92. Being the Breadwinner Series Pt. 4: How to find balance when you have a family
Meet the Host
Five years ago, after achieving my degrees and teaching as a professor, I was feeling proud that I had checked everything off my life list. But, I wasn’t satisfied in my marriage.
Today, I’m a relationship coach on a mission to resurrect the side of you that got lost in your relationship and responsibilities teaching you how to stop arguing and have more sex. Millions of people around the world soak up my content for advice on how to have a more satisfying relationship.
Welcome back to our series “Being the Breadwinner!”
In our final installment of this series, we’re addressing a relationship problem of invisible and visible forms of labor that may not feel equally distributed. I’ll be talking about how to find balance when you have a family.
This has been a very touchy subject amongst many circles but it’s something we have to talk about. If you and your partner’s values don’t align, especially when it comes to the division of labor in the home, it will become a problem in your relationship.
Once your values align and you learn how to love each other the way you each want to be loved, you’ll stop fighting and find more time for intimacy. If you find it difficult to have these conversations within your relationship, book a sales call to work with me in my private 1:1 coaching program. I will support you in this and many other difficult conversations you need to have with your spouse.
Check out this week's episode to hear more about how we divide up the labor in my house and how I can help you and your partner be on the same page again about your responsibilities so you can stop worrying about the dishes and focus on each other.
Click the link to listen below and email me back with your thoughts, I want to hear from you!
If this episode resonated with you and you're ready to work with me during this season of your life, then I invite you to book a call for us to connect and chat.
During this call, you will share what is going on in your life, what you have tried so far, and I will share how I can help. I can't wait to meet you, chica.
P.S. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp®. Get professional support when you need it, at a fraction of the cost of in-person therapy. Sign up today and receive 10% off your first month! Click the link to get started!
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Episode Transcript:
Karina: Amigos. Como estamos? Welcome back to Relationships You Understand with me, your host, Karina F. Daves, relationship expert and podcast host of this dope podcast. And today we're going to. continue and actually end our series called being the breadwinner. And today we are talking about how to balance family responsibilities and all of those things.
And we're talking about the division of visible and invisible labor. And I know that this has been a very touchy subject. It's in amongst many circles because I've actually been in the middle of those circles when a lot of my close, uh, friends and family members have felt the need to really express their frustration with a lot of these things.
And so today we're talking about how to balance the responsibilities of life and managing your household and your children. And so we're going to get right into it because as always, I had to take my kids to school. Okay. So here we go. The division of visible and invisible labor is one of the most controversial issues to discuss and is going to be usually one of the biggest arguments that you have that leads to you looking at your spouse in the way that most people describe in one word, lazy, right?
They're just lazy. They don't think about things my way or the way that I would. And the reason why. It's extremely controversial is because it brings up so many feelings so many feelings of we're not a team so many feelings of abandonment so many feelings of resentment. I mean, how many people do you know are still very resentful to the baby years with their kids.
With because of their partner not really being there with them and being a team and their kids are like 10 years old 15 years old 30 years old that Division of labor will be something that y'all will argue about and if you don't solve it It will become an untapped discussion where y'all will never try to figure out The root of the issue in your relationship or how to solve it and the reason why you continuously remain so pissed off and so exhausted and and wishing that your partner cared the way that You cared or packed the lunch the way that they packed the lunch is because y'all don't ever talk about the root issue You or or which will lead you to creating a plan you all You all only argue about the issue, but you don't talk about how to solve it or what the cause of it could be.
So you never strategize. So what I'm going to share with you is my testimony of how Terrence and I work through our division of labor. And the one thing I always preach on my podcast and all of my content is values. If you and your partner do not have the right values, the right beliefs, if you don't align in certain areas, It will become a problem in your relationship.
Do you understand me? So I'm going to take you back to 2012. 2012 was the first time I ever remember having CBVs. This is not an STD. This is a CBV, which is what I call clear binding values. It is a, um, uh, um, an acronym. Acronym that I use in my one on one private coaching with my clients. And by clear binding value CBVs, I mean that your values are super clear.
