Do You Resent Your Partner For The Mental Load? Try This Expert Advice, with Dr Morgan Cutlip

Motherkind

Zoe Blaskey

Kids & Family, Parenting

4.8 • 863 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2026

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why does resentment feel so universal in motherhood - even in the strongest relationships? In this conversation, Zoe sits down with relationship expert, Dr Morgan Cutlip, to unpack the quiet, creeping dynamic so many mothers experience: the feeling that your life has completely changed and your partner’s hasn’t. This episode is a powerful reframe. It will help you understand where resentment actually comes from (it’s not what you think), why it often begins in the earliest days of motherhood, and how invisible patterns like “mental load”, “precedents”, and the myth of maternal instinct are shaping your relationship without you even realising. If you’ve ever thought, “Why am I the only one carrying this?” - this conversation will give you language, clarity, and a way forward. 💡 In this episode, you’ll learn: Why resentment in motherhood is so common - and what’s really driving it How the “mental load” quietly builds and becomes overwhelming What “precedents” are - and how they set up imbalance before you even notice Why the idea of “maternal instinct” can actually create inequality How early motherhood dynamics shape your relationship long-term Practical ways to start shifting the imbalance (without blame or conflict) Watch every full episode on YouTube and subscribe. Loved this episode? Follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode of Motherkind. It helps more mothers find the show and keeps our community growing. If you enjoyed this moment, you can listen to the full episode here: Why you're resentful in your relationship—and how to fix it starting today, with Dr Morgan Cutlip Feeling like you’re carrying it all? Download your FREE Mental Load Cheat Sheet and learn how to start feeling lighter, even if nothing in your life changes. Connect with Zoe: Follow Zoe on Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok Get Zoe’s Sunday Times bestselling book, 'Motherkind: A New Way to Thrive in a World of Endless Expectations’ This Motherkind episode is sponsored by: Headline sponsor Wild Nutrition, the brand raising the bar for women’s supplements. Want to feel the Food-Grown difference yourself? Get 50% off for three months at wildnutrition.com/motherkind. Ts and Cs apply. For a £100 sponsored job credit, visit Indeed.com/ Motherkind Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My kids melt down with me way more than they do my husband. So he can get away with things
0:05.9	differently than I can. And so I think that it's really important that we give a little bit of that
0:11.0	space to our partners. We release some control. I have actually, when I talk about the mental
0:17.2	load, I talk about it. You have to address it in two domains. So there's
0:22.3	within work that's required to addressing the mental load and then there's the between work.
0:26.7	So like the actual conversations you're having with your partner. And part of the within work
0:30.9	is paying attention to how am I showing up when it comes to the mental load? What am I doing
0:35.8	to shut down more participation from my
0:39.5	partner? Because we do that and we don't mean to, but we do it. And so I have five behaviors
0:45.2	that backfire that we often engage in. And one is micromanaging that you mentioned. Another is
0:51.7	personalizing everything. So when your partner doesn't do something,
0:55.6	are you, is the meaning you're attaching to it? Well, gosh, they always think I'm their maid.
1:00.2	Must be nice. Having your mother in the home, my third kid, you know, we sort of attach all this
1:05.2	meaning to things which sours the tone in the relationship. We also keep score a lot of times, which thanks for helping, but it's just a drop in the bucket
1:15.2	compared to what I do.
1:17.1	We tend to get impatient.
1:20.5	So we'll ask our partners to do something, and then we're like, I'll just do it myself.
1:24.6	You're not doing it right.
1:26.1	Or we tend to criticize their efforts.
1:28.1	And so it's hard to take a look at ourselves in this domain because we feel a lot of times
1:33.9	like we are the ones, we're the victims in this situation.
1:37.0	We're the ones carrying everything.
	...

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