Episode 81: The Real Reason Relationships Fall Apart Isn't What You Think

The Hidden Cost Of Exhaustion

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Couply Fit podcast. We are your hosts, Kurt and Deanna Mangum II. We are also the founders of Couply Fit, where we help couples create generational health. We're so excited for this episode. I think it's a little bit of a hot topic. So what if the biggest threat to your relationship isn't arguing, but it's just exhaustion?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

I'll tell you what, when when you're tired, you don't always make great decisions.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

No, it reminds me of the Snickers commercial commercial. Although I was hungry, I feel the same way when I'm hungry.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

No, no, that's facts. That's facts. You ask somebody, if you're making a decision, you're making that decision and you're exhausted, or you're hungry, like there's there's like a 50-50 chance. And this is just my opinion, right? That like it may not be what's almost like not being in your right mind.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

It feels like it. You know what I'm saying? Okay,

Decision Fatigue Starts With Dinner

SPEAKER_00 0:51

so then let's talk about decision fatigue.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Right? So for whether you're a high achiever or just somebody that is kind of the nucleus of maybe your family or you know, other aspects of your life, when you're making decisions at a high level or just a lot of decisions over time, it can be exhausting. So, what's what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is we make decisions all day when it relates to business and critical decisions, team decisions, things like that. That by the time the end of the day gets here and we're asking one simple question, what do we want for dinner?

unknown 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

It's literally like like this ends up being the biggest question of the day. 100% that I can't figure out when I've made all of these decisions all day today, but I'm like, uh, this is what we're thinking. And we literally go back, well, I don't necessarily want that. And so that to me, that's just like what immediately came to mind is like now you're picking something like food, right? And it's like I'm just exhausted. Like the day just something's like auto-order or absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Let alone if you actually if you have kids, right? And then your kids after your work, after you work, you've got to jump into mommy or daddy mode and kind of move on from there too. But it's interesting what you said about the decision fatigue when it comes to eating. Um, I know something for us that's really helped us is being able to have some sort of catering order from our favorite restaurant. I know something too, we've been getting uh like a family meal that's already cooked. It has a protein, a vegetable, and a carbohydrate. So then we take it from the original package and break it down into smaller meals so we can just go into the fridge and pull it out. Because at the end of the day, listen, your girl's tired. Like my mind is feels I don't want to make another decision. No more decisions.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

And then let alone not making one of the decisions that you don't want to make is having to cook something. And you're looking at me like, oh, well, yeah, that sounds good. Who's making it?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Who's making it?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Awkward pause.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Come on.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

I don't know. DoorDash? Uber Eats, are you making it?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

You you're over here like, hold on, you must have forgot uh three squares a day is what I signed up for.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Three squares, three squares. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

That's crazy. Okay,

Burnout Warning Signs Get Loud

SPEAKER_00 3:04

so now what's the difference between burnout and maybe conflict, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

So I would say on the burnout side, I think we've all been there and felt it where we have the signs. I just saw a video earlier. Big Sean was talking about the rapper? The rapper. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The rapper. So Big Sean, a fellow, fellow Detroit native. Yes. Uh, but he was basically talking about how, you know, he was like, I was one one of the top 10 artists from 2010 to 2020. And he was saying all of these records he sold, all of the things, but he said, I was in a depression. He said I was so burnt out. Come on now. So burnt out that I was depressed, so burnt out that he dealt with some suicidal audiation, things like like so burnt out because of that. So I'm listening to him on the Dream Champs podcast, and I was like, wow. One, I appreciate him sharing that because people see the Grammys. Like he sold millions of records, they see the success, they see him on stage, they see these things, but they don't see that other side of success in a lot of times. Or for other people, it's like, hey, there's no success. I didn't get I didn't sell any Grammys. I'm just burnt out from my burnt out, period. Burnt out from my everyday job. So I get it, right? Like, I think for for us, that burnout, like you get to those moments where you're like, no, I should stop. Like, I need to stop. I need to get that break. We get the warning signs too.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

You do.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Right. You get the warning signs. And sometimes we blow past them because, like, no, I have to keep going. I have to do it now. But what do we have if we don't have our health?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

