Has your spouse been looking frazzled and uptight lately? Has it been an extra busy season for them at work or have they been handling more duties to help their parents? 

One way to support your spouse is to share their mental load. Taking over some of their responsibilities will return calmness into your home and help to maintain some semblance of normalcy in the household. This is especially important if your children have been getting upset by changes in their routines or having less time with mummy or daddy.

Here are three quick practical tips you can use to ease your spouse’s mental load and show them that you’ve got their back through thick and thin.

Tip #1 Offer help, with extra loving care 

You can have good intentions to help your overwhelmed spouse, and accidentally annoy them with your choice of words.

Don’t say “Just tell me what to do.”

Why not? The responsibility remains on your spouse to solve the issue before instructing you what to do.

Do say something like, “Hey, I noticed you have a lot on your plate. What are some things I can take over from you?” Make it known that you want your spouse to rest from having to worry about these issues, now that they’re in your good hands.

Tip #2 Review which tasks you can automate   

What are some household chores and tasks you can eliminate or manage using technology or personalised services? This busy season is a great time to simplify household matters.

For example, if you haven’t already, you could set up reminders using Alexa or Siri so that neither of you have to manually keep track of your children’s medical appointments and cyclical household chores.

You could also explore subscription services for household necessities such as toilet paper, baby diapers, pet food, laundry detergent etc. Ordering tingkat meals for the next few weeks could also free up time otherwise spent menu planning, grocery shopping and meal prepping. This would increase both of your bandwidths to focus on more urgent tasks for now.

Tip #3 Take your children out for a fun outing

Offer your spouse some alone time to either rest or catch up on their to-do list by bringing your kids out. Thinking of how to keep children occupied often weighs heavily on parents’ minds. Check the Families for Life events page and our list of activities for lots of ideas! As your kids have fun, your spouse can feel comforted that the children are not being “neglected” during this busy season.