Trouble sleeping, feelings of anxiety or hopelessness, withdrawal from relationships, emotional outbursts … these are all symptoms of burnout, which can occur as a reaction to chronic unresolved stress.

While some level of stress can be a good thing – motivating productivity and performance – at some point, stress tips over the breaking point and becomes detrimental. For a person struggling with burnout, stress has so depleted them of emotional energy it affects not just their work, but the people they love most. Unfortunately, humans are not able to recognize their tipping point in advance. Burnout wreaks havoc both professionally and personally, leaving a trail of brokenness in its wake.

Pastor, college professor, organizational psychologist and marriage coach Jonathan Hoover, Ph.D., explains burnout in his 2024 book, Stress Fracture: Your Ultimate Guide to Beating Burnout. He calls burnout a warning: “a lesson in how finite we are as human beings. We live in a culture that lures us to believe we will always have more energy. Like an overdrawn bank account, our energy isn’t unlimited.”

Jonathan debunks the myth behind the “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” mentality so prized in American culture. In reality, “What doesn’t kill you may almost kill you. And it can certainly make you sick and take away your ability to do what you love,” he wrote.

Chronic stress shows up physically, emotionally, and spiritually – that trifecta is always there, Jonathan added. People might develop migraines, inflammation in the body, even sexual dysfunction. Emotional exhaustion depletes energy for even the most valued relationships of spouse and children. Burnout may lead people to doubt their relationship with God.

“One of the most underestimated resources in our lives is emotional energy. It’s foundational to every area of a healthy life. But a person struggling with burnout is running out of that energy, stuck with the disorienting and anxiety-provoking feelings of failure, shame, and depression.” Jonathan wrote.

Jonathan likes to use the principle of collapse to describe burnout. If what is pushing you down (chronic stressors) is stronger than what is holding you up, (practices that create emotional energy and promote resilience) there is going to be a collapse. “When there’s not much holding you up, one little thing can be the one thing that causes the collapse – literally the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

Jonathan saw the effects of burnout firsthand when the chronic stress of growing and leading a megachurch led his father to the breaking point. The loss of a key staff member was the catalyst to cause what some might call a nervous breakdown. Jonathan, just 29 and newly on staff at NewSpring Church in Wichita, Kansas, became the primary speaker at the church during his father’s absence – two months during the busiest season of the year. When his father returned, he chose to share his struggle with the church, which not only endeared him to his congregation but opened up conversation and encouraged others to reveal and seek help for their mental health struggles.

That incident in 2010 sparked Jonathan’s interest in studying psychology more deeply. His pastor’s position at NewSpring Church included coaching couples, and he quickly realized he was “over my head” and returned to school to study psychology. Not only did Jonathan finish a degree in general psychology with an emphasis in counseling from Liberty University and a master’s in general psychology from Regent University, he continued on to earn a Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology from Grand Canyon University. Jonathan began teaching at Regent University in the graduate school of psychology and counseling in 2019.

A third-generation pastor, Jonathan came to his vocation through a circuitous path. He originally went into automotive repair after marrying his wife, Wendy. He now oversees the marriage and family programs as Senior Associate Pastor at NewSpring Church and also serves full-time at Regent University as an Assistant Professor and Director of the Master of Science in General Psychology Program. Jonathan shepherds graduate students through the MS in general psychology program and teaches advanced statistics and research methods design.

His work researching burnout shed light on situations he encountered coaching couples. He began to recognize that burnout steals hope and has begun to focus his research attention on the new and important field of how burnout affects marriage.

“Chronic stress caused by a continued cycle of unaddressed issues in a marriage can build up and reach a tipping point of burnout,” he said. When people come for coaching and they position the relationship as a failure or evidence lack of feeling, one reason can be burnout.

