I Let My Boyfriend Run Our Household for 30 Days - And Discovered Why It Was So Hard to Let Go

We’ve talked about it endlessly.

‍Mental load.

And maybe you’re already rolling your eyes thinking, “Ugh, not another mental load article.”

But stay with me.

Because what you’re about to read offers a completely new perspective - one that goes deeper than the usual arguments.

Mental load is one of those topics that hits a nerve.

It’s about invisible work, emotional responsibility, and all the unseen things that keep a home - and a relationship - running.

The problem is, the conversation always seems to go in circles.

It ends up like this:

Women are tired of carrying everything — and need to learn to let go.

Men are lazy — and need to step up.

And then… nothing changes.

That’s why journalist Maria Brus Pedersen’s new book “Let Me Know If You Need Help” felt so refreshing.

Sadly, the book is currently only available in Danish.. however..

It’s built around an experiment she and her boyfriend, Johannes, carried out — one that flipped their relationship upside down and forced them both to confront what equality really means behind closed doors.

Like so many couples, Maria and her boyfriend Johannes were stuck.

Without even realizing it, they’d slipped into a pattern where Maria had become the project manager of their household — the one who carried the invisible to-do list, remembered birthdays, tracked bills, and kept everything running.

It wasn’t good for either of them.

Maria was exhausted and resentful from carrying all the responsibility.

Johannes felt defeated, like nothing he did was ever quite right.

They had hit a wall.

Something drastic had to happen — something that could shake up the balance and turn their dynamic upside down.

So what do you do when you’re trapped in that loop?

You run an experiment.

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The 30-Day Experiment That Changed Everything

For one whole month, Johannes was in charge of everything — laundry, groceries, cleaning, planning, finances, social events, all of it.

And Maria? She wasn’t allowed to interfere. At all.

But how did it come to this?

They had only lived together for three months when Maria realized that the old gender roles had quietly unpacked themselves right alongside their moving boxes.

Suddenly, she was the household manager — the one with the overview, the mental checklist, the reminders, the lists on the fridge.

Johannes, on the other hand, had unknowingly slipped into the role of “assistant.”

The result?

Maria was exhausted and resentful. Johannes felt like nothing he did was good enough.

They were stuck — and something drastic had to happen.

So they made a deal: for 30 days, she would step back completely, and he would take full control.

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And to make things worse, Maria had somehow become a walking household encyclopedia — the go-to person for every random question Johannes already knew the answer to.

• “What temperature do you wash T-shirts at?”
• “Do we have any more spaghetti?”
• “Where do the bedsheets go again?”

Maria couldn’t understand what was happening.

Before they moved in together, Johannes had done all of this himself.

“He’s actually an amazing cook,” she told me in the interview. “He puts so much care into making food for other people.”

But something shifted when they shared an address.

“I think I just took over,” she admitted. “I’m on home turf. I have opinions, routines, a plan for everything.”

“I know exactly how I like things done — how we clean, how we host people — and even if I don’t say it out loud, there’s this unspoken expectation that things should be done my way. Johannes doesn’t challenge that, but he also never really gets the chance to.”

The frustration grew on both sides.

They found themselves having the same arguments over and over again, each time ending in the same place.

Until one night, it all came to a head.

Maria smiles a little awkwardly when she tells me about it.

“It was actually me who suggested we do the experiment,” she said. “And it came from this one evening that’s a little embarrassing to talk about.”

“It was just a normal night. We’d been hanging out at home, and Johannes had done some laundry. Later, when I was getting ready for bed, I opened my underwear drawer — and everything was just thrown in there. I got so annoyed that I dumped the whole thing out on the bed and snapped, ‘It’s not helping if you don’t do it properly!’”

Johannes apologized immediately, trying to smooth things over.

But right in the middle of the argument, something clicked for Maria.

“Wait,” she said.

“Is this, deep down, because you think it’s my job to wash and fold the clothes?”

And to her surprise — or maybe not — Johannes said yes.

A quiet, ashamed yes.

That moment hit them both hard. How had they ended up here?

Johannes and Maria on Overtime

The morning after the laundry incident, Maria couldn’t shake it off.

She kept replaying it in her head — the drawer, the argument, the uncomfortable truth behind it.

So she got an idea and texted Johannes:

“What if we did an experiment? What if, for one month, you handled everything at home?”

To her surprise, he agreed immediately.

Together, they came up with three rules to guide the experiment:

• Rule #1: He does everything. Laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, keeping track of the calendar, planning trips and social events, managing the budget — the full overview.
• Rule #2: She does nothing. No reminders, no suggestions, no feedback, no interference.
• Rule #3: They’re not allowed to break up.

