Coping with Emotional Exhaustion // Hump Day Q&A

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You know what time it is, sweetie?

It's Hump Day. Q and A time.

Hump Day.

Q and A. Hump Day Q and A.

Welcome to the Naked Marriage Podcast. Hump Day Q and A. We love answering your questions. So every Wednesday we're dropping a special podcast episode focused on one of your questions. You can submit your own marriage related question online@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or by sending us a message on Instagram. Aveandashleywillis. We've got a great question today, so let's dive in. Hey friends, welcome back to the best day of the week. It's hump day. Hump day Q and A. Every Wednesday we answer one of your questions. You can submit your questions a number of ways. Easiest way is probably heading over to Instagram, sending us a DM with your question. We're aveandashleywillis on Instagram and and we got a great question today which says this. My spouse and I are both emotionally exhausted from years of trying to keep our marriage afloat. We've been through so much together, from financial struggles to family crises, and now it feels like we're just surviving, not thriving. The thought of working on our relationship feels overwhelming because we're both so drained. How can we find the energy and motivation to reinvest in our marriage when it feels like we have nothing left to give? Man, thank you for that question. I can hear, I can feel, feel the exhaustion and the frustration and the hurt. And first off, thank you for sharing. Thank you for your honesty. And I think people tune into this podcast in every different scenario in marriage. Some people, things are going great and they listen to podcast because it's just part of their daily or weekly habit of investing in their marriage and they want to keep things going great. Others may be listening and they're in a season where things are just kind of blah. It's like not necessarily a crisis, but, you know, we're just kind of in autopilot, grinding through life, paying bills, raising kids and, you know, we'd like to connect a little bit more. And then there are folks that are really in a kind of a desperate place, maybe dealing with infidelity, maybe dealing with just complete emotional exhaustion. You. You know, like. Like, maybe the person that wrote this is there. It's kind of like I don't. I'm just so done. I'm so tired. It's like you're telling me I gotta climb to the top of this mountain in front of me. And I don't feel like I have the strength to take another step, much less climb a mountain. What do I do? First off, just know God's with you in this. You're not alone. And know that it's not always gonna be this hard.

No.

And know that there is hope. It might feel like you've tried a bunch of things and nothing has worked, but there is always hope. There are always solutions. And I'm so glad and that you have hope for solutions or you wouldn't have written the question. And so thank you for that.

That's right. You guys, I want to share a great resource with you that I feel like when it comes to this big kind of point in your marriage where you're just emotionally kind of just don't have anything left to give, I feel like a lot of that comes down to communication because you've just been through a lot, and you don't. What I really hear you saying in this is I don't really have the words or the energy, you know, to put behind even emotion, behind my words. And so I want to recommend this great resource by the Gottmans, by John Gottman. You've probably heard of Dr. John Gottman and his wife and their institute where they help married couples. And they've done years and years of research in what they call the Love Lab, where they observe couples over a long period of time to see, like, what really makes marriage work. And so they wrote this book called the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. And in one of the chapters, it talks about Principle 7, which is creating shared meaning. And it talks about the four pillars of shared meaning. And pillar one is creating rituals of connection. And, you know, this sounds so simple. Like, of course we connect. We're married. But I feel like when we find ourselves in such an emotional rut, we've probably lost sight of our own connection. Like, maybe we're connecting with the kids, we're connecting with our coworkers, we're connecting with, you know, the different roles that we have in our life, but really we've lost Sight of connecting as husband and wife. And so we need to have our rituals of connection. That means we have time every day that we connect and we talk about things more than just shop talk. And then time every week where we maybe get away for a date night or a day date, or we just do things that just really fill each other's tank. And even just little acts of love, like just thinking about each other and doing little things that just make the other feel good, like making a cup of coffee in the morning, bringing home flowers after a long day at work, or bringing home some takeout that you know is your spouse's favorite restaurant. There's a lot of ways to do this. You know, that's the first of the pillars of creating shared meaning. The second one is to support each other's roles. We all have roles to play. We all have roles, whether in the home and outside of the home. And so what we need to do to create shared meaning is to really see each other and support each other in our roles. And what that can look like is really talking about, like, how can I make your life easier? How can I make what you're doing in all of your roles more conducive for your life? Does that mean I go pick up the kids today? Does that mean I make dinner today? Does that mean I just, I don't know, take something off your plate or just make you laugh? Whatever it is, you know, we try to support each other in our roles. The third pillar is shared goals. Because when we're in a rut, we tend to lose sight of our goals because we're so exhausted. We're like, I can't even think of goals. But I want to encourage you. You need to still dream together. You need to have a date night, which is, you know, finding time of connection. During that time of connection, don't just talk about the kids. Don't just talk about the finances. Don't just talk about work or the things you need to do on the honey do list or whatever it is, but talk about, like, what are some goals for the future, even if they never happen, you guys, they are so fun to talk about. I can't tell you how many goals.