100%. And I also think, although we talked about burnout versus conflict, I almost want to switch that to burnout versus fatigue because there is a difference. That fatigue is that deep-seated, I am almost dreading going into work every day or dreading going into a situation. In my opinion, that's going to be more on the fatigue side. And again, we just talked about decision fatigue. But then I think on the burnout side, that is actually losing your vision. Where are you going? What is the point of me being in maybe in this job? What's the point of uh what I also want for my life, right? When we think about uh relationships and arguing and exhaustion and those things, some of that comes from just simply, I haven't taken a step back in maybe five or 10 years because I've been so honed in and focused on whether it's kids or family or work, that I lost my own vision. What do I want? What's my purpose? Where am I supposed to be for, you know, uh on my divine path? And so I think that, like you said, there are those signs that you can get for burnout. You know, uh even for us, you know, there's been some times where we are, we know that we're getting to that point. We can feel it because you feel that deep-seated exhaust exhaustion. But more importantly, it is you tell yourself in your mind, no, I need a break. We've said that to ourselves, like, uh no, we need to, we need to take a break. And I'm very adamant about that, especially with you too, because I've been, I think I'm a little bit more advanced in the sense of I know and understand that if I need to take a break, I'm gonna take it. Where years before, it's like, girl, we're pushing through always. But I think that's what high achievers do. But I tell you often, I'm like, hey, are, you know, it's after eight. Is that email even going to be answered tonight? I don't think so. So, like, let's go ahead and just start thinking about transitioning. You know, do you want to play a game of Madden?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

That usually gets you out of your uh work mode. Madden, is that what you're saying? You're definitely, you're definitely right. I mean, I think to the point that you made too is yes, high achiever um as far as the mindset, but also both being former athletes, it's like this athlete's mindset of like one more rep. One more, one more workout, one more, one more opportunity, right? Like, so I think that's the wiring

The Athlete Grind Versus Timeouts

SPEAKER_01 6:42

too. And then naturally, some of it is is also a little bit of that just Detroit hustles harder mentality where it's like, hey, like if there's another email, if there's another deal, there's another opportunity, but that's to your point where um I I love there's a book I'm reading about the almanac, but it's basically talking about there's um look at it like a performance, still like an athlete, where you have in sport, like the entire game, you're not, it's not a marathon where you're running the entire race, right? Right? Like you have plays where you have like downtime, you have you have either especially if you're talking football. Come on, now you have the end of the quarter, end of the half.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

When offense is on, you're not on the city.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Come on, you have off season, right? Like there's all of these things. So I had to like not just think about the grind, but think about the framing of like, hey, it's a timeout. You need a timeout right now.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

What does that time out look like? It may look like going to the gym. I mean, I I took a call, like, literally, I had a call and it was like, man, an early morning meeting. You're talking to people in other parts of the world, and you're like, yo, this is like 7 a.m. Like this is eight o'clock in the morning. You know what? I don't have to always be on camera if it's before work hours. Right. I can be getting a walk-in or like doing a walk-in meeting, something where I can balance like this is a break. And I know um it's still working on me. Like you said, you're more advanced. Y'all like, what do you mean you're taking a break, but you're still talking about work? I know. But it's uh, you I think, like you said, you you avoid burnout by yes, keeping the drive and achieving the things you want to achieve when it comes to just the mindset. But I think it's holding space and giving yourself grace as well. So I'm just glad that we're starting to do things like going up north and doing Sedona, being able to, you know, go by the beach or go by the water, take a break and like you just have to.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, there's too much going on. The world is too wild right now that if we don't take a break, um, it's gonna be really detrimental. So now let's

When Exhaustion Turns Into Arguments

SPEAKER_00 8:31

kind of bring this all back to relationships, right? We talked about decision fatigue, we turned out the talked about burnout versus yes, we said conflict, but we kind of changed that to a little bit of fatigue. Um, you even touched on uh health as well. So, how does this all affect marriage? How does this maybe get you to start saying to your spouse that it's not that I want to create an argument, I am just exhausted.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah, I think it's a really big area of opportunity. I think so often, especially in marriages and in relationships in general, you can you can be running your race. Right, right, because we are all individuals first. Like before you were married, you were an individual. You like you were focused on you self-preservation, self-preservation in a way, right? So you're you're like, okay, boom, this is what I need to do. Check, check, check, or these are the boxes. But then you may have your partner that's like, hey, I actually have bandwidth to help you take some things off your yes, or hey, I really need you to spend some quality time with me, which would actually take you away from the work and create one of those boundaries or help eliminate some of the burnout. So I think a heavy piece of it is the communication of like, hey, how how are you doing? How am I doing? But like, where do we want to go moving forward? And I think some of those just conversation starters, having a discussion over a meal, right? Right. Even if it's the little things of like putting in again, I'm always trying to think about it from where the areas that I'm working on. So, like, even not having my phone, like, man, the emails, the text, the WhatsApps, people are, you know, it's I feel like it's always something. Yeah. But getting to the point where, like, hey, we're eating a meal, we're having a date night, we're doing whatever, like the phone is not on. So now we can have some of those questions and dialogue. Hey, what are some areas I can help you? What are some of the things that you're observing? Because sometimes the person that has a front row seat, like your partner, your spouse, they've got a front row seat to like, hey, like you used to go and do, you used to play Madden, you used to go do these things for fun, you used to go golf. You haven't done that in like X amount of months. How are you doing? And I think those are some of the areas to help reel it back in because it can negatively impact your relationship, especially if you're moving in opposite directions. Both people are burnt out, or one is burnt out in like, hey, we could be helping each other.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

