Have you ever felt, much like Jennifer Aniston’s character in The Breakup, that you didn’t just want your partner to do the dishes; you wanted them to want to do the dishes? If so, you were likely dealing with an imbalance of something called emotional labor.
One effective way to illustrate emotional labor is with the Conceptualization, Planning, and Execution (CPE) model, which Eve Rodsky coined in her book, Fair Play.
Unfortunately, awareness of emotional labor does not immediately remove the negativity it can cause, but it does give us a language to identify, discuss, and later attack these challenges.
One crucial thing to note is that this strategy only works when all parties use it in good faith. It should not become a loophole for excuses like, “It’s easier when you do it because you’re just better at all that stuff.”