And with that, the experiment began.

What if, for one month, you handled everything at home

The First Week: Chaos, Control, and the Great Toilet Paper Incident

Maria thought this experiment would prove a point.

“I honestly thought Johannes would realize how much work it takes to run a home,” she told me. “I figured he’d finally see all the invisible labor I had been doing. And that it would be relaxing for me — a little break.”

It wasn’t.

By day two, the house looked like a war zone.

Dust bunnies on the floor. Empty shelves in the fridge. Chaos everywhere.

And Johannes? Completely unbothered.

He’d go to work, meet friends for dinner, and come home smiling — without groceries.

Meanwhile, Maria, who worked from home, sat surrounded by growing piles of clutter and rising anxiety.

By the end of day two, she’d eaten moldy rye bread twice and waited all evening for Johannes to come home and cook.

When he finally did, he had already eaten a kebab with a friend — and brought nothing back for her.

So she made pasta with ketchup and went to bed furious.

The next day, things got worse.

On day three, Maria completely lost it.

“Something happens on day three. I become a bit unhinged. He still hasn’t hinted at going shopping. I can see there are three toilet rolls left and the catastrophe thoughts kick in. I take one roll, shove it up under my sweater, sneak into the bedroom, and hide it under the bed. I’m thinking: if he forgets, at least I was prepared. I was panicking”

That “toilet paper moment,” as she calls it, became symbolic.

“It’s funny, but it also says a lot,” she told me. “No one ever praises you for buying toilet paper — you only notice when it’s missing. That’s the essence of mental load. You don’t see it until it’s gone.”

But the deeper realization hit harder: she didn’t trust Johannes to handle it.

“Some of that mistrust was fair,” she admits.

“But some of it came from me. From my own need for control. And it didn’t feel good to realize that. My boyfriend trusted me completely — but I didn’t trust him back.”

“I started to see how incredibly hard it is for me to give up control. My whole body goes into high alert. And after the experiment I kept asking myself: where did I learn that it’s dangerous not to be in control?”

The Roots of Control

Where did that need for control come from?

Maria traces it back to her childhood.

She grew up with a single mother, lots of love, but not much stability.

Dinner wasn’t always guaranteed — sometimes she had to make it herself.

Her go-to meal back then? Pasta with ketchup.

The same dish that reappeared — decades later — on day two of the experiment.

“It hit something deep,” she said. “It wasn’t really about the pasta. It was about being a little girl again, realizing no one was taking care of me. That feeling of having to step up — that’s where it started.”

As the oldest sibling, Maria learned early that taking responsibility brought calm.

“It made me feel safe,” she said. “But that also meant I learned to equate safety with control.”

And that habit followed her into adulthood.

“I’ve taught myself that losing control is dangerous,” she reflected. “But in a relationship, that belief becomes a trap. You end up clinging to things that don’t serve you — or your partner.”

“When love feels conditional growing up, you keep testing where the line is. Will you still love me if I’m hard to love? If I make mistakes? If I make you run the household for a month?”

The Turning Point

Slowly, things began to shift. As Johannes started to find his rhythm — cooking, planning dinners, taking initiative — Maria began to relax.

He wasn’t doing it her way.

But he was doing it his way.

And that made all the difference.

By the end of the 30 days, Johannes had taken full ownership. He planned a dinner with friends, bought her favorite muesli, managed the finances — and did it all without being asked.

Maria saw something she hadn’t noticed in a long time: how attractive it is to watch someone you love take responsibility.

“There’s nothing sexier than seeing someone you love being competent,” she laughed. “Watching him own it was honestly beautiful.”

What They Learned

Today, Maria and Johannes still reference “the experiment” whenever tensions rise.

It’s become part of their shared language — a reminder that they’re on the same team.

They’ve learned that equality isn’t about splitting chores 50/50.

It’s about sharing trust.

For Maria, the biggest realization was that mental load isn’t only about social structures or gender expectations — it’s also about the personal stories we carry into adulthood.

Our childhoods, our habits, our fears — they all sneak into our relationships, shaping how we show love and how we take control.

Because at the end of the day, this isn’t just about who buys the toilet paper.

It’s about the invisible scripts that tell women their love is measured in care and control — and men that responsibility is optional.

Maria’s story reminds us that equality doesn’t just mean someone stepping up.

Sometimes, it means someone daring to let go.

And that maybe… it’s okay to run out of toilet paper once in a while.