You've been in relationships where you gave and didn't receive anything in return.
You've been in relationships with men who are domineering and don't listen to you.
You've been in relationships with men who are passive and weak.
This leads to the obvious question: Can you really have a 50-50 relationship? In this Love U podcast,
I will share a very personal example of how the answer is both yes and no. Stick around.
I am Evan Marc Katz, the dating coach for smart, strong, successful women and your
personal trainer for love. Welcome to the Love U Podcast. Keep listening to whether you could
really have an equal relationship. When we're done, I'll let you know how you can apply to
Love U to create a passionate relationship that makes you feel safe, heard, and understood.
The struggle is real. I have been a dating coach for women for nearly two decades. My
clients tend to be among the top 90% of the most impressive people on Earth,
and understandably, they did not stay single this long to just settle on any random
guy. Settling is not a recipe for relationship success. And by the way, if you've ever heard
a video or podcast from me where you think my central message is to settle, listen again; it's
nothing I've ever said. I wouldn't be a successful dating coach if that was my
message, but I understand why people struggle with the concept of an equal relationship.
And so, for our purposes today, I want to get linguistic with you. I want to try to
pass different terms that may sound similar. Let's just plant this flag and say that the word "equal"
is different from "the same". I would certainly like to think my wife and I are "equals", and no
objective observer in the universe would think that my wife and I are "the same". And so the hard
part with this is that there's certain mythology around everything being split equally. And I'm
not against the idea that everything should be divided equally; it sounds perfectly nice in
theory; she makes 50% of the money, he does 50% of the house cleaning, they alternate
who initiates the dinner plans and drives the kids to school. And it's not to say there's no
such thing as a relationship like that. But the truth is, and as a reality-based dating coach,
my loyalty is to the truth about how the world is not necessarily how we want the world to work.
Most relationships are not about a 50-50 split of everything. They are about a division of duties.
So you could divide your duties right
in the same way that people at a company. Here's the guy who does the accounting, and here's the
guy who does the creative marketing. And here's the guy who's the visionary CEO and
not only does the exact same job, but they're all important parts of the company. So there's this
idea that we should just split everything down the middle and split the baby down the middle, and
it doesn't always work that well in practice. And that's the reason there's a division of
duties. There's a reason people do different things. I wouldn't be much of a husband if my
set of expectations was that my wife had to get a job paying as much as my job because,
"you know 50-50, the wife should put as much weight as the husband does. I wouldn't be much
of a husband if I insisted that my wife take out the trash as much as I did, right? That's my job."
Why would I insist on splitting that 50-50? I wouldn't be much of a husband if I asked her to
be online all the time and find cool social events for us because the nature of her daily
life is not to sit in front of a computer for 10 hours a day. That's where I am, so I shine there.
So in a healthy relationship, instead of aspiring to a 50-50 split of everything, you want to find
an organic division of duties that feels good for both people. One that doesn't require constant
negotiation. In that realm, it doesn't matter who does what. As long as you feel like you're both
getting a fair deal, the problem (and this is a human problem, it's not a man vs. woman problem)
is that most of us tend to overestimate what we do and underestimate what our partners do when we're
keeping score. We're always thinking, "Oh, here's the time that I sacrificed myself" We don't always
know about the times that our partner sacrificed, and that's how you end up with this phenomenon,
and it's relatively widespread. You're probably familiar with it with men who work full-time jobs,
and they don't get what their stay at home wives do all day to take care of their families.
And as a man who works from home, I can say not happily, but I can say definitively that she works
longer hours than I do because I get out of work at six o'clock. My work is a 9-6
job, and I built it that way. My wife is up doing laundry at midnight,
checking up on a day of emails to see if she got anything from the teacher or the soccer coach.
As the sole breadwinner, I can compartmentalize my life a little bit more than she does. Now,
whether you feel fair and equitable is immaterial to this discussion. My wife and I are content with
our arrangement — she never has to worry about money, and I can trust that she runs the house,
gets the kids to school, and gets them to soccer practice and drama club while I'm working all day.
And for us, this is a win-win. We have different jobs, but we both feel like we're winning.
If you're a career woman and what I'm telling you right now doesn't remotely describe your life
at all. That's perfectly fair. I'm sharing my life experience, and I'm not expecting it to be yours.
Just remember there's no one right way to divide things. The only feeling that both
parties have is that their relationship feels good, fair, and nobody feels taken advantage of.
At the same time, we could also recognize that reasonable people also might value different
things to different people, look at the same situation and draw different conclusions.
