I hear the same story in therapy sessions often. One partner feels like they must manage everything—parenting, housework, the family’s schedule—while the other feels like they’re being micromanaged and have no say. In straight relationships, the woman is often in the “manager” role, the man in the “worker” role.

A couple things to keep in mind before I give my advice on what to do if you’re in this situation:

First, women are taught in our society that their worth is based on how they care for people and perform as a mother. It’s an insane amount of pressure and enormously unfair.

It “downplays all the hard work that goes into raising kids—hard work mostly done by women,” as the writer and academic Dr. Laura Basu told me in an interview last year. “Not only that, it can make men feel disempowered and that it’s not worth putting their full backs into learning how to be parents because their biology has already ordained that they will never be as good as a woman.”

Second, as Basu said, men often feel disempowered in the home by so-called “traditional” gender norms. We’re told that “providing and protecting” is our one and only job. Which is a ton of pressure too but tends to make us look down on or at least underestimate the effort that goes into stuff like doing laundry, changing diapers, planning birthday parties, and caring for sick kids and grandparents.

This puts more on women’s plates, often including the responsibility to manage the family. With half of married couples both working full-time these days, many women are understandably feeling burned out and crushed under the weight of modern, nuclear family life.

Men need to make sure we’re doing our fair share at home, which starts with a conversation about the current division of labor. Your partner might be better at planning and managing than you are (usually one partner is). But take responsibility for asking how she feels about the way your family currently gets it all done. That could go a long way toward softening her criticism.

Now, about getting to a resolution.

There really are no silver bullets in relationships, but I’m going to offer you one anyway. It comes from a communication method called “nonviolent communication.”

It’s this: “When you said (or did) X, I felt Y.” That’s it. No blame. No “you always do X.” No “you made me feel Y.” Stick with the facts.

The next time you feel minimized, let her know. “When you told me how I should get our son ready for school, I felt minimized.” Better yet, share a feeling. “I felt angry at you.” “I felt ashamed.” You can even do it hours or days later. “The other morning when you…” “Awhile back when you…”

It might not seem like a big deal to speak this simply, but it is. How will she ever change how she treats you if you never let her know how the way she treats you impacts you?

She might not listen or truly get it. She’s probably not used to you sharing your feelings. But odds are (in my experience) people, especially those who love us, eventually get it. It still surprises me every time it happens—because I grew up in a family that didn’t share our feelings—but people tend to respond to authentic vulnerability. They might not agree with my perspective or apologize in the moment, but their behavior often subtly shifts over time. They start taking my feelings and experience into account.

Sharing how I feel in little moments also prevents resentment from building up inside of me. Resentment can kill relationships. It can also drive numbing habits and behaviors like drinking more alcohol than you’d like or vegging out on YouTube or playing videos more than you’d like.

Try that and see what happens. It’s (sort of) a silver bullet because you can keep turning to it. “When you laughed off my feelings earlier after I shared them with you, I felt angry at you.” “I felt hurt.” “I felt sad.”

The goal should be to get a place with your partner where you both can speak to each other with respect for each other’s feelings and experience. From that place, you can develop a mutually agreed upon way of sharing the responsibilities that come with having a family in this demanding, isolating, burnout-causing world we live in.

Subscribe to get posts like these straight to your email inbox.