Relationship Burnout: Rebuild and Restore Balance

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welcome back my friends. If you dunno who I am. I'm Dr. Sarah Award-winning relationship psychologist, helping incredible women. End toxic relationship cycles so they can have their happy ever after. Get your secure relationship attachment style now and end that anxiety. So today we are going to be talking about relationship burnout. And this is a real thing. This is when we hear so many messages on social media and everywhere else saying you need to constantly pay attention to your partner. And I even saw somebody tagged me in this. Real on Instagram where this individual, this woman, quite a big influencer, was saying that if you are married to somebody, then your body ultimately is their body and vice versa. And essentially what she was talking about is that when you are married to somebody, your entire being belongs to your spouse and. Their being belongs to you. And if that's the case, then my goodness, my goodness, are we setting ourselves up for failure? Because that is a huge ask. And I'm not saying that we don't give parts of ourselves, but if you are fully giving every part of yourself to your partner. Then yeah, you are going to be burnt out. So relationship burnout is a real thing, and so we need to speak about it, particularly if you are somebody who works really hard anyway. If you are the type of person who is constantly trying to make sure that everybody around you is okay, if you're the type of person who constantly prioritizes other people and you end up being further down on the priority list. And if you are constantly giving your being over and you are a high achiever, which means that you work really hard anyway, this is for you because you might get burnt out at work. That's pretty obvious. But there is also relationship burnout. And to define it a bit more, that is when you are constantly exhausted and you are emotionally drained, you feel absolutely spent, and actually you end up becoming emotionally detached in the relationship. You lose joy and you lose that spark because as much as you love that other person, and as much as you've spent time with that other person and you enjoy spending time with them. Actually, you feel like you've lost yourself in that process as well because you have given so much that there is barely any of you left presence and. You are really in a state where you are not sure what to do anymore, and there might be a part of you that feels really guilty to call it relationship burnout because it might not be necessarily socially acceptable, but also you don't necessarily want to say it with your partner thinking that you don't love them anymore because you can still love them and feel burnt out. But this is really. What is important for us to keep in mind is that those two contradictory things can coexist. You can love somebody and also feel burnt out by them. So some of the early warning signs is when you are feel feeling irritable. When there are frequent arguments and the arguments might happen over small things, mundane things that don't really matter so much, it might be that you are losing intimacy with your partner. So that could be physical intimacy, that could be emotional intimacy. You're feeling a bit more disconnected from the person you might be feeling. A lot of resentment and the resentment builds over time and. Certain things that didn't necessarily bother you all of a sudden become a real issue. So if the typical routine is that you make dinner and they do the washing up, at some point you'll get really, really frustrated that you are a person who's always making dinner, even though it didn't frustrate you a month ago, couple of months ago, and this has been going on for 10 years. So all of a sudden you notice this resentment. But the thing that is a huge marker. The secret marker of relationship burnout is when you feel like roommates or housemates as opposed to partner. And the difference here is a roommate is somebody who you are not necessarily living your life in sync with. They're not necessarily somebody who your life and their life really integrates, but actually you just coexist. You just share the same space. But you don't have goals, you don't have values, you don't have something that you two are working on and that you are building together. You might know of that person. You might know descriptive factors. So yeah, they go to work, they go at this time, they turn up At this time, their favorite meal is this, but actually you don't really know the inside of'em, and it's really that. Connection, that depth that really creates that partnership when you are connected to their depth. And also you are building a life together. So that is really the biggest market, is when you become housemates as opposed to partners. And the reason why relationship burnout happens is because you are essentially overextending yourself. You are overcommitting yourself to a multitude of different things. And I think especially in this day and age, it has never been more complicated to know how it is to be a man and how it is to be a woman. Because on both sides of the coin, wherever you look, we are expected to do and to be everything. And anything at all times. So for example, men are expected to work, to be the providers, but also to be very empathic, to be connected to their emotions, to be nurturing, to be loving. So we're expecting them to do the masculine thing, but also more of the feminine thing. And for women, well, women have been empowered. You know, the movement of feminism has also come to come to play. And you know, feminism at its very core is just to say that men and women are equal. Full stop. Uh, but you know, this is kind of overextended in that women should have more and more and more, and actually that there have been some unhealthy consequences of that, and that women are not expected to work a lot. And not only that, they're also expected to look after the house, to look after the kids, to cook, clean and do absolutely everything whilst wearing heels and looking pristine. So essentially, you are expected to. Raise kids like you don't work. You're expected to work like you don't