“There are few places where chronic stress will hit you as consistently as in marriage,” he said, “which is by default exhausting.” Whether it’s parenting young children, managing the guilt of helping with elderly parents, worrying about career stress or job loss, a couple is under this burden day after day with diminished hope of improvement. Jonathan noted that the average couple waits more than six years after recognizing a major martial issue to seek help, according to research by The Gottman Institute. Jonathan sees couples in divorce court because they burned out. Their unaddressed stress morphed into a lack of hope they didn’t know how to overcome.

In his 15 years counseling couples, people would tell him things like, “I wish I could feel passion for my marriage and spouse,” and “I feel hollow and empty.” Running out of emotional energy is a prototypical model of burnout, Jonathan said.

“There’s a lack of understanding in our culture that marriage is a job,” he added. “We serve God first, but we also are called to serve our spouse before ourselves. We get exhausted because we didn’t realize it was going to be a hard job.”

“Getting fatigued is normal, it’s God’s way of letting us know to rest – it’s the gas light going on in the car. Exhaustion is being stranded on the side of the road with no gas. The energy someone normally expends to meet the demands of life is gone.”

One who is emotionally exhausted starts to depersonalize and withdraws from their best self and anything that might demand something of them. They don’t feel they have any emotional bandwidth to interact with their spouse. The couple stops talking. They begin seeing themselves and their marriages as failures. Without a positive view of the future, they become depressed and fatalistic. They begin to question whether they can stay together. Their marriage feels hollow and pointless.

“The good news is that now we have more knowledge than ever on managing stress to prevent or recover from burnout,” Jonathan explained. “There’s hope for that in a way we haven’t thought of. It’s a powerful thing to apply the models of burnout that we know will work to marriage.”

The solution to burnout is energy. We have to put work into energizing our marriages, he said.

He recommends people seek help physically, emotionally and spiritually – visit a medical doctor for a thorough checkup, speak with a counselor, spend time in God’s Word or talk with a pastor. Once they start to claw their way out, the biggest difference people notice is they start to have some energy again.

“They are actually a little surprised,” Jonathan said. “They start experiencing feelings they haven’t felt in a while. They start to laugh. They start to interact physically. All the things that used to be tight and closed and shut down start to bloom again. They start to see hope.”

Where before they thought, “I am not sure I want the future with us because I’m so discouraged by what that would look like.” Now they start looking forward to things. They begin to have compassion for each other. Emotional engagement comes back. They begin to open up to the fact that they might not be a failure, to see that the situation is not as bad as it seems. They regulate their own emotions better and use the emotional currency of compassion and engagement.

Jonathan and Wendy went through their own struggles early in their marriage, a process they describe in the introduction to the book, Fight Proof Your Marriage: A Simple Guide to Help You Stop Fighting & Start Getting Somewhere, published in 2016. They found themselves tripped up when they were “trying to do all the things the marriage books said.” In his experience working with couples Jonathan developed a framework that helped them break through to success more quickly. The concept: underneath every unreasonable reaction is a reasonable pain or fear. The root can be discovered by the answer to the question, “What is it about it that bothers you so much?”

Jonathan cautions the question might not be well received at first and probably won’t get to the bottom of the issue immediately, but once the core concern is finally expressed, couples can move forward to find a solution.

“We so commonly end up at odds with each other because we don’t understand why something matters to our spouse,” he said, pointing out many times people don’t even know why they themselves are upset. “Once we get to understanding, that’s when we can have some constructive conversation.”

Just 50 pages long, Fight Proof Your Marriage helps couples understand:

• Why we lose our minds during conflict. • The reason most marriage help is exhausting, and an easier way to approach communicating that actually works. • How trust can be developed by avoiding two very common very bad habits. • One simple question that can turn conflicts into productive discussions

“If you are looking for real-life and grounded help for navigating the inevitable conflicts we all have in marriage, don’t miss out on the message of this book by Jonathan Hoover. It’s vulnerable, poignant and practical. Do yourself – and your relationship – a favor and read this book!” as recommended by Drs. Les & Leslie Parrott.