You may love going out multiple times a week, but if he does not, you can't expect him to be
the one to lead the social plans. He may value being neat and orderly around the house; if you
do not -- he may feel resentful and put upon. We expect our partners to feel as strongly as we do.
That's where a lot of this collapses. So all of us tend to put time into things that we think
matter. But we can all agree on WHAT matters. My wife's identity is that of the consummate
hostess, and she very much cares about how things look and feel when she's
throwing a party or a get together. My belief is otherwise. I think that if people are coming to
see us on a Saturday afternoon, they're okay with burgers, beer and a dip in the pool.
On the other hand, she will spend Friday night cutting up peaches for white Sangria and putting
labels on plates that she keeps in a spare room in our garage so she can serve five different kinds
of cheeses on different plates. This is not an exaggeration, and because she and I look at this
same situation differently, she takes infinitely longer to prepare for parties than I would. Now I
ask sincerely, should this be a 50-50 arrangement? If my barbecue takes 90 minutes to prepare for and
hers takes six or seven hours, should we split that precisely down the middle? (And I don't
even agree with how we should throw the party.) This is where couples really need to understand
and respect each other. So in making this video, I actually brought my wife in to ask her about this.
And she pointed out that because she values the details more than I do, she has no trouble doing
more work. She doesn't blame me because I don't want to do what she's doing. This is something
that makes her feel happy with this level of preparation. So she knows she's got a good husband
who will not read her mind and disagrees, but if she tells me, "Hey, Evan, go to the grocery store,
pick up the ice before the party, pick up the chocolate cake. Clean the spiderwebs off the
tables before you know the guests get over so I could put on tablecloths." I'll do whatever I'm
told. I just don't always see all those details as necessary, but I'm a willing participant.
And she also recognizes that there are things where I'm not a passive participant,
where I'm always going to take the lead, and I don't expect her to do anything like if
something big comes up around the house. When the pipes burst underneath the house, the
sliding door needs fixing and replacing, or we got to do something with the solar panels. That's
me. I'm the one who finds the contractor and stays on top of them. And so there's just this
division of duties that we've fallen to, and it works for us. Not saying it would work for you.
So here's the other thing about the 50-50 relationship, it's about personality types.
You really have to know yours. If you are a Type-A person like me,
doesn't mind taking on more than 50% of things. I'm very used to being single independent
before I was with my wife, I ran my life perfectly well, and I'd take on 100% of
things that comes naturally to me. So I stay in my lane, and my lane in this household is
making money, doing research, making plans and handling all of my son's sports stuff. All right.
But if you are a Type-A woman who's dating a more laid back guy, you can't expect him to be 50-50
with you because you are the kind of person who might want to take control 70% of the time. So
sometimes, being Type-A is a burden because it's more work. But it's also a blessing in that you
get to control your situation instead of keeping your fingers crossed and hoping someone does
what you want, when you want, as you want, which is usually a ticket for disappointment.
So I don't mind paying 100% of my family's bills because I'm relatively good at it, and I'm not
keeping score. I'm not giving my wife a hard time because she doesn't contribute financially.
That is not important. That would be a bonus. And I've made peace with that. Many women can't make
peace with the idea that they may make more money than the guy, and some encourage you to do that.
And my wife doesn't mind doing 90% of the meal prep in the packing, laundry, and house
maintenance because she recognizes she's free from having to make money, and she sees this as her
domain. She takes it seriously, and it's easier sometimes to do the vast majority of the stuff
than to micromanage me and explain to me what I need to do and how I invariably will do it wrong.
So long story short, if you're a working woman, you're entitled to live your life exactly as you
want. But please don't hold out for some mythical 50:50 arrangement where you split everything down
the middle. Find a division of responsibilities that largely feels good to both of you,
and don't worry about keeping score. Because once you start keeping score, everybody loses.
Have you had a hard time finding an equal relationship? Share your comments below. Let
me know why it's been challenging. I'll see you back here next week.
My name is Evan Marc Katz. Thank you for tuning in to the Love U Podcast. For more episodes like
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and get more love into their life, which is what we're all here for. And if you want to have ease
in your relationship, that makes you feel safe, heard and understood. Look for the link below.
Go to www.evanmarckatz.com to watch my free video
about how to gain confidence, attract quality men and fix your broken man picker.
When you're done, you could apply to Love U to join hundreds of other smart,
strong, successful women from around the world
in a coaching community where women like you actually get the unconditional love
that you deserve, where a guy accepts you as you are. I'll see you there. Take care.