have kids and you're expected to look like you don't have either. So how do you even go about that? Right? And, and so the thing is, is that we are then overcommitting to absolutely everything. And by the way, I'm talking about this and I've not even talked about committing to your partner, right? So you are overextending, you are overcommitting yourself to absolutely everything on planet Earth and. You need to also commit to your partner. And by the end of the day, you are exhausted, but you also know that your partner is really important. And guess what? Your partner is also really exhausted as well. And so at the end of the day, what ends up happening is, is that you just expect your partner to be able to read your mind and vice versa. You hope, and you expect, and there's a part of you that almost anticipates and wish that they would do. The thing that you wanted them to do, that they would just wave your flag whether or not you are there. Um, because that's just the expectation, right? Because you are in partnership. And so why wouldn't they? And as much as that might be true, what also happens is that you are both also incredibly exhausted and your heads, both of you are failed with so much stuff. The, from your days at work, from the kids, from the house, from everything else, that it just never ends, and then all of a sudden you are being demanded of something else. Whereas actually, we both go into the relationship hoping for respite. So when we enter a relationship where you don't enter it with the. Aim of working more to for our partner, but we actually enter it with the hope that we are going to feel calm, that we're going to feel peace, that we're going to feel content, that we are going to feel held and supported and safe, and that our partner is going to be there for us and that we can just do nothing. We can just be ourselves and just be, and that being okay. And that's how we get replenished. But unfortunately both parties, both people in the partnership, both you and your partner are going to be wanting that, but you're also going to be wanting the other person to do something so that you can replenish. So it becomes incredibly cha challenging. And so with this, you also then have the very real issue that. All relationships have, which are fundamental differences. So we know on average 69% of relationships and 69% of the time within relationships, we are really going to. And we also have the other parts, the very real parts in relationships that make it arguably a bit more challenging. So we know based on research and by the Gottman Institute. That's 69% of the time when we are in an argument with our partner or when there is some resentment, there's some frustration, there's some conflict, there's something there that doesn't feel okay. It's actually due to fundamental differences within our belief systems, within our value systems, within our opinions, within our emotions, our thoughts, and so ultimately. We see these issues as something to solve. We see them as a conflict. We see them as a problem, and that actually we need to be able to resolve these issues. But actually these are just unsolvable issues because it's not really an issue for us to solve. It's just our differences. Right? So you are not going to be the same as your partner. And so 69% of the time when you are facing these conflicts, these arguments or these, uh, feelings of frustration, it's not because there is a problem and therefore you need to necessarily solve it, but actually it's more about having a greater level of acceptance and a greater level of compassion for your partner because they're different. And vice versa. And when you are being asked to hold a greater level of acceptance, when you are being asked to have greater space for being compassionate and for being empathic with your partner who has fundamental differences, but actually you are also seeing them as really frustrating issues. So, uh, just as an example, um, you might be somebody who. After dinner, you want everything washed up immediately. You want everything cleaned, whereas your partner wants to just wait and leave it till the end of the night. Well, actually, that might not necessarily be a problem, but that's just a difference in terms of values and in terms of the approach. And when you are already burnt out from a relationship and then you're being asked to. Have a greater level of acceptance. So either your partner accepting that you are wanting everything to be cleaned up before you sit down, so then you go ahead and do that, or you accept that your partner just wants to leave until the end of the night. Either way. There has to be greater tolerance. There has to be greater acceptance, and that is incredibly hard, particularly if you are already burnt out. But this is something that's so important for you to consider. And also there are many costs to burn out, and the real obvious one is really the cost to your mental health, because there are going to be issues in terms of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, low self-confidence. That is going to be something that you are going to be impacted and facing on a much more frequent basis. There is a real risk of relationship breakdown that actually might end up separating. If this relationship burnout continues, it might have a negative impact on your family, on your children. If you have children, it might have a negative impact in terms of your work. Because actually you are not able to focus as well, or you might end up spending way longer at the office, which then has a negative impact on your relationship, and then you just end up in this terrible cycle. It might even have a negative impact on your physical health because we know that when we're burnt out, regardless of what area we are burnt out with in life. It will have a negative impact on your level of adrenaline, your level of cortisol, but essentially the level of vitamin absorption in your body and the way that our body is able to repair itself, especially at sleep. So your sleep. Will go down the depth and the quality of sleep will deteriorate your body and your brain just will not be able to flush out the toxins that it needs to and it won't be able to repair