Key takeaways
The early stages of a relationship are exhilarating: an adrenaline rush just from thinking about your partner, butterflies in your stomach, etc. Relationships progress, people get comfortable, routine sets in, and initial feelings can fizzle out. In some cases, the early feelings can be replaced by lethargy, exhaustion, and negative ones about a partner. This process is known as relationship burnout.
You feel detached or distant from your partner. It usually happens gradually, so you might not notice until you start feeling completely drained. People who experience relationship burnout share they hoped the connection would flourish, but when not everything went as they hoped, they were deeply disappointed.
That said, burnout doesn’t mean you don’t love them anymore or you want to end the relationship. Healthy relationships can go through burnout spells. It does happen to people with an insecure attachment style more often, as well as in unhealthy relationships. Insecure attachment styles, such as avoidant and anxious, are far from uncommon, with estimates in the range of 15%-25%.
It’s essential to take measures as soon as possible because mental health affects your relationships, sometimes adversely. According to 2024 estimates, 46.6 million US adults have experienced a mental illness. The prevalence impacts relationships, with studies showing that around 40% of couples suffer from mental health challenges influencing relationship dynamics.
Travel can be essential in preventing relationship burnout by offering couples a chance to step away from the monotony and stress of daily life and reconnect in a fresh, distraction-free environment. Routine can often dull emotional intimacy, leading to feelings of disconnection. Traveling together creates shared experiences, encourages teamwork, and brings novelty back into the relationship; all key elements that can help bring you emotionally and physically closer. You might even see your partner in a new light and remember why you fell in love, renewing your emotional bond.
You don’t have to wait until the point of burnout to take time apart. This decision can significantly benefit the relationship, provided it’s made with the intention of allowing a renewed desire to spend time together to resurface through constructive distance and genuine curiosity. To ensure the relationship improves instead of deteriorating further, it might be a good idea to sit down with your partner and make a list of all the things that unleash your creativity, make you happy, enrich your life, or feed your soul, which you would like to do separately.
The frequency of your trips apart depends on you and the other person. It can be once every few months or even once a month. Each couple has different needs. However, you shouldn’t use the trips to do anything that would make your partner feel you don’t care about the relationship or threaten its security. Discuss your plans in advance and ensure they are agreeable to your partner. If you skip this step, you could invite distrust and insecurity in the relationship.
There is an inextricable link between burnout and these highly common mental health conditions, which travel can help ease. Anxiety disorders are the most frequently occurring mental illness, affecting 18.1% of the US population, which corresponds to 40 million adults. In relationships, anxiety manifests as constantly worrying about the relationship, difficulty making decisions, being clingy, or avoiding social situations and demanding that the two of you are always alone. Around 20% of US adults have experienced depression, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, which manifests in withdrawing from a partner, losing interest in intimacy, and feeling hopeless.
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