Stage 1: Emotional exhaustion
The first stage is emotional exhaustion. In this stage, you’re drained of emotional energy. The feelings that once connected you to your spouse are replaced by numbness. When you’re emotionally exhausted, three things happen:
- you struggle to access your true feelings
- you can’t respond to others’ feelings
- you have trouble regulating your emotions
The latter point is partly due to the brain areas affected by burnout (I go into more depth about this in my book, Stress Fracture), but the key takeaway is that burnout disrupts emotional balance. And in a relationship that’s already strained, this can be a tipping point.
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