And dreams together is huge.

It's so huge.

And I think that it's kind of a warning light on the dashboard of your marriage when you're not dreaming together.

Exactly.

Like, if there's not this shared excitement about any goal, any aspect of the future. So keep dreaming, keep believing, keep talking, keep praying, Keep just being excited about what the future might hold.

That's right. And the last pillar of creating shared meaning from the Seven Principles for making Marriage Work by John Gottman is you. You create shared values and symbols. Now what they mean by this is like, what do you have that represents your family? Like, when you think of your family, when you think of your marriage, what is your shared. What are your shared values? And like a symbol that represents your family. You know, are you strong together? Like, are you guys just real competitive and strong? And like, that's something that's a huge value in your family. Are you all like, is faith just at the center of your family to where it's like, that is just your foundation, you know, that's something for Dave and I like that we are a family of faith and that's a shared value. And even a symbol, the cross is a symbol for our family. So just think about, like, what is it for your family? What represents your family? And really talk about that. Because all of those things, all of those pillars together create shared meaning. And that is how you get out of a rut is like, I think so many times we find ourselves in a rut and we think, what is all this for? Why are we fighting? Why are we even fighting for this marriage? We don't have anything to give. Is it just taking more from us than giving? Like, why are we in this? And so that's why we have to really think about what is our shared meaning, like, why, you know, what are some ways we can connect? What are some ways that we can support each other in our roles? You know, what is the value that we have together? What are our shared goals and dreams? Because that will get you out of that funkiness and get you thinking forward. Because I think a lot of times in the rut, we can't see beyond the day. We can't see beyond this one crisis we're dealing with and then the next crisis we're dealing with. And so talking about these things and is going to be like fresh wind to the sails of your marriage.

So good. Another resource that I'd recommend is actually one that we did along with xo and it's. It's a seven day process. I think sometimes, if you will commit to a short but specific amount of time moving forward, it can help you break out of a rut. Even like with an exercise routine. It's like, first workout is probably going to be terrible and make you want to quit, but if you commit, I'm going to do this seven days in a row. Yeah. Then all Of a sudden you have a habit that's formed and you start actually feeling good. So we have a his and hers really activity slash devotional book called Seven Days to a Naked Marriage. There's a husband's edition and a wife's.

Edition, but they do complement each other.

Yeah, they're meant to go together. And any of the resources from us or from exo, like all the funds from that go right back into the ministry to help XO continue to fuel and fund the work of building stronger marriages. So not only are these books helping you, but you know, you're partnering with us in a sense to help us continue this work, to, to put out resources. Many of those resources being free, of course, as well. But the seven days to a naked marriage, you can get exomarriage.com store or you can get those on Amazon. And the people who've gone through that, who've really done it, even if you don't do it in seven days, maybe you say, we're going to do, we're going to do this over seven weeks. We're just going to go through like one of these things each week and spread it out over seven weeks. The seven days isn't as important as going through these seven exercises together in a specific amount of time and really committing to it. And I really believe that by the end, you're going to have some new habits, you're going to have some new perspective. And I believe it could pull you out of that rut if you don't do the Seven Day book. Find something. Find something that you can do together and commit to for a specific amount of time and then follow through with it. You know, don't just trust your feelings right now because when you're in a rut, your feelings are going to lie to you. They're going to say it's not worth the effort. But when you just commit to it and say, I'm going to do this even when I don't feel like it, your feelings are probably going to start catching up. And next thing you know, this spouse that you've had all this resentment for, you're going to start feeling for them again. So just commit to the process.

That's right. And like Dave said, I just want to reiterate it, you clearly care or you wouldn't have written us. So there is an ounce of hope for you, for your marriage, and I know you know that. And so we're praying for you, we're rooting for you, and God sees you and he is with you.

So good, so good. Friends, one of the resources I'll share is exo Mediation. If you want to talk to one of our mediators, go to xomarriage help.com Again, Ashley was sharing from the book the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Dr. John Gottman. We'd love to hear from you, friends. Write us on Instagram. You can go to exomarriage.com our ministries website and find many resources there as well. And as always, thank you so much for tuning in to the Naked Marriage Podcast and being part of the Naked Nation.

Naked Nation.

We'll see you next time. Friends.

Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com, you can submit your question right there. Or you can follow us on Instagram, Ave and ashleywillis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day Q and A.