Okay. And that too, there are binding with another person. Like we made a commitment that this is what we value. And based on this value is how, is how we go ride together. Okay. So for example, CBVs are usually made with careers, right? Where let's say you just. Um, apply for or get a position in a VP position and the company has a value that you work around the clock.
You are signing that and making it a clear binding value with this company that you will work around the clock and you have no problem doing that because you understand that perhaps your values maybe during that season align with that. Okay. Another example of CBVs is you also have clear binding values in your friendships.
A very funny but easy example is you can have a CBV with a friend that y'all don't go clubbing anymore, or you don't drink anymore, right? The way that you socialize is very different. It is a value. You have value not to drink alcohol anymore. And you have a very fundamental value of not going to the nightclub.
And this is not judging anybody who's been to the nightclub because I have loved going. Okay, anyways. So when Terrence and I got married back in 2012, we made CBV's clear binding values about our home management and workload, like very clear. My husband grew up watching his father cook and he had, and, and I guess help out as, you know, watching his father cook, let's just stay there.
And he also had three sisters. And so he watched men and women be put to work in the household as a team. And so when little Omi came around, you know, very much like, Hey, we need, you know, I really believe in equal opportunity. When I came around and I started talking about, I want to make sure that if we get married, we have an equal opportunity household.
My husband was like, what was that? Like, give it to me in layman's terms. And I was like, basically, it means that you are not going to think that I'm going to do something simply because I'm a woman. And vice versa. I'm not going to think that you're simply going to take care of something just because you're a man.
And he was like, Oh yeah. Like I never would not cook for my family or for you or for myself. Like I've lived by myself. I can take care of myself. I can take care of my daughters, excuse me. Like I can do all of it and go to work and build and all of that. but what he said to me was, but there is going to be a learning curve.
And I said, well, what do you mean? And he said, because you're going to have to be patient with me because I do things a certain way, and you do things a certain way. I make pasta a certain way, and you make pasta a certain way. I make pasta, drain it, and put cold water over it. You make pasta, don't even put it in a strainer, you just pour it out with water, and then a little bit of water stays in there, and then you add the milk and the butter to make a mac and cheese.
Like, you don't even Cool it down. And I'm like, yeah. And so he's like, but we still end up eating mac and cheese. And I said, yeah, we do. And he says, but we make it very differently. And so you are going to have to be patient with me. And my husband knows and knew at the time how impatient I was. So I knew where a little bit of this was coming from and he goes, you know, you're a great teacher, but you're also impatient in his own words, right?
Like I'm simply just giving it to you in my terms. And he said, so I need you to understand that we're both going to have to give each other direction because I know that in your mind you have a very, um, you have a vision for what this looks like in the future. And I said, okay, even though I agreed to be patient, there were many times where I wasn't.
I just want to point that out. At this point, we had CBVs, then we started over the next couple of years to develop SOPs. Now, plenty of people know what these are, but they're standard operating procedures. We started to develop SOPs for our household so that nobody needed to play Miss Cleo. Many of you are asking your partners to be Miss Cleo called me now.
Like, if you don't know who Miss Cleo is, she was a fortune teller on TV that you would call to tell your fortune. Basically. Now, many of us are expecting our partners to read our minds and just know things. That is not how division of labor. That is not how you become a team. Like, can you imagine being on a soccer field and everybody just being silent?
That's Don't you consistently talk to each other? How many times in soccer and for any sport, for that matter, how many times are you being pulled out of the game to talk to your coach? How many times during break, are you looking at your teammates saying, do this and do that? Your marriage, literally. The management of your marriage.
You want to talk about communication, start looking at sports. The reason why people win medals, the reason why people win championships is because of the way they talk to each other. Ain't nobody taking anything, you know, offensively. They're leaving their offensive spirit off the field. You got to leave your offensive spirit off the field and start talking to each other.
And I get it. No, but you don't understand the way they talk to me is this way. Nah, listen, I get it. We can work on that too. I, my private one on one coaching program. But what I'm telling you is that y'all got to be able to listen to each other and be okay with. Not reading each other's mind. Can you just imagine watching a silent soccer game and I'm pointing out soccer because I like soccer, like people shout the entire time the coach is saying, move here, do this back up.
