I really feel this. When my whole life plan imploded a couple years ago, I ended up leaning heavily on my best friend—and I didn't realize until later how much I was draining her. She finally told me she needed some space, and honestly? It hurt at first, but it was the wake-up call I needed to actually build my own support system instead of putting everything on one person. From the other side of it, I can say that boundaries might feel like rejection in the moment, but they're actually what kept our friendship alive. Your partner might surprise you with more resilience than you think if you give them the chance to figure some things out on their own. You being burnt out helps nobody.

This hits close to home in a different way - I'm drowning in student loan payments right now and that financial stress has me constantly putting myself last too, just in a different context. What struck me about your post is that line about their needs seeming 'more urgent' than yours. I do that exact same thing - like my stress about money feels less legitimate than someone else's 'real' problems. But here's what I'm slowly learning: running yourself into the ground doesn't actually make you more available or helpful. Last month I finally said no to covering a friend's dinner tab again and felt awful about it, but I literally couldn't afford groceries that week. The guilt was crushing but I survived it, and so did the friendship. Maybe start with one small boundary - not even a big one - and see what happens? Sometimes we catastrophize how people will react when really they might just... adjust. You sound like such a caring person, but caring for yourself isn't optional, it's literally required for this to be sustainable.

God, I feel this in my bones. I'm a teacher and I've been questioning lately whether I'm making any difference at all in my students' lives, and reading your post made me realize I do the same thing you're doing—just in a different context. I stay late every day, I bring work home, I lose sleep worrying about the kids who are struggling, and somewhere along the way I stopped doing the things that reminded me why I loved this work in the first place. Last month I skipped my book club three times in a row because I felt like I needed to be available for extra help sessions, and then I wondered why I felt so hollow. What I'm learning (painfully, slowly) is that when you give from an empty place, what comes out isn't actually your best anymore—it's just whatever's left. That snap you had? I've had those moments with students, and the shame is crushing. But maybe it's our minds and bodies literally saying 'I can't keep doing this exact thing in this exact way.' I don't have answers, but I'm trying to believe that taking care of myself isn't taking away from the people I want to help—it's actually what makes it possible to keep showing up at all.

Reading this brought up something I've been working through in therapy - how caregiving can become a way of avoiding our own stuff. After my trauma, I found it so much easier to focus entirely on my partner's needs than to deal with my own body and what happened to it. Their depression felt more 'legitimate' than my physical recovery somehow. But my therapist pointed out that I was using their crisis as a reason to never sit with my own pain. That hit hard. I'm not saying that's what you're doing, but maybe check in with yourself about whether some of this is about them actually needing all of this from you, or whether staying in caregiver mode feels safer than facing your own needs. When I finally started going to my physical therapy appointments instead of skipping them to be available, I felt guilty as hell. But I also started to feel like a person again instead of just a support system. Your needs aren't less urgent just because they're yours.

I'm sitting here reading this and it's like looking in a mirror. I just got off the phone with my partner and I'm so tired I could cry. The thing that really got me was when you said you feel guilty even thinking about your own needs—I do that exact thing, like constantly. I've started noticing I literally apologize before saying I need anything. 'Sorry, but I'm actually really exhausted tonight' or 'Sorry, I know you're having a hard time, but I need to...' Why am I apologizing for being human? I think what makes it so hard is that their pain is so visible and urgent and mine just feels like... I don't know, like I'm just being weak or not trying hard enough. But then I'll be driving home from work and realize I'm dreading walking through the door, and that's when I know something is really wrong. Because I love them. I shouldn't dread coming home to someone I love. I don't have advice, I'm clearly struggling with the same stuff. But maybe we both need to hear that we're allowed to be tired. We're allowed to have needs. Even if theirs feel bigger.

Reading this made my chest tight because I recognize that feeling of being so attuned to someone else's pain that your own becomes this background noise you try to ignore. I'm someone who absorbs everything around me—other people's moods, the tension in a room, all of it—and what you described about listening every evening and managing their medication and canceling plans, it's so familiar. I do this thing where I can feel when someone needs me, and then I can't not respond, even when I'm already completely depleted. The boundary thing is what I'm stuck on too. Because when you're highly sensitive to someone's suffering, setting a boundary feels like you're physically turning away from their pain, and that sensation is almost unbearable. Like, I can feel the disappointment or hurt before they even express it, and my whole system reacts. But I'm starting to realize that this constant porousness—just being open to everything they're going through all the time—is actually making me less able to be present for anyone, including myself. Maybe boundaries aren't about caring less, but about creating some kind of container so we don't just dissolve completely into someone else's experience? I don't know. I'm still figuring it out. But I hear you, and that exhaustion is so real.

This is going to sound weird but reading your post made me think about my job search right now—I've sent out like 90 applications in three months and I keep telling myself I need to do more, apply to more places, network harder, rewrite my resume again. And my roommate finally said to me last week, 'you know doing more of something that's already not working isn't actually the solution, right?' That kind of stopped me in my tracks. I think maybe you're in a similar spot? Like you've been doing ALL of this support work and it's not making things better for either of you—they're still struggling, you're completely burnt out. What if doing less of what you're currently doing isn't abandoning them, it's just... trying a different approach because this one isn't sustainable? I keep thinking about how I can't get a job if I'm too exhausted to even show up to interviews well, and maybe you can't actually be a good partner if you're too drained to be a whole person. That's not about them deserving less, it's just like, basic math of human capacity. Anyway, I hope you find a way through this that doesn't require you to disappear.

Your post really resonates with me, especially that part about guilt when thinking of your own needs. I grew up between two cultures where family sacrifice was everything—like, your own wants literally didn't exist if someone else needed something. So I get that bone-deep feeling that prioritizing yourself is somehow betraying love. But what I've been learning (painfully) is that different cultures actually have different ideas about what healthy support looks like. In one part of my background, what you're doing would be seen as the only way to love someone. In another, they'd say you're actually enabling by not letting them build their own coping skills. Neither is completely right, but it helped me realize I get to choose what kind of partner I want to be instead of just defaulting to 'give everything always.' What if you sat down with your partner during a calm moment and actually told them you're struggling? Not as a criticism of them, but as information they need to know? They might have no idea how much you're carrying, and that conversation itself could shift something. You deserve to take up space in your own relationship.