100%. And then that can even go into the growing apart aspect that we hear too, that can lead into divorce, unfortunately. But

Build A Cheat Sheet For Moods

SPEAKER_00 10:54

I also want to add to what you mentioned, I think very so on the communication side too, first and foremost, as the individual, you need to know and understand what um what's my mood, what are maybe some of the uh maybe traits that I may have that can exasperate my burnout or that can maybe be talked about with my spouse so that they can know and understand maybe when I'm in it and I don't realize that I'm getting to a point where I am burned out, that they can stop me and say, hey, listen, we need to pause for a moment. APM. It seems like you may need to do, you know what I'm saying? You may need to um go on this resort pass real quick, get you a little day pass to, you know, um a local hotel or something like that, just to get away and step away for a moment. Um, but more importantly, the more that you know yourself, the more you can let your partner know what's going on. So I think that, and I heard this maybe a few months ago, where there was a couple and she said that she actually sat down and wrote out, hey, if you see if I'm being snippy or if I'm being uh maybe a little bit uh moody, or if I'm being uh if I'm being this, it's usually going to mean that I am this. So I'm fatigued, I'm burnt out, I'm feeling exhausted, I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling overwhelmed. So now it's almost like a cheat sheet for your spouse to then kind of pull that up and be like, okay, she was, he or she was kind of a little snippy.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Almost got cussed out. Let me let me let me refer back to my note-card.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Oh, okay, so-and-so's feeling overwhelmed. And I think that's so key because oftentimes what we hear too from couples is there's just a lack of understanding of knowing your partner. Yeah. And which that can lead to like a deep-seated loneliness, a feeling like, gosh, I'm feel lonely in this marriage because you don't know me. And that's we've heard that too.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

But to your point of the getting to know your spouse, I think something that's not talked about enough is does your spouse know who they are?

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Right. That's yeah, I just mentioned that.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

That's what I'm saying. Like, I mean, I think, you know, but one thing that I think also that I love that you that you asked me, and I think it's like, I don't know if it was designed for kids and it could also be used for adults, but like the halt.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

And

Use HALT Before You Snap

SPEAKER_01 13:13

I don't know how many people haven't heard of it, but the halt, I I had never heard of it until you brought it up to me. But hungry, I was like, ooh, yeah, I'm probably hungry if I'm getting snippy.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Oh, I know for sure. Probably hungry. You're hungry.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Are you angry? It's like your snacks are on deck.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Come on, baby D with the snacks.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Snacks are key. You're like, Oh, you I see you have your lunch bag. Is you guys have kids? No. No, we do have, but but there are maybe goldfish in the bag. Um there's a child snack in there. There's a child snack in there. Um, but hungry, are you angry? Which angry is more rare, like you know, but again, are you angry? But you gotta ask yourself what made you my tone, right? Maybe how I said it.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

But also, I may be angry because you maybe see me trying to discipline the kids, or you see me maybe struggling in an area. Struggling with the trash, struggling with you know, groceries to get in, and you're not helping me. What?

