What does a person who DOESN’T LOVE you look like?
If someone you expect love from suddenly stops giving it to you, then try to admit that maybe it’s burnout. What if your wife hasn’t stopped loving you, but she’s just incredibly tired—she’s exhausted by her children, home, and work? By the way, you don’t necessarily have to have children to burn out. You can simply take on more obligations (even if it’s out of a desire to do good for someone), and that’s it!
My friend shared a text with me yesterday about what a person who doesn’t love you looks like. It was about indifference: he brushes you off and doesn’t pay attention to your suffering or joy. Or doesn’t give you gifts?
I completely agree that a person who does not love you may seem indifferent. But he may also seem, on the contrary, very attentive and caring. And give gifts. And then ask ingratiatingly, “Why don’t you wear that brooch I gave you? Don’t you like it?”
What does a person who DOESN’T LOVE you look like? Dislike or burnout?
When this question is asked more than once, you understand that he gives gifts not to you but to himself—so that you wear them and praise them. You want to return them. But he will be offended; he will say, “I gave it to you from the bottom of my heart… And you did not appreciate it.” And he will not even think that these are mutually exclusive concepts.
There are also great actors—who bring home groceries, play with children, listen attentively, console, and always go on vacation together. In general, they look like real loving people, not indifferent at all. But on the side, they have been having an affair for many years. On vacation together, but on business trips… Or many small, not even affairs, but so—”it’s just for the body, nothing personal.” Can this be considered love if a person looks like a loving one?
But something else is even more important. God bless them, these pretenders. As a parent and as a person who communicates with parents of difficult children, I know for sure that burnout often resembles a lack of love.
Burnout is not always anger or irritation. Very often it is simply indifference, and indifference is usually external: love has not disappeared, but it has hidden behind exhaustion and made a person insensitive.
The person doesn’t hate you at all; he just doesn’t have the strength to show love.
I remember reading about the Leningrad blockade at school: a girl described how they fried mustard flatbreads—first they spent a long time evaporating the bitterness. It was difficult and time-consuming to do, but necessary. You couldn’t eat like that; you’d burn your stomach right away. And so the younger brother couldn’t; he couldn’t stand it; he grabbed the unevaporated part and ate it. And he fell on the bed, began to suffer, howl, and die.
At that moment, the mother came home from the factory, glanced at her son, lay down on the bed, turned her face to the wall, and lay there. And the brother cried and died.
Didn’t that mother love her child? She did; I’m more than sure. She was just so physically and mentally exhausted that she had no strength left for sympathy, empathy, or help.
Therefore, if someone from whom you expect love suddenly stops giving it to you, then try to admit: that maybe it’s burnout. What if your wife hasn’t stopped loving you, but she’s just wildly tired—she’s exhausted by the children, the house, and work?
By the way, you don’t even have to have children to burn out. You can just take on more responsibilities (even if it’s out of a desire to do good for someone)—and that’s it!
You can see these signs in your friends too: if your friend was always cheerful, happy, and easily got involved in all sorts of crazy things, could chat with you for hours, and suddenly she didn’t care what was going on with you, then perhaps it’s not her new boyfriend or passion for sports, but she’s simply burned out.
She was tired. And sport was her attempt to somehow get out of this state.
And she doesn’t need your resentment, but support and sympathy. And help. It can be anything, even the simplest thing—helping her clean the apartment and get rid of old things. Well, it would be good to send her to a specialist, a good psychologist.
And of course, don’t forget about yourself. Loss of interest in life, “I just don’t feel like doing anything”—this can also be a symptom of burnout; it’s a loud alarm bell.
