How to Deal When Your Spouse is Suffering From Burnout

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Burnout can be brutal. It kills your productivity, it makes you feel stressed all the time, it leaves you exhausted and detached, and it can make you question whether you have ever or will ever do anything of value.

It's bad enough to find yourself in such a state, but it can be as bad or worse to find someone you love there. When that person is your spouse, someone you love deeply and with whom you are walking through life, it can cause all sorts of difficult feelings.

You don't have to get stuck there, though. There are good ways to support yourself and your spouse when he or she is walking through a season of burnout.

1. Recognize It

Burnout can be misdiagnosed as depression (which often goes alongside it), anxiety, and other disorders. At its most basic, burnout is a state of chronic stress that, over time, leads to a whole host of other symptoms. Depression and anxiety can be part of those, but stress is at the core in burnout.

Learn to recognize when your spouse is stressed. Different people respond differently to stressors, but you are in a position to know how your spouse responds. When you see this sort of stress over a period of time, tell your spouse what you have observed. If you can't do that, recognize that burnout may be on the horizon.

2. Don't Panic

Having someone close to you experience burnout can be terrifying. When they lose productivity, when it takes them forever to do something they once did easily, like write an e-mail or empty the dishwasher, it's easy to wonder if that person you love will ever come back, or if this is your new normal.

When these feelings come, remind yourself that they are normal but that you don't need to panic. Burnout is serious, but it is a condition that rest and wise counsel can do much to alleviate. It may take a while, but your spouse will return. Hopefully, they will be happier and healthier on the other side of burnout, because they will have learned to care for themselves better.

3. Get Support

Walking through a spouse's burnout isn't easy, and you will need people to walk alongside you as you offer support, if you want your marriage to survive and grow. These can be friends, relatives, or even mental health professionals. In fact, you might be best served by getting support from all three.

You will have a lot to talk about when it comes to your spouse's burnout, and it's important that you don't put too much of that on any one person, or that you ask friends for solutions or suggestions that only counselors can give. A counselor can help you figure out what you can and cannot offer your spouse during this time, what you need to do to take care of yourself, and whether there's anything you can change in your marriage that might help your spouse. Friends and family can help you implement these ideas, and can listen to your feelings.

Occasionally, it may be appropriate for you to seek help for your spouse, too. If he or she is so burnt out that they can't even search for a counselor or figure out what the next step is, you may need to do that for them. In the end, though, it will help your spouse to seek out their own solutions, so do as little as possible in their name. Instead, encourage them to act on their own.

4. Encourage Them in Positive Directions

What your spouse needs will depend a lot on the details of their burnout. As their spouse, you can encourage them to move toward what they need. Maybe an extended vacation would help them get the rest they need, or spending more time with friends would help them leave their stress at work. Maybe they need to join a gym or a bowling league or a reading group.

Whatever they need, you can encourage them in that direction. That doesn't mean you sign them up for things you think might be helpful, but that you listen to them (and to their therapist, if that is appropriate) and help them remember to take steps toward rest and relaxation rather than deeper into stress.

5. Don't Take Responsibility

Even though you want to do as much as you can to help your spouse, you need to remember that neither their descent into burnout nor their recovery depends on you. You are there to be a companion, to help them walk this hard road and to walk alongside them as appropriate, but it's not your fault. They aren't burnt out because of you and their recovery isn't in your hands, either.

If you are doing well, it will be easy to try to drag your burnt out spouse up by their bootstraps to join you. This is taking too much on yourself, though. In the end, they need to walk through this dark place and come out of it on their own. If you do it for them, they may get better but they won't really recover. The truth is, they got themselves into this place and they need to get themselves out. Being their companion will help, but being their savior will not.

6. Take Care of Yourself

Having a spouse with burnout is hard. It's stressful for you and that takes its toll. If you are not careful to alleviate that stress, you risk falling into burnout or depression yourself. So figure out what you need to do to take care of you and then do those things, which may include exercising more, sleeping a little more, or spending intentional time with your friends.

Going through a time where your spouse is burnt out can actually strengthen your marriage. In the end, you will both be stronger people and you will know that your relationship can survive hard things. Work toward this and that time of burnout doesn't have to be wasted time.

Has your spouse suffered burnout? What helped you deal?

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