Are You “Falling Out of Love” … or is it Burnout?

This week, I am delighted to invite my colleague and friend, Dr. Jonathan Hoover, Ph.D., into this space. Not only is he a pastor and an encourager and advisor for this ministry, but he is also a fellow data nerd! Intrigued by his research into burnout for his recent release, Stress Fracture, I asked Jonathan to do a guest blog on how to avoid burnout in marriage. Also, do yourself a huge favor and catch his brand new podcast, The Dr. Jonathan Hoover Show (or listen on any of your regular podcast sources). Enjoy! – Shaunti

By Jonathan Hoover, Ph.D.

In the early years of my marital counseling ministry, some coworkers would give me a hard time about the “loud” sessions in my office. Usually, these sessions were loud because the couples I counseled had anger issues and struggled to communicate. My job was to help them talk to each other more effectively and “turn down the volume” on the emotional intensity.

But it wasn’t the loud ones that bothered me. It was the quietest ones that had me worried.

Here’s why: Some couples had grown so tired of trying to make things work that they didn’t even feel anger anymore. The bright colors of their marriage had faded into a cold, gray numbness. Often, this happens to individuals, especially women, who have been carrying the weight of an unhealthy marriage alone. By the time their partner realizes there’s an issue, they sit across from me and say, “I’d love to feel something again and work on this, but I don’t think I love him anymore.”

The husband is desperate to fix things, but there’s no switch to flip that brings back her engagement. That’s why those were my scariest appointments.

For years, I struggled to understand why people would “fall out of love” with their spouse, especially when both partners still wanted to work things out. Then, as I completed my graduate work in psychology, God helped me connect the dots. I’d been studying burnout, writing about it in my dissertation, and focusing on it in my academic research. Most burnout research centers on work: productivity, chronic stress, and coping strategies. But gradually, it dawned on me that the couples sitting in my office weren’t falling out of love—they were experiencing marital burnout.

Three Stages of burnout

Here’s a quick primer on how burnout works: It happens when someone faces relentless stress for too long. We call this chronic stress. Unlike stressors that come and go, chronic stress sticks around. Chronic stress doesn’t resolve; it revolves, showing up again tomorrow just like it did today. And marital issues are a prime example. Until a couple seeks help, a significant marital problem is a persistent battle that never goes away.

When burnout happens, three stages typically unfold (this model is based on the work of Dr. Christina Maslach, a leading burnout researcher).

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.

Stage 2: Depersonalization

The second stage is depersonalization. When you’re too exhausted to handle your stress, it’s normal to start shutting down and pulling back. While a natural response, it’s also a red flag. When people experience depersonalization, they withdraw from the people and activities they once loved, sometimes becoming untrusting, cynical, and disengaged.

Stage 3: Feelings of failure

Finally, burnout brings feelings of failure. Dr. Maslach calls this “reduced feelings of personal accomplishment.” When you’re running on empty and notice yourself pulling back, it’s common to feel failure and shame. You’re aware that you’re not living up to your own ideals, and that can lead to a downward spiral of self-doubt and despair.

Now, when I think about the couples who told me they’d fallen out of love, I see a different picture. Most likely, they were emotionally exhausted, had begun to withdraw from the relationship, and were feeling a profound sense of defeat.

The good news is that if you or someone you know is dealing with marital burnout, there’s hope. We are growing in our understanding of burnout, and, as a result, we are able to share clear steps to address it. Here are three essential strategies for fighting marital burnout:

Step #1: Self-Care

One of the first steps in battling burnout is to invest in self-care—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Consider making appointments with a doctor, a therapist, and a pastor. Addressing these three areas can pay big dividends in your journey to heal. Each small improvement in physical health, emotional resilience, or spiritual well-being helps replenish the energy that burnout depletes, and gives you more margin to handle things well instead of poorly.

Step #2: Stress Reduction

Some marital stress is inevitable; every relationship has its share of challenges that come from sharing life with another imperfect person. However, unaddressed stress over the long term is not just annoying—it is what eventually leads to marital burnout. So make sure your marriage isn’t starved of time and attention. And  evaluate the pressures on your marriage and find ways to lighten the load where possible.

For example, if you’re constantly disagreeing and stressed due to that ever-present in-law situation, but never get the space to sit down over coffee and hear each other’s hearts, it may be tempting to just “put up with” the stress. It is one thing to not major on the minors and choose to let things go. But if a situation is unresolved and causing constant stress it’s not minor: be proactive in seeking help to address it.

Step #3: Start Over

In Revelation, God speaks to a church that had worked itself into exhaustion, losing its passionate love in the process. He tells them: “Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first…” (Revelation 2:5a, NLT). God is reminding them to return to the actions that once fueled their love.

In marriage, this means asking: What things did you do when you first fell in love? Before life got so busy, what brought you closer together? Early on, it may have seemed effortless to make time for fun, laughter, and togetherness. But as the years pass, those things stop happening automatically. In the beginning, these actions are instinctive, but for a relationship to endure, they must become intentional.

If you’re burned out in your marriage, you don’t have to stay that way. It’s absolutely possible to rekindle the feelings that have faded. I see it all the time. So start by taking care of yourself, reducing stress wherever you can, and intentionally bringing back the activities that energized your relationship in the beginning. If you’re willing to invest the effort, I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results.

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Jonathan Hoover, Ph.D. is the senior associate pastor at NewSpring Church in Wichita, Kansas. He is also an assistant professor at Regent University, where he teaches, among other classes, a course on the integration of psychology and Christianity. A third-generation pastor, his specific research interest is clergy burnout and self-care.

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If you are interested in having Shaunti bring research-based strategies, practical wisdom and biblical principles to your next event, please contact Nicole Owens at [email protected].

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