My (26M) wife (26F) has a high-trauma job (social work) : how do you balance support and emotional limits?

Hi,

I (26M) have been with my wife (26F) for 9 years, and we are currently struggling with issues related to mental load, work stress, communication problems, and a significant decline in our emotional and sexual relationship.

My wife experienced major trauma at a young age (losing close family members), which has had a big impact on how she manages emotions and relationships. For a long time I tried to be very present and supportive, but since I had never dealt with someone carrying that level of trauma before, I sometimes struggled to be emotionally available enough to absorb it all. This already created tensions between us in the past. She did start seeing a therapist for a while, but eventually stopped.

A few years later we moved in together and both started working full-time. She is a social worker and deals with extremely heavy situations (rape, murder, kidnappings, severe psychological issues, child custody conflicts, etc.). Her workdays can run from 9am to 9pm.

On my side, I was working in finance in a very technical role with extremely long hours (9am to 2–3am). As a result, during the week we barely saw each other and mostly spent time together on weekends.

The issue is that her job is extremely emotionally heavy, so she often needs to talk about it. But after my own very long workweeks, I was already mentally exhausted. When we spent time together, she would often go into detailed stories about her cases, which would drain me even more. Sometimes we would even be on a romantic date on Friday night and she would pull out her phone to answer an urgent call because “they need her,” etc.

This led to several arguments: I was overwhelmed hearing about her work all the time, while she felt like she couldn’t share her daily struggles with me.

Over time I started asking less and less about her day, because I knew the conversation would quickly go into very heavy details. Ironically, I actually know a lot about her job and the cases she handles. On the other hand, she knows almost nothing about my work because she says “finance is just math and math isn’t my thing.” So I gradually stopped sharing my own difficulties as well.

At the same time, our emotional and physical intimacy declined. There’s much less physical affection and very few sexual encounters (about once every three weeks). She has very low libido, partly due to the pill, and she sometimes says that if she could completely live without sex she would.

Recently I changed jobs for something less demanding. Since then, I’ve been taking care of most things at home: cooking, cleaning, doing the dishes, walking the dog, fixing things around the apartment, etc. I really try to make sure everything is taken care of so that she can relax in the evening and we can spend more time together. It did improve the time we spend together, but not much else.

Recently she had several particularly heavy workdays. One evening she texted me saying she would finish at 11pm instead of 9:30pm. Since this happens fairly often, I didn’t reply and assumed it was just informational. When she got home, she got angry at me for not responding. I told her I thought it was just an informational message. We didn’t push the discussion further because she was already upset and cold, and I honestly didn’t feel like making an effort toward someone who was verbally aggressive toward me.

The next day she told me she felt I wasn’t attentive enough anymore, that I don’t ask about her days enough and that she doesn’t feel considered. I tried to explain that when she comes home angry and snaps at me, it doesn’t exactly make me want to start a conversation. I also feel like I already hear a lot about her work, know most of the details of her weeks, and that I’m simply not as mentally available as I used to be because of how much I’ve been exposed to it over time.

Today I also feel like my own needs (especially emotional and sexual) aren’t really being considered. I make a lot of effort daily to improve our situation, but I don’t have the energy anymore to constantly hear about how terrible her job is, while she feels that I’m not listening enough.

I have suggested several times that she might benefit from seeing a therapist specialized in trauma or in professionals exposed to difficult work situations, but I’m afraid to bring it up again because it might make it seem like I’m saying she is the problem, which could make things worse.

So I’m wondering:
Have any of you experienced a similar dynamic in a relationship? And how can I communicate that I also sometimes feel unseen or unconsidered in this relationship?

TL;DR:
Together for 9 years. My wife has a very emotionally heavy job and often needs to talk about it, but over time it has mentally exhausted me. I now ask about it less, which she sees as a lack of care. Meanwhile I feel like I put in a lot of effort daily but my own emotional and sexual needