What It is:
We often think of burn-out as it relates to work demands, but it can show up in our relationships, as well. Physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion in a relationship can result in the brain reaching a state of fatigue that comes with a number of unhelpful urges. Relationship burnout can look like numbness, boredom, detachment, or cynicism, or it can at times look like increased conflict, distress, and negative interactions with your loved ones. People experiencing relationship burnout often describe a sense of disconnection or decreased interest in other people, with relationship-maintaining behaviors feeling like more of a burden than in the past. If left unmanaged, relationship burnout can result in damage to important connections, values-inconsistent actions (infidelity, insults, escalations in fights), premature termination of valued relationships, and overall isolation.
Relationship burn-out can also occur as a result of an absence of the type (e.g., romantic) or number of relational supports you want or need. This burn-out can occur when you have been putting forth significant effort towards one or more relationships and you feel your effort is not producing results. This often results in a sense of loneliness, hopelessness, or detachment or disengagement from original goals of deeper connection.
Do any of these statements sound familiar?
- “People don’t get me”
- “I don’t have enough energy for this”
- “You’re too much/I’m too much”
- “They just push my buttons; I don’t know why”
- “I can’t let them get too close”
- “People always disappoint me”
- “I have people but still feel lonely”
- “I’m trapped”
- “I’ll never get the relationships I want; there is no point in trying anymore”
Relational Burn-Out Symptoms
Emotions:
- Long-term burnout can result in either increased, sharp, or loud experiences of distressing emotion, or can push us in the direction of numbness and disconnection. Interpersonal shame, anger, contempt, disgust, numbness, fatigue, hopelessness, or loneliness can become unmanageable and impact not only the relationship in which burn-out is occurring, but other aspects of one’s life, as well.
- You may also notice that you begin creating emotional distance in the burnt-out relationship. Increased emotional distance can result in partners or friends feeling lonely, abandoned, or isolated, even while the relationship is still going.
- Relationship burn-out can also look like finding spending time with someone you love draining instead of enjoyable or rejuvenating
Thoughts or Beliefs:
- Burn-out in relationships can result in strong, black-and-white thinking or judging about the relationship, yourself, or others. Burn-out can have a cumulative effect with other factors, like childhood/early learning experiences, trauma histories, thinking styles, and body reactivity, to activate some of the unhelpful beliefs we may have formed during other times in our life. When we apply rigid beliefs to our relationships, we end up in more extreme patterns of perfectionism, rumination, obsessions, harsh critical thinking about our partners, or fatalistic/hopeless predictions about our relationships. Over time, these thinking patterns will not only impact your ability to see alternate options and think flexibly, but will also deteriorate relationship growth and healing.
- Burn-out can also look like feeling misunderstood, disconnected, and holding little to no belief or hope that things will change (even when the data doesn’t support this conclusion!)
- When burnt out, it can become difficult to hold multiple truths or nuances about others in the relationship. Your brain may default to “good vs bad” or “love vs hate”, instead of thinking in a more balanced way.
- We are more likely to shift to blaming others, with increased intensity, when we are burnt-out in relationships.
Behaviors or Habits:
- As burn-out continues, our behavioral and response patterns typically shift. We often move toward “quick fix” solutions, like avoiding tough discussions, spending more time apart, not disclosing vulnerable content or emotion, snapping or saying harsh things, substance use, or other options that provide short-term relief but not long-term solutions. We may be more likely to distract ourselves or disengage from the things that burn us out in our relationships,
- Sometimes, burn-out in relationships looks like repeated, ineffective efforts to fix the problem but with short-term “doubling down” solutions (impulsive arguments, interpersonal punishments, harsh criticism).
- We are more likely to initiate, stay in, or get escalated by intense and painful conflict during times of relationship burn-out.
- You may see decreased motivation to put forth effort to make new relationships or repair or deepen current relationship when burn-out is present.
- In romantic relationships, decreased physical intimacy, quality time, or affectionate behaviors can at times be a sign of relationship burn-out
Specialty Services at TAP:
Below are a list of empirically supported assessments or therapies that one or more of our specialists could provide. Click on an intervention to learn more!