The eBook, which includes discussion questions helpful for couples or groups, is available to download.

“We always want to leave couples with the knowledge that there’s hope for them no matter what they are going through. Maybe they are in an emotionally destructive marriage. You do what God is calling you to do, and God will get you through it. There is hope for the light at the end of the tunnel,” Jonathan said.

And for those processing marital loss or recovering from any type of grief, he’s worked with FamilyLife’s Ron Deal on the video curriculum Through This Valley, available at http://throughthisvalley.com. The material is free and available for anyone who might find it beneficial – whether individuals, therapists, hospices or funeral homes.

Jonathan credits the books, For Women Only and For Men Only, written by friends and fellow researchers Shaunti and Jeff Feldhaun as being helpful in revitalizing his marriage, along with the work of Les and Leslie Parrot. He and Wendy still enjoy the redemptive aspect of working with couples.

“Most couples don’t think about what they need to do to inject energy into their marriage on a weekly basis,” he said. Jonathan recommends the 3-2-1 plan – a practice where couples annually schedule three things to strategically help their marriage (listen to a relationship book or attend a seminar), plan two overnight getaways (without work or kids) and calendar one date night a week.

He realizes that during some seasons of life, fitting in a date can be a challenge. In fact, even defining what constitutes a date was difficult for many married couples. Interestingly, not for teens – when asked, they agreed a date meant “time alone together having fun.”

Other energy boosts – attending church together on a regular basis, sharing traditions, goals and projects. Couples who are able to laugh together can use humor to help each other over life’s speed bumps, Jonathan said. And there’s no substitute for spending time. He’s asked couples who struggle to find time for each other to chart how they are using their 24-hour day. Often, they find themselves so busy they’re overcommitted before there’s any space for their marriage.

“When you want your marriage to feel like leftovers – feed your marriage leftovers. If time with your spouse ends up in the ‘would be nice’ column instead of the ‘must column,’ your marriage will never be energized,” Jonathan said. “We need to tend to our marriage first, even before our work.

“Scripture says, ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ Our heart follows our investment. The more you invest in something, the more you will love it. Investing in your spouse will affect how you feel about them. Don’t just give your spouse your leftovers. Give them your first and your best, and if you do, you’ll get the first and the best of them,” Jonathan said.

He’s good at asking the questions that don’t get asked. “What are the ground rules in your marriage?” “What is energizing your marriage – relationships? activities? organizations?”

“That is so huge. People can tell me what’s weighing them down, but when I ask them what is holding them up it gets quiet. We consistently need to spend focused time doing what we can to put supports in place for our marriage and family.”

He encourages couples to connect with a successfully married couple who are older and have been married longer. “Do everything you can to show them you value their time and learn what worked for them.”

Don’t wait for a problem before you start working on your marriage. “If you wait for a problem, you’ll always be filling in craters instead of building. A marriage on autopilot will crash,” he said.

Jonathan also advises couples to take advantage of everything their church offers. NewSpring believes the family is the heart of the church, so they invest heavily in supporting their couples. They were the second church to start using Les and Leslie Parrot’s SYMBIS pre-marital program, which they offer regularly.

NewSpring sponsors a Date Night with a Purpose that attracts upward of 250 couples quarterly. The one-hour program starts with music and games and closes with a short talk on a marriage-related topic.

Their annual marriage retreat is the highlight of the year, Jonathan added. The church plans a weekend getaway out of town featuring a dessert mixer and board game tournament. They offer teaching alternating with plenty of down-time for conversation, connection and relaxation.

“Making the marriage retreat happen requires  a major investment of time and energy from our team, but it is totally worth it,” Jonathan said. “We’ve had multiple couples tell us the retreat gave them the energy they needed to feel like they could keep going.”

Don’t wake up to realize your marriage is on the brink of burnout. Take positive steps to deposit emotional energy into your relationship to keep a healthy balance and avoid overdraft.