However our mindset has not totally moved on, and it often falls to the female partner in a heterosexual relationship, or to one person in a same-sex relationship to manage the mental load.

The mental load is the concept of knowing mentally, all the different things that are needed to run the household and lives of a couple or family. It is not the ‘doing’ of the tasks, which are more often split fairly in modern households, it’s the ‘thinking about’. For example, information such as when the pet needs worming tablets, when laundry is needing to be done to ensure fresh undies for everyone, dates of parents / in-laws birthdays and thoughts about present buying, when ‘insert theme’ week is happening at your kids school and what sort of dress up is needed. Etc, etc, etc.

I’ve met many heterosexual couples where the male partner takes on this role too, but much more commonly it is a female partner feeling so overwhelmed, exhausted, unappreciated and resentful of this massive burden, that it has brought them to counselling. Her male partner might wonder why his wife is no longer interested in sex? Let me tell you- there is often a link.