How to Maintain Healthy Relationships Without Emotional Burnout
“Relationships take work”
It’s almost a cliché in the world of the (aspiring) emotionally intelligent: relationships take work. But how much work? What kind of work? And what happens when we’re starting to feel burned out?
Emotional burnout (or emotional exhaustion) is a serious problem, especially in a world where we have to juggle making ends meet, basic self maintenance, and relationships of all kinds. This kind of burnout can leave us feeling apathetic, frozen, trapped, and tired.
Not the ideal conditions for maintaining the curiosity, openness, and vulnerability that we often recommend.
the diagnosis
The first step to addressing how to maintain a healthy relationship when under strain is to examine what is causing burnout in the first place?
Is it
Behavior inside the relationship (directed at each other)? For example, recurring arguments, unmet needs, patterns in how you relate
Life circumstances for one or both of you around the relationship - work, school, caring for children/others, housing instability, financial problems, etc.
Your internal life: overall emotional, behavioral, mental, and/or spiritual life - depression, trauma, healing work, addiction/recovery, loss, grief, etc.
The likely answer is some mix of these (or others I haven’t named), so understanding what feels like it’s driving the emotional burnout can help to clarify what steps need to be taken to address it - and with whom. For example, if you’re doing EMDR therapy (a form of trauma therapy that can be highly effective) your strategy for coping with emotional burnout in a relationship will be different than if the burnout is driven by unhealthy patterns within the relationship itself.
strategy shifts
These four strategies will support you in most circumstances, and always - check your gut! You know yourself best.
Take responsibility for your own needs - it’s important to learn what is yours, this includes self-care (eating, sleeping, hygiene, and so on - even if you rely on caretakers to access basic needs, you have a part that is yours to hold) and your own inner work. No one else can make you eat well or fix a persistent sense of loneliness. Other people are essential as companions on the journey, but we have to set our direction.
Ask for and offer help - the best way to address unmet needs and reach across in a difficult dynamic is to ask for or offer help (if the relationship is unbalanced in terms of caring work, be extra thoughtful with this one). Helping one another experience and enjoy day to day life is one of the healthiest things we can do!
Find the right size - maintaining a healthy relationship takes work and energy, but not all our work and energy. Explore activities, processing, and bonding time that are both meaningful and manageable.
Prioritize shared experiences - when you’re together, prioritize shared experiences and building new memories together and not only conversation focused on rehashing the feelings; this is distinct from sharing and talking in ways that help us move through our burnout. Try a new activity, build a birdhouse, cook a meal, measure the diameter of objects in your house - but allow these interactions to naturally open up to spontaneous, connective sharing.
Folks at an actual Skip the Small Talk event