it cells as it needs to. And so your immunity can go down, you can become more ill, like there are just a multitude of negative impacts that this burnout can lead to. And so well, what do we do here? Well, first off, it's really important that we actually acknowledge that relationship burnout is a real thing and that you are both drained from the relationship. And by the way, it's not to say that you are stating that the relationship is no longer working for you. This method might not be working for you, but it's not to say that you no longer love each other. These are two separate things. You can still love that person, but also say the way that this relationship is operating is not working because I am burnt out, you are burnt out. We're both really resentful. We're both frustrated, and we are not getting that loving connection that we entered this relationship. Hoping for the thing that we wanted. We're just not living it anymore. We're actually living in this really negative and really ugly place, so that's absolutely necessary. The second step is that we have honest communication, and with this honest communication, it's vital that we have remits of safety. So the remit of safety is to say. I've got something really challenging that I need to express, and it's really hard for me to say this, and it might be really hard for you to hear me out, but I'm doing this in the hope that you'll accept what I say and you'll accept it. Because I really want us to be able to edit this out. So this is really a communication technique and, and there are multiple other steps that I talk through clients with, uh, to go into more details. But from a high level view, what you're really wanting to do when you communicate is. You express that actually it's going to be challenging for both you and for them, and you are really trying to disarm the defensiveness that might come up. What you're trying to do is you are talking about the aim of the conversation, that your aim is really to be able to repair what's happening between you both, but also. What you are wanting to get by the end of the relationship by, by the end of this conversation about the relationship that you are actually wanting acceptance and you are wanting there to be acceptance so that there can be some movement forward and. When you are able to have that conversation, then you can also insert what it is that you are really wanting out of it. And you know, one of the biggest things, well actually there are two big things that people really need to include in these conversations. Because these two factors can really determine how this conversation goes and how it is that we actually recover from burnout. The first thing is including a conversation about how it is that we rebuild intimacy. So intimacy really being the small gestures. And I'm not saying that you are having sex more frequently, and that's the thing that's gonna solve everything. Uh, but, but it's more about how is it that we end up really connecting? And what I'm saying, intimacy, it could be, it could be physical intimacy, but it also more importantly needs to be emotional intimacy. So how is it that I can get to know you better? How is it that we can really block off time where there is absolutely nothing in the world that demands our attention? And really considering the small gestures that we are able to do on a day-to-day basis that actually shows that other person that we really are thinking about them. So is it that we're getting them their favorite coffee? Is it that we have gone to the shop and we saw something that reminded us of the time when we were first stating. How is it that we can really spend eye to eye quality time as opposed to just sitting side by side and just watching tv? How is it that we can have physical touch even when it's in a small way? So actually when we're walking past them in the kitchen, how is it that we can just rub their arm or just really hold their hand or just. Give them that hug that just lasts a little bit longer. So first conversation is really about intimacy. The second one is really about rebalancing the responsibility. So as I was talking about previously, there's never been a time when it has been. More confusing and harder to define what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. And actually we really need to start redefining the responsibilities within the relationship. So what it is that I can give and what it is that you would hope. From me, and we do this on both sides because ultimately the target is how is it that we can create a healthy partnership? This is necessary because if we're able to do this, and if we are able to hold ourselves accountable, even if our partner can't hold us accountable, then that's really where the magic lies. And finally, please get help because. I love, love. This is my bias. I love love, and I love couples being able to work it out. And it is so devastating when a couple have worked so hard and they've built a life together and maybe they have kids together, they've got a home together, they've got everything together, and they've been together for such a long time, and they get to a point where they decide, you know what? We're burnt out. This might not work. And actually. There are potential ways of exploring that avenue, and so I would say it is necessary. You owe it to yourselves to get help to make sure that you can work it out, because if you get help and you have tried out absolutely everything and you know that you've tried out everything, you've got the best help out there and you know you've given it your role and it still doesn't work out, then at least you know what your answer is. But. You owe it to yourselves to give yourself the best opportunity possible to make sure that you can have your happy ever after. If you have enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or a family member because if you like to, I bet you that one of them will do you too. And if any of this resonates with you, please get in touch. It would be amazing to have a conversation And finally. Please like and subscribe. Subscribe to this channel because I really don't take any of your listening ears for granted. I love you all and until next time, take care.