What Happened When I Let Go and Asked My Husband To Catch Me

A few years ago, I started to notice fatigue.

It showed up like the little ailments that show up in our bodies after turning 30. The small aches that just weren’t there before. Evidence of a breakdown, or something wearing you down.

I mentioned it to my husband, the fatigue, and like most things, we talked about it, threw around solutions and moved on.

Years went by as the fatigue grew, and finally, at the top of 2025, we were in therapy again (after being out for almost a year).

We started therapy because (I thought) we had a communication problem. I felt like I was expressing myself to my partner and he just wasn’t hearing me. Or if he was hearing me, he didn’t care enough to do something about it.

It took a few months for our therapist to help us identify the actual issue and source of my fatigue.

I was doing too much emotionally and mentally, and our lifestyle didn’t support my needs. I couldn’t sustain myself any longer. It got so bad that I started having issues with my memory, haziness, and eventually, I got really sick for two weeks and couldn’t do much of anything other than bathe myself and do a little work on my laptop.

My husband had to take over or things were going to pile up in the house.

I want to take this time to highlight that my husband has always been an active father and roommate. It wasn’t that he wasn’t doing anything, it was that I was still doing too much, despite his involvement.

Too much thinking. Too much planning. Too much of the mentally exhaustive things.

I needed a break or a change, or both.

So here’s what happened.

I slowly started letting go.

You’ve heard of quiet quitting a job? I started quiet quitting my responsibilities. And to be clear, most of these responsibilities were self assigned.

I stopped answering questions all the time and instead, I would throw the question right back at my husband. I started taking up more space by booking spa days and hiring a cleaner instead of cleaning up after everyone. I stopped calling plumbers and handymen. I stopped planning. And I stopped prioritizing everybody else’s needs.

One told our therapist that I always felt like I was fashioning my life around everyone else’s schedule. First came my kids, then my husband — and I would squeeze my plans into the crevices that were left.

It took a while, but I learned to stop doing that.

There will always be a world where my kids’ schedules come first but I wanted to have a relationship where my husband and I share the rest of the schedule.

So Here’s What Happened

Through therapy and conversations, my husband started catching the hint. And to be honest, I think it was because he finally had another person to say “yea, and why is that?”

I also learned how to find new metaphors and methods to explain my perspective in a way he could understand.

To get him to understand the imbalance in space and schedule, I told him that we either need to be 50/50 or 75/25 the other way.

“The other way? You think it’s 75/25 with me being 75?” he asked me in shock.

“Yes.” I said.

Because my husband is a true Aquarius and a very literal person, as men tend to be — he started counting all the things he’s committed to and comparing them one by one to the things I’m committed to. He got to 3 on his end and 1 on my end before he said “oh, I think you’re right.”

We talked about it in therapy and from that moment on, he’s been scaling back on commitments and grabbing more responsibilities. He finally agreed not to book anything on Saturdays which gave me space to be free since he works every Sunday.

Mind you, I’ve been saying this to him for YEARS, but it finally clicked.

For months I talked about wanting to set up a system for our kids to do chores using our skylight calendar but I didn’t have the energy. One day, my husband put it on his to-do list and within the week, the kids were doing chores every day because he was holding them accountable.

As I noticed the shifts he was making, I began making a few of my own. I gave him space to do things that were really important to him. Instead of overreacting every time he wanted to do something, I stayed calm and said “ok”.

It was very much a give and take and not a tit for tat. We both had to give each other space to exist which meant there would be times each of us would have to adjust.

I quit and he picked up the slack. So when he needed a break, I had the energy to give it to him.

Where We Are Now

When I decided to let go of things I just couldn’t carry anymore, my husband picked them up. He didn’t let the house go to shit and he made sure our kids were provided for. He kept track of my daughter’s after-school activities and my son’s therapy schedules, he continued to clean and do laundry, he kept track of spirit week, and bought the teachers’ holiday gifts, all while taking care of me and his mother who lives with us.

I thought we were in therapy to talk about how he needed to change his ways. But we were really in therapy to figure out how we can make this lifestyle work for both of us.

We still have a little ways to go but the past few months have showed me that when we get on the same page, we can make anything happen.

Now, I’m working on how to keep this going while prioritizing the things I love.

I talk to so many women who go through this. Overworked. Tired. Overstimulated. Running a household and leading teams, or building businesses or being bad asses. Keeping up with yourself, your house, your kids, and your career is a lot and often times, we need our husbands to lean in even more than they already do.

The first step is that we have to ask for what we need and if they aren’t hearing us, we may need to bring a therapist in. And if that’s not an option, we have to find ways to give ourselves what we need, even if that means quietly quitting, letting go, and hoping our husbands catch us.

And if they don’t, well…we have a decision to make.