Don't do that. Like that is how you play the game to win. You understand me? And so we had to start developing SOPs for our marriage. Not so much SOPs for talking to each other, but SOPs for the lunches, for the pickups, for, you know, the washing of the dishes, for the laundry, because we started to spend our weekends, just putting everything like everything's just started piling up.
And at first we would just hire out, which we still sort of do, but at first we would outsource it. And then where it came times where we didn't have it like that and we needed to save, we were like, yo, what can we do? And we're like, damn, we need SOPs. We need people that like, I'm sorry, we need, um, procedures that basically tell us what to do when the other person is, isn't around, right?
Right now, if I leave for a work trip, my husband is capable of managing and running the household because of the SOPs that we have. And vice versa, if my, if, if my husband leaves on a boy's trip or whatever it is that he wants to do on a race car trip, I know how to handle the household. And it's not because I'm a woman or the wife or the mother.
It is simply because we have S O P standing operating procedures in this household that keep the boat flowing and not sinking. Sinking when the other person is gone. Do you understand me? This is exactly what is missing in your marriage today. And it is exactly what I want to help you with. You understand you want to have more sex, have SOPs.
You want to start communicating better. You need SOPs. You want to start kissing and making out longer. You need SOPs. You want to be able to communicate better. You need SOPs. You understand me. Okay. Let me just stop right there. Cause then the Holy spirit takes over. And so we started developing SOPs in to our life, basically.
And in the beginning of our marriage, about three years in Terrence, I shared with me that he wanted to become a race car driver and that required him to work late nights and weekends. So what ended up happening was that I became the basically de facto, I became the go-to for dinners, for meal prepping, pick up, drop off, um, managing, you know, our bank accounts, the weekends with our kids, cause they still wanted to have fun.
Like I became the main person that was doing the majority of the house management. Now, if, if any, if the kids got sick, I was the person that was, you know, taking off from work, all of those things. I am not going to sugar coat it and tell you that it wasn't heavy for me because it was, but the main thing, having CBVs clear, Binding values, having SOPs, standing operating procedures, and then having FTFs, which I'm going to explain in a second, which is flexible, being flexible, teaching and forgiving changed the game for us.
Okay. During this period, it was very heavy, but I did all of that for almost five years, five years. And so people, when people ask me today, like, how does your husband, Handle you being the breadwinner. I'm like, my husband has no problem handling the logistics part of it. It's the emotional part of it that he outsources to his therapist.
It's the emotional part of it and the mental part of it that he outsources or he has to commit with God to figure out. That's not something for me to fix. But the internal things that we need to figure out in our house management, oh, we got SOPs, we got cvs, we got F STFs. We're forgiving, teachable, and flexible.
That's how we make this work, right? And so, plenty of times, you ask yourself, like, how is it that, like, people are able to go on guys trips, or girls trips, or go to brunches, and all these things. This is exactly, these three things are exactly the things that your marriage is needing today. Do you understand me?
So when you are arguing about all of these things about dinners, about the pickups, about the drop offs, I want you to ask each other the following questions. What are our family binding values that can help us navigate this season? What are our CBVs? What are our clear binding values for our family?
Number two, what strategies and processes do we need to be put into place in order for our household to run better? Right? Like what is it that we're missing? Maybe we're waking up too late. Maybe we're not going to sleep on time. Maybe we should get rid of dairy. Maybe we should, you know, not let the kids watch TV before they go to bed.
Maybe we should stop eating, you know, stop having coffee. I don't know. Whatever it is. Like what are some strategies that need to be put in place and processes? Three, how can we commit to being flexible, open to criticism and practice forgiving each other? The reason why you have one foot out the door and one foot still in and not being able to decide if this is the relationship for you is because you haven't taken the time to forgive each other.
First, you cannot make a decision about your marriage without forgiving each other. First, when you forgive each other, First is when you will be clear minded and have the mental capacity to actually see what's happening and make a decision based on a healthy heart posture. Your heart posture is not healthy right now enough to make these decisions and it will become healthy when you have clear binding values, CBVs, when you have standing operating procedures, SOPs, and when you have FTFs, being flexible, teachable, and forgiving.
