A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Newsletter #27

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HELLO – HAPPY SUNDAY!

As we speed toward the end of 2025, the weekly podcast episodes are going to be bite-sized. This week is the second last longer one for the year, so if you haven’t already, take a listen. I share a few ideas that might help you navigate the “busy, busy” of the festive season without needing to disappear completely.

I get asked in pretty much every interview:
“Did you feel guilty when you left for your grown up’s gap year?”

And the honest answer is: no.
Not in the way people expect.

By the time I took off, I had been there for everyone for decades – juggling kid stuff, ageing parents-in-law, relationship, work – and doing that invisible “last frontier” of labour we now call the mental load. Circumstances best for our family meant I became the parent on deck, which I am genuinely happy about because our boys thrived. Any consternation is never about front-line parenting. When you have kids, that is what comes. It was about the extra load that slowly landed on my plate (and in my head) when others might have stepped in, too. I suspect you know exactly what I mean.

After sending The Bloke an email saying I’d be home “at some point”, instead of lying awake feeling guilty, I did something rather unlike me.

I opened Excel.

I put a dollar figure against all the “free work” I’d contributed since stepping out of my corporate management role in hotels and airlines. Because I am fair to a fault, I used the salary I left on when the boys were born and did not include the promotions I might reasonably have expected. It was, if anything, generous.

I printed that spreadsheet, handed it to my husband on a brief return visit to Sydney and said, essentially:

“If I’d stayed in that executive role instead of doing all of this – work we would’ve had to outsource at real cost – this is roughly what the financial picture would look like.”

He went a little green.
And then he said: “Bon voyage.”

That spreadsheet wasn’t a ransom note. It was a receipt.
My way of saying to myself:

• No wonder you’re tired.
• No wonder you’re craving space.
• This is not indulgence. This is maintenance.

And this is where guilt and boundaries part ways:

• Guilt whispers: “Who do you think you are, to want this?”
• Boundaries calmly say: “I’ve given plenty. It’s time to rebalance.”

One is a feeling.
The other is a framework.

Guilt is not just a personal quirk, it is a reliable, inherited emotion. The HILDA survey in Australia basically confirms what we already know: even when women out-earn their partners, we still shoulder well over half the unpaid domestic labour. Once ageing parents enter the picture – that sandwich-generation squeeze – the number climbs again.

Dr Leah Ruppanner at Melbourne Uni calls this a public health issue, not a personal failing. Burnout disguised as devotion. We call it love; the data calls it depletion.

Writer and podcaster Elise Loehnen – from On Our Best Behaviour – describes guilt as “the voice of patriarchy living inside women’s heads”. She says men keep going while women stop to apologise. We cancel ourselves before anyone even asks us to.

So when I finally stepped out, I wasn’t being selfish. I was conducting a field experiment in self-preservation. What I learned is that guilt does not keep families together – clarity does. And giving each person in the family a real chance to be themselves, to fulfil their own dreams, to keep alive the me inside the we. That is what I call partnering with purpose.

When the Sydney Morning Herald ran an article about my book, the comments section lit up.

One woman wrote:

“I wish I had your courage, but I feel selfish even dreaming about a break.”

Another said:

“For the first time in years, I feel seen.”

And then there were the blokes. Some were beautifully honest:

“I had no idea my wife was this tired. We’ve never talked about it like this. I’m sending her this article and I’m a bit scared of the answer.”

Others were… less thrilled:

“Must be nice to swan off. Some of us just get on with it. Imagine if a man did this.”

I didn’t need to respond. The women readers did that for me. It made for very entertaining reading.

Those comments reminded me that guilt is contagious – but so is permission. Every time one woman chooses to take up space – with or without a passport – she makes it a fraction easier for the next. And every time a bloke is willing to sit in the discomfort and stay curious instead of defensive, it opens up a whole new conversation at home.

In this week’s podcast episode we play with three small boundary experiments, a quick Values checkpoint (so you remember what your fence is actually protecting), and a short Dear Blokes fridge note for the men who genuinely want to help but don’t know where to start.

I also walk you through Your SPACE Prescription – my two-minute Anti-Guilt Calculator that turns your invisible load into a printable time-out receipt – plus a one-page Boundary Fence Blueprint you can pin to the fridge while you plan your next pocket of escape.

Let me know how you get on. I love to share our stories.

I hope this stirs a little curiosity about your possibilities.

Hugs for a super week,

Monique x

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