those are often two very different things.

I know this article is a long-winded way of saying: focus on what you can change.

When I talk about equity, the mental load, or building a fair partnership, I often hear people explain why a particular tip won’t work for their family. And honestly, they’re usually right. Every family is different. Every relationship has its own constraints, challenges, and realities.

That’s why I’m such a big believer in taking what works and leaving what doesn’t.

You don’t need to run your marriage the way I run mine. You don’t need to follow someone else’s system exactly. But I do think it’s worth asking yourself: What is actually within our control here?

Because there will always be things that feel unfair. There will always be realities that can’t be changed overnight, and sometimes can’t be changed at all.

But I’ve found that when I stop pouring all of my energy into the things I can’t change and start focusing on the things I can, everything feels a little lighter.

And honestly, that’s what equity has looked like in my marriage.

Not making everything equal.

Just continually asking, “Given the reality of our lives, how can we make this work better for both of us?”

And then being willing to build from there.