There’s nothing lovely about a woman who is always burnt out

When I ask men why they turn away from a “Good Woman” who makes a nice living, has a house of her own, and is “no trouble” because she has everything she needs… I tell them you made the right decision to turn away from her. 

If this triggers you, understand, I’m completely on your side here. My job is to help alleviate the pain and frustration in relationships, and sometimes, if not often, it flies in the face of everything women have been told to be in our modern world.

Living a highly competitive work life is not how nature designed women to operate in the world. It simply isn’t, and has never been natural for women. 

Let’s start by looking at the stress of a normal workweek in a modern world: getting up early, showering, eating, battling traffic, parking, getting into the office, multiple meetings, ongoing emails, phone calls, planning future company conquests, miscommunications with a boss or colleagues, deadlines, HR issues, and other daily mishaps. It’s about “competing” all day, whether within the company, with other employees, or across teams, and all the pressures that come with work duties. 

Day after day, Monday through Friday, and often with overtime and added hours to show that you’re a team player… the demands continue to stack up.

All this competing and “pushing” is, for the most part, energizing to many men. The output of energy required to compete and conquer lights up the nervous system and body, supplying biologically, the drive to push and perform. Dopamine supports motivation, reward, and goal-directed behavior, reinforcing that sense of satisfaction after applying effort (Berridge & Robinson, 1998; Salamone & Correa, 2012).

In the end, a hard day’s work feels deeply satisfying to a masculine man. Men often report feeling good when they perform, produce, and win. Testosterone is the “jet fuel” that has been consistently linked to competitive behavior, status-seeking, and reward sensitivity in males. (Archer, 2006; Eisenegger et al., 2011).

Now, that same workweek affects women very differently.

Research in stress physiology shows that men and women often respond differently to stress. (Taylor et al., 2000).

In modern high-pressure environments, this mismatch can matter.

Large-scale studies have shown that women report higher levels of chronic stress and burnout than men in highly competitive professions (American Psychological Association, Stress in America, 2023; Maslach & Leiter, 2016). Women also experience stress-related exhaustion, and emotional fatigue in prolonged demanding environments.

Instead of feeling fueled by constant pressure, most women experience overwhelm, anxiety, exhaustion and eventual burnout.

So ladies, if you want to compete like men, work like men, make money like men, and be relevant like men, okay, go for it.

But understand: there may be a very high price to pay when a biologically feminine body lives in a constant state of pressure and stress.

Over time, it can come at the expense of your natural energy, your health, your BMI (Body Mass Index), your joy, your light, your radiance, your warmth, your love, your patience, your sparkle… even your beauty.

The biggest tragedy is that men naturally are highly attuned to a woman’s energy and mood. And this kind of chronic burnout, very naturally, keeps men at a distance.

“There’s nothing lovely about a woman who is always burnt out.”

That’s how men say it.

And they’re not wrong.

However, there is a way to balance it all out for a quality of life that you may have overshot.

If you’re curious, let’s chat. 

Click on this link for live events.

Book your complementary call below. 

Andre Paradis
Project Equinox Relationship Coaching
www.projectequinox.net