Husband’s demanding job is making my own career feel impossible right now

Update: Thank you, everyone, for your ideas and solidarity and advice. I feel isolated in my day to day, but right now I feel surrounded by other supportive and encouraging working moms, and I'm so appreciative of your time and comments. Hugs to all of you.

I just returned back to work this spring after a long maternity leave, and I’ve been feeling extremely frustrated and starting to get hopeless. I’m looking for some advice from others who’ve been in this situation.

My partner is a corporate lawyer and works long hours with spontaneous last minute late nights and court appearances. I work at a public sector job, 9-5, comparatively chill but in a very visible role with a lot of campaign work and meetings with senior leadership.

Before we had our baby, we agreed that I would leave my previous high(er) stress job so that I could be the flexible parent while he builds up to partnership. But I didn’t really understand how hard that would actually be while still holding a leadership role myself, even a less stressful one than previous years.

I end up doing 80% of daycare drop offs and pickups, carry the mental load of our toddlers life, get up every work day with her and get her ready, and am the one to always take off work when she’s home sick. We have a cleaner that I coordinate with and some meal delivery, but I am still under water.

My boss is fine with my performance, but I am dropping balls right left and centre. I feel like I can’t focus on important meetings or projects. I feel like I can’t take sick time for myself when I’m ill because I already take so much time for my daughter.

My partner and I are both in (separate) therapy for different reasons, so we have been communicating a lot about how burnt out and unsupported I feel. He is supportive but kind of clueless and burnt out himself. But at the end of the day, he makes 3x what I make, and if he makes partner this year this imbalance will just go up.

We’ve discussed me going part time in the future but we’re in a VCOL city and I worry about our finances (and my career) if I step back.

Help! Any advice? Does this get better when the kids are older? Do I need to just lower my expectations for a few years?