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Watching you struggle, better get up. Come on now. Uh so angry, lonely, lonely, which to your point, if someone's watching them struggle, or we see it a lot with you know, couples and and folks that we know that have kids, where it's like, hey, am I the do we? We didn't talk about this, but I'm the sole person looking at these chairing.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Is someone else gonna give me a hand? Hello. So lonely and then tired, tired, which you the whole thing about the exhaustion. Oh my God. Yes, and sometimes it doesn't even have to be where like work was super exhausted. You could just be like drained from the overall, like from the things that are going on in the world. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Your spirit, to be honest, your spirit, your when we just look at whole person health, and we talk about that often, the physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental, yeah, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, we are all exhausted, which is leading to our physical exhaustion. So, when are we taking that time for ourselves to be able to just step back and say, I need a break? Yeah, and I need a full break. So I'm gonna put my phone down, I'm gonna maybe have somebody come and watch the kids if they can. I'm going to maybe even in one way, you know, half the day I'm gonna spend by myself and just work on, not work on myself, but just more so be with myself. And then I maybe add in my spouse or my partner because I do think it's important to have you that individual time of so that you can have that reflection of, okay, what do I need right now? Do I need support? Do I need to work look at my halt? Do I need maybe my somebody to step up in my life? What do I actually need? So then I can communicate what I need to whoever I need to. I think that's just so critical. And again, not easy to do when you're so overwhelmed and you're feeling exhausted and it leads to the arguing. But if you really hone in and take that time to step back and say, okay, let me look Eagle's eye view at my situation and what's going on. Where am I feeling where I'm being supported? Where am I feeling the happiest? Where am I feeling like people are pouring into me? Maybe I focus there first and then I can start figuring out, okay, these are the areas I need support. These are the areas I need a little bit more, maybe from my spouse or from family. Cause it just allows, again, that open communication to be had so that you're not sitting here trying to wonder, okay, why are you like you say, why are you over here about to cuss me out over here?

SPEAKER_01 16:18

And nobody wants to play and nobody wants to play the guessing game, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Of like, yeah, I can't read your mind. You know, I can't read your mind.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Nor do I want to have to read your Facebook updates.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Not the Facebook updates.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

That's no, like, you know, I've got to wait on, I've got to wait on the Facebook update.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

For Gen X.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

It is.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

For Gen X and Uber.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

You know, it and we see it in sports all the time now, too, where it's like you check the player's Twitter account. Like, are they is it a subliminal? Like, are they mad at the team? Are they negotiating their contract? These people doing the same thing in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Remember Kyler Murray? He took all the photos.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Are you still on the team?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Petty Patty.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

People are doing that in their relationship.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

100%. 100%.

Ten Minute Resets That Work

SPEAKER_00 17:00

So now uh we kind of touched on like resting without guilt a little bit, but um, what does that mean in sense of maybe like 10-minute reconnections or something like that? I think we kind of touched upon that a little bit, but just because oftentimes what I especially hear from women is that there's so much guilt around if you are a working mom, you don't have, you're already like we are talking about, you're already exhausted. Is your partner stepping up to help you as well? Are you the glue for everybody? Are you potentially also in the sandwich generation where you're taking care of your ailing parents, but then you also have your kids that you're raising as well. These are all just added stressors on top of what's already happening in the world. So it really is imperative to on a daily basis pull back. And I think that goes to the 10-minute reconnections. And sometimes that's just a 10-minute reconnect with yourself. That can be a 10-minute reconnect with your spouse, even with your kids as well. I think oftentimes people don't realize how intuitive their kids are. Your kids are always watching you, no matter even if you think that they're on their phones all the time and it's the iPad life. I promise you, they're always watching and having those uh intimate conversations with your kids, you're gonna realize that, oh my gosh, like I didn't know that you felt this way, I didn't know that you thought this way, I didn't know these things, but you have to ask. Are you asking the right questions? I think that's a really big piece too.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah, I mean, the right questions, like you said, and then I I think also being able to in that 10 minutes, looking at some strategies that you can use. Maybe it's journaling. Yeah, maybe it's taking, you know, taking a pause and saying, like, where do I how am I feeling right now? You know, what would I label my mood as? Right. And I think some of those things are really impactful. And then also being able to meditate is another big one that's been a game changer for us if you just have five minutes or ten minutes and just any time where you can meditate, like it just it it centers you.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

And then the last one calms you down, calms you down, it calms the nervous system. We're we're operating at such a high level when it comes to anxiety and the overwhelm and the exhaustion. Our nervous systems rarely are getting a break now, and that's the problem. That's what's leading to the the health effects that we're seeing. We're seeing higher stroke percentages, we're seeing high higher heart attack percentages under the age of 50, and just these things that it's a must. You have to do it. So the 10-minute reconnections, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Journaling, meditation, anything else?

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Um, I think those were you like the pool.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

I know that's something too, like water therapy in a way.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah, I think the pool is a great one for those that have access, right? Uh sometimes if you can't access a pool, local pools, don't sleep on them. Well, if you can't access a pool, it might be a shower or a bath.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

But your music, I love that vibe out, be able to kind of create your energy or a spa type of environment. Um, I think that makes a big difference. And then, you know, lastly, I would say you're, you know, creating or pouring back into you. I know something for us is listening to whatever music makes you more upbeat. It could be a certain artist, a certain song, it could be gospel as a genre where it's like, man, I am feeling I gotta beat the devil down.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Beat the devil down, beat the devil down, beat him.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

I've gotta beat the devil down today. And so let me play this music.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

And the devil may be a person.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Come on, let me play this music. You know, he's he does use, he did, he did send a messenger.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Yes, he does, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

So being able to overcome that, I think makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Yeah, absolutely.

