🌿 Revisit #8 — Me Jane, Me Exhausted:
Carrying Too Much Alone (When Emotional Labor Becomes Survival)
Carrying Too Much Alone (When Emotional Labor Becomes Survival)
There’s a special kind of exhaustion that lives inside a woman who has been carrying the emotional weight of a relationship by herself.
It’s not the tired that sleep fixes.
It’s the tired that comes from over-functioning, over-caring, overgiving, and overshadowing her own needs in the name of keeping the peace.
Jane wasn’t dramatic.
She wasn’t needy.
She wasn’t overreacting.
She was exhausted —
because she had been doing the emotional lifting for so long that she forgot what it felt like to be held.
🌸 What Jane Was Really Feeling
Jane didn’t want to be in control.
She wanted support.
She didn’t want to be strong all the time.
She wanted space to crumble without the fear of being dismissed.
She didn’t want to do everything.
She just didn’t want to be the only one doing everything.
Every time she carried the emotional load alone, she told herself:
“If I don’t do it, no one will.”
“If I ask for help, it’ll start a fight.”
“It’s easier to do it myself than be disappointed again.”
That’s how women burn out in marriages:
not from lack of love,
but from lack of partnership.
Her exhaustion wasn’t weakness —
it was a warning.
🌿 What Tarzan Was Really Feeling
Tarzan didn’t see the full weight she carried because she was too good at carrying it.
Jane’s competence became his permission to stay comfortable.
Not intentionally —
just practically.
Habitually.
He assumed:
“If she needs help, she’ll tell me.”
But she didn’t want to tell him —
she wanted him to notice.
He wasn’t ignoring her burden.
He just didn’t know how to read emotional load.
He thought silence meant stability.
He thought her doing everything meant she preferred it that way.
He didn’t understand the resentment brewing beneath her strength.
🌿 Where the Communication Clogged
Jane didn’t want to sound nagging.
Tarzan didn’t want to feel criticized.
So she swallowed needs
and he missed signals.
She over-functioned
and he under-engaged.
She burned out
and he was shocked by the ash.
Two good people.
One deeply unequal emotional landscape.
🌿 How It Could Have Gone Differently
What Jane could have said:
“I’m tired in ways I don’t have words for.
I need your help — not because I’m weak,
but because I’m human.”
What Tarzan could have said:
“I didn’t realize how much you carried.
Let me take some of that from you.
You don’t have to do this alone.”
What they both needed:
Clear division of emotional labor
Shared responsibility for connection
Acknowledgment of invisible work
Rituals of support
Emotional transparency
A partnership, not a performance
Exhaustion is not a flaw —
it’s a signal that the relationship needs recalibrating.
🌿 Series 3 Intimacy Insight
When one partner carries everything,
intimacy collapses under the weight.
Partnership isn’t about splitting tasks —
it’s about sharing hearts.
🌴 Jungle Laugh:
“Tarzan isn’t difficult. He’s just… Tarzan.”
🔗 Navigation:
← Revisit #7- Me Tarzan, Me Avoidant
→ Revist #9 - Me Tarzan, Me Comparing