"A partnership requires attentiveness, effort, curiosity, humility, and the desire to learn what love looks like to your partner. Until we demand more, we will continue to raise generations who believe that female exhaustion and burnout is the norm, and men who are satisfied with never raising the bar."

This is the reason I split up with one girlfriend and then didn’t date women who said things like that. It was exhausting. Men can be bloody annoying with a tendency to assume that every problem you present them with requires a practical solution rather than a sympathetic ear and a cuddle but this is one area in which they are definitely easier. Men don't tend to demand "attentiveness, effort, curiosity, humility, and the desire to learn what love looks like to your partner." They just want to know you like and respect them and then you can rub along quite happily enjoying each other's company with no heavy drama and expectations that you should be psychic every five minutes. It's much more relaxing. The man I've been married to for 25 years is particularly undemanding although, occasionally, if I've got very preoccupied with a project, I will find that he's added "Acknowledge husband's existence" to my 'to do' list.

I understand that the author is saying that women often are the ones who remember birthdays and organise things for the whole family and notice first when something needs cleaning, not that they should be but I always feel pieces like this assume that to be a woman is to be a natural born personal assistant with brains focused on minutiae rather than a whole person who could possibly have bigger fish to fry. I'm just not a woman in this case. And it's OK! Nobody dies. Things get done. People stop expecting you to remember their birthdays and know it doesn't mean you don't care about them.

I'm sure there are relationships where the woman takes on all that responsibility and the man does nothing when he should. I know there are. My friend is in one & I've begged her to just stop doing it rather than getting frazzled by it. But I think that just as often it is the woman who can solve the problem by not taking so much on. You create expectations that you'll do things by doing them. Nobody has such expectations of me because I've never created them. We muddle through. OK, it's not ideal. I've had to go up to the school because I've forgotten again that my daughter needed a pound to take part in some event on several occasions. I've never forgotten my husband's birthday because he reminds me or my daughter's because she certainly doesn't but I've forgotten my own and my family were expecting me to do things with them and I've had to cancel my plans for the day. The worst thing that's ever happened is that the dentist threatened to kick me off their list if I missed another appointment, then I did and we had to find a new dentist.

I certainly don't manage very well with people 'demanding' I exhibit more "attentiveness, effort, curiosity, humility, and the desire to learn what love looks like to your partner." That indicates a level of maintenance I just don't have time for and a future of walking on eggshells wondering whether I'm doing it right or if there's going to be a heavy conversation because I did not notice she was upset or had not slept well or I'd forgotten that she had an important work meeting and did not ask about it. Just tell me if there's something important you want to talk to me about and I'll make time for it. Don't expect me to be psychic and pick up bat signals. (She was a lovely girl otherwise and we got on much better when we were just friends)