Do you understand me? Okay. I hope that was good. So listen, once you have all of those answers, you're going to actually need to put them into practice. And that is exactly where my one on one coaching program comes into play, because it is not enough just for you and your partner to have these conversations and talk about what it is that they want and what it is that you want.
Like y'all can just make a whole bunch of lists. Y'all can make, you know, notes. Y'all can text each other and hash it out. But if you want help, if you actually want to implement these things, if you actually want to change your marriage today, this is exactly what we are going to do in my private one on one coaching program.
We are going to take everything that you want to do. And instead of leaving it in a notes app, or instead of leaving it in your little, you know, journals about what to do and text messages. And this is the plan. We are actually going to put it into action. You are going to need help to Actually execute all of these things that you want.
You want your husband to know exactly what it is that you want him to do. We need to work together. You want your husband to tell you, I love you and I forgive you more often. And I'm here for you. We need to work together. You want your husband to be able to think about you in ways that you don't even think about yourself.
We need to work together. Let me tell you something. I forget that I need to eat. I forget. And when I got married to my husband, I remember always remembering if he was hungry. And I remember thinking, I think this is like a cultural thing. Like Latinos were always worried about each other's hunger. And I remember having this very distinct argument about like, I just wish like you worried about me eating.
Like that's so important to me. My husband was like, that's so weird. And I'm like, I know, but it's, it's like how I love. And we've been married for 12 years. Ooh, I'm getting a little emotional. We've been married for 12 years. And every time I hear a little knock at my door in my office, I know that he's standing on the other side with a plate of food.
It's like, I'm not lying. You can literally DM me, and I will DM you back pictures of the meals he sent me. Like, he's made me, because they're actually galore. Like, they'll be having, like, seasoning, and they're so beautiful. And They're well thought and I didn't even ask for it. I didn't ask to be fed, but he knew I hadn't eaten in hours or I hadn't eaten whatever, and that I needed to eat.
And that's what you're missing. That's exactly the type of love that I know that you want. You want to heal your marriage. Let's work together. That is exactly what God put me on this earth to do is to help you heal your marriage. I can give you all the tools that you need. In this podcast episode, and you can binge on my podcast all you want, but you don't know how to implement all of this stuff.
You don't know how to actually execute it. You don't know how to actually communicate this stuff day by day with your partner. You're going to have me in your pocket ready to go for the jugular because you can't stand him. And you're going to Voxer me or WhatsApp me and say, Karina. He has gotten on my last nerve.
He said this, and I'm going to say, now, what is it that you want? And you say, I just wanted to remember this. And I'm gonna say, I need you to say this. You're going to go back in there, say that. And the next time it's not going to be a problem. You understand me? I have multiple clients. that have succeeded with this with their partners.
Okay. I cannot wait to do this work with you. Okay. Listen, go to link of my bio book of sales call now, Karina F saves. com. I also live primarily on Instagram Do not get involved with the Tik TOK comments. And I can't wait to do this work with you. Okay. Before I hop off, let me pray. Okay. Father God, I thank you so much for this day.
Thank you so much for the light, the wisdom and the expertise that you have given me this morning. I feel so clear. I feel so good. I feel so amazing about my movement and I can't wait to feel even better about it. Mm. I declare and decree that not just over my life, but for anybody right now that is listening to my voice and that is feeling confused, conflicted, and full of scorned resentment, I ask that you release them of those feelings and allow them to see that the glory of God and safety is waiting on the other side of them.
Oh, I've never prayed that way before. Lord, I ask that anybody listening to this prayer, receive it. Receive it. And that it may bless them tenfold. Okay. Amen. I love you guys. Amen. Okay. My name is Karina F. Daves. I'm a relationship expert. The podcast hosts of this dope podcast relationships understand you understand.
And I'm so happy that we were able to finish off the breadwinner series in such a powerful way. If you thought that this podcast was powerful, make sure that you leave me a review. Most importantly, that you subscribe to it. Share it with all of your amigos. And this podcast episode specifically is sponsored by better help.
And we'll go live on all podcasts, listening platforms on Tuesday of next week, but you can listen to it here live, right? Okay. I love you. Send me a DM if you want to work with me or just go and book a sales call. All right. I can't wait to meet you. This should be the easiest decision of your life. Okay. I love you.
Bye.
