Marriage Fatigue: When a Long-Term Marriage Still Works—but You’re Tired Anyway

Marriage fatigue isn’t about fighting or failure. It’s about emotional distance in a long-term marriage that still works—and why that can be exhausting.

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PROLOGUE

Most American lives don’t begin with a problem. They begin with a routine.

Morning comes the same way it always has—light through blinds that were installed by someone else, in a house chosen more for timing than romance. Coffee brewed strong enough to feel like intention. Shoes placed near the door in roughly the same spot, because chaos should at least be consistent.

People like Linda and Mark don’t wake up wondering if something is wrong. They wake up wondering what order to do things in. Who showers first. Whether the sound they heard in the night was the house settling or just their own thoughts bumping into each other.

They are competent people. That’s important. They know how to keep calendars, how to apologize without admitting too much, how to keep conversations moving when they start to slow. They have learned the rhythms of each other’s silences. They have survived long enough together to believe survival counts for something.

There are others orbiting this life—neighbors glimpsed through windows, coworkers who know a curated version of the truth, couples who wave and keep walking. No one interferes. No one ever really does.

Nothing is broken in an obvious way. Everything still works. The systems hum. The days stack neatly. Even the quiet has a shape to it now.

Still, there’s a question hovering—not loud, not urgent, just patient.

It waits in kitchens, in parking lots, in the pause before answering “How are you?”

How do people like this usually get through things like this?

Not crises.
Not catastrophes.

Just the long middle.

The Dishwasher Still Works

The dishwasher hums like it’s thinking through a problem it didn’t sign up for.

Linda hears it before she hears Mark come in. The door opens, closes, opens again—he forgot something in the car. He always forgets something in the car. Wallet. Lunch bag. The version of himself he uses at work.

“You didn’t run it,” he says when he finally commits to being inside the house.

He’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, tie loosened but still hanging, like he’s undecided about staying. His voice is neutral. He’s good at neutral now. Neutral is survivable.

Linda doesn’t turn around. Her hands are in the sink, resting on a plate she’s already washed twice.

“I know,” she says. “I will.”

She doesn’t add later because later has become a lie with better PR.

Mark nods. Of course he does.

“Okay,” he says, and the word lands softly, the way people set something down they might need again.

On the counter: spaghetti from a jar they’ve bought so often the label feels intimate. An unopened salad kit, expiring today. Linda considers throwing it out just to feel decisive about something.

They eat in front of the TV because the dining table has become symbolic and neither of them has the energy to perform respect for furniture.

Some couple on HGTV is ripping out a wall. Linda watches the drywall come down in clean, satisfying chunks and feels an unexpected surge of envy.

“Can you believe they just decided that?” she says. “Like—today we demolish.”

Mark doesn’t look up from his plate.

“They probably planned for months.”

“Yeah,” she says. “That tracks.”

This is what passes for humor now. Mild sarcasm, no follow-up questions.

Later, on the couch, the space between them is wide enough to be intentional.

Mark scrolls through his phone like he’s searching for something he dropped years ago. Linda pretends to read an article about inflammation that makes everything sound like a moral failure.

“You mad at me?” Mark asks.

The question is careful. It’s designed to produce a manageable answer.

“No,” Linda says.

This is also not a lie. It’s a refusal to excavate.

Mark nods. Punctuation again.

Marriage fatigue doesn’t feel like anger. That’s the scam.

It feels like competence.

They’ve learned how to avoid fights so efficiently that nothing important ever makes it to the surface. They communicate around the damage. They anticipate each other’s needs so well that desire never gets a chance to surprise them.

Linda can predict Mark’s reactions the way she predicts weather. Useful. Depressing.

Saturday morning, they go to Home Depot.

This is what they do instead of therapy.

The parking lot is chaos in slow motion. A man in cargo shorts loads mulch like he’s been wronged by something larger than mulch. A woman argues with her GPS out loud.

Inside, Mark breathes easier. Lumber smells like certainty.

Linda drifts toward paint samples even though they’ve repainted the guest room three times and still won’t let anyone stay there. The room has commitment issues.

“Eggshell or satin?” Mark asks.

She looks at the wall of whites. They all promise freshness. None of them deliver.

“I don’t care,” she says.