Calendar Overload And Blackout Dates

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Now, do you think that when it comes to like we're talking calendar overload, right? Where again, if you do have kids, that's just an additional, I'm going here, here, here, here, here, because you want them to maybe try different sports and different activities and all the things. Do you think, like, how would you tell me somebody to maybe restructure their calendar overload uh so that it's not so overwhelming?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

That's a great question. And again, I think part of it is you never have it all figured out. We're always just improving and getting better because there's always adding on. Like if you have one kid and you add a second kid, like these are more activities. Definitely. You add a new job or a new place, like there's always, like I hate to say it, but we're always typically adding something on. So, how do we look at how we can scale back? Right. I think one of the things that we talked about just in planning phase is there's gonna be certain times of the year where like this is our uh, you know, call what a blackout period. Yeah. It's kind of reminds of blackout dates. Come on, blackout dates. It reminds you of like, you know, certain companies. You can't take you can't take Black Friday or Cyber Monday off because we need you on, you know, on staff, or we need, you know, we need to do the same thing for our personal lives. What are the blackout dates where it's like, hey, I don't care if you have a tournament, we're all going to the family reunion. Right. I don't care if it's baseball season, soccer season, like unless it's a championship tournament, we're we're going on this camping trip and we're gonna. Drive because it always isn't about how much money you have to spend. You can drive to a camping site and not spend a ton of money, pack your snacks, things like that. But it's the time together to reset no phones, iPads, like things like that. But if you have a blackout date and now your kids and spouse, everybody can get excited because they know like nothing's gonna trump or over like, you know, nothing's gonna overtake the blackout dates of us doing family time or us having these. So non-negotiable. Non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

And I like that. I I do like having non-negotiables because again, oftentimes what we're hearing, and really what we're saying is it's creating the boundaries. But when you create the boundary of what that looks like, like you said, the blackout dates, I'm gonna set 10 minutes aside every day. I'm gonna maybe shorten my meetings every day as well, where it's gonna be 25 rather than 30. So I can have a five-minute grace period to just use the restroom. Uh, I'm gonna make sure that I have, you know, food from our favorite catering company ready, prepped, ready to go. It's yes, number one, it's making your life easier. It's gonna help with the overwhelm and the exhaustion, but more importantly, when you set that boundary for yourself and you stick to that boundary and it becomes a non-negotiable, you actually feel better because you feel you're building your confidence, you're building, you know, it goes back to positive psychology where when you are working on your strengths, it's going to continue to boost your confidence, like I mentioned, your self-esteem and just make you feel good that oh okay, I can do hard things. Yeah, absolutely. So that helps out a lot too. Uh, is there anything else when it comes to, you know, the biggest threat to your relationship isn't arguing, it's exhaustion. Anything else for the listeners to take?

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah, I would say um when it comes to that exhaustion, just not giving in to the I have to grind. I have to just basically I have to ignore the warning signs, right? It's like your gas light. You see the, you know, you see the yellow.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

100%.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Light said we're low. You drove past another gas station.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

I know my car.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Come on now. I know my I know my car. I'm good. I can I I can respond to 10 more emails. I can do two more. Come on now. And it's like, no.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

But that but that's to your point, you're already depleted when the light comes on. And now, if we're continuously saying, Oh, I have that 10 more miles, then you went from depletion to now being um on fumes. And you're you're already past the point uh that you should have said, Okay, my warning light was on, that check engine light was on. Let me take the time now to step away before it gets too bad, before I have to go potentially to the hospital or something happens.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Let's recover before we're on empty. Yes, which I love.

Recover Before Empty And Closing

SPEAKER_01 24:42

And by the way, this episode is brought to you by the number one podcast studio in Arizona. Shout out to AZ Pod Studio as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Love it. So, our Coupley Fit friends, if this resonated with you, we always ask that you please share maybe with your spouse, share with a friend, share with somebody that you think will be able to gain some valuable information from what we talked about. If you are following us on social media, we hope you are. It's at Coupley Fit, C O U, P L E Y, F I T. And as always, keep growing, glowing, and feeling better together. Bye.