Mark’s jaw tightens. There it is. The tell.

“You always say that,” he says, too quickly, “and then later you care.”

Linda turns. Finally.

“Why does it matter so much?” she asks. “It’s paint.”

“It’s never just paint,” Mark snaps, then freezes, like he’s said something dangerous.

A couple nearby pretends not to listen. They’re lying badly.

Linda laughs. Not kindly.

“You know what?” she says. “You’re right. It’s not paint. It’s us standing in Home Depot because it feels productive enough to count as trying.”

Mark flinches.

“Jesus,” he says. “Do you have to—”

“Say it out loud?” she finishes. “Yeah. I think I do.”

They stand there, surrounded by options they won’t choose.

That night, they eat at the table. A deliberate act. A failed experiment.

Mark cuts his chicken into neat, unnecessary pieces. He’s lost weight. Not enough for concern. Enough for curiosity.

“Do you ever think,” Linda says, staring at her fork, “that we stayed together because we’re good at it?”

Mark looks up.

“Good at what?”

“Being reasonable,” she says. “Not blowing things up. Not asking for more than we can justify.”

He considers this.

“I thought that was the goal.”

“It is,” she says. “Until it isn’t.”

Mark leans back.

“I don’t want to fight,” he says.

“I know,” Linda says. “That’s the problem.”

In bed, they lie on their backs, staring at the ceiling like it might confess something.

“I saw Jenna today,” Mark says suddenly.

Linda’s stomach tightens despite herself.

“Oh,” she says. “Work Jenna?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And she asked how we were.”

Linda waits.

“I said we were good,” Mark continues. “And I realized I say that automatically now. Like my name.”

Linda turns toward him.

“Did you believe it?”

Mark is quiet too long.

“I believe we’re… functioning.”

Linda laughs softly. It surprises them both.

“I sometimes imagine living alone,” she says before she can stop herself. “Just—quiet. Eating cereal for dinner. No negotiations.”

The silence sharpens.

“And how do you feel in that fantasy?” Mark asks.

“Relieved,” she says.

There. The word doesn’t explode. It just sits between them, undeniable.

Mark swallows.

“I imagine someone asking me questions,” he says. “And actually wanting the answers.”

Linda closes her eyes. That one hurts because it’s fair.

The dishwasher clicks off in the kitchen. Silence floods the house.

Mark reaches for her hand, then hesitates. A microsecond of doubt that tells the truth better than any speech.

“I don’t know how to want you without trying to manage you,” he says.

Linda exhales.

“I don’t know how to choose you without resenting the choice.”

They lie there, hands not touching, married in every legal sense and suspended everywhere else.

“I don’t want to leave,” Mark says.

“I don’t want to pretend staying is enough,” Linda replies.

No one solves anything.

Eventually, Mark turns toward her. Their knees touch. This time it isn’t accidental.

Linda lets it happen. She doesn’t read into it. She doesn’t make it mean progress.

The dishwasher will need unloading in the morning.

They’ll probably do it together.

Or not.

And that uncertainty—raw, unresolved, unmarketable—is the most honest thing they’ve shared in years.

EPILOGUE

Time passes the way it always does—uneventfully, then all at once, then quietly again.

Nothing about the house has changed in a way a visitor would notice. Mornings still arrive. Evenings still collapse into themselves. The dishwasher still does its job, which is more than most people ask of anything anymore.

Linda has noticed she pauses more before answering simple questions. Not dramatically. Just enough to hear herself think. Mark has started asking some questions twice—not because he didn’t hear the answer the first time, but because he’s listening for what didn’t get said.

They are not new people. That would be suspicious. But something has shifted its weight. Like furniture moved an inch to the left—enough to bruise your shin if you forget.

They still manage each other. They still fail at it. They are learning, slowly, that competence and closeness are not the same skill set. That wanting can coexist with resentment. That staying is not the same as choosing—but it can brush up against it on good days.

Once, Linda catches Mark unloading the dishwasher without commentary. Once, Mark notices Linda doesn’t rush to fill the silence. These moments don’t announce themselves. They just happen, then pass, like decent weather.

Life continues. Of course it does.

Not tidied up.
Not resolved.

Just lived—slightly more awake than before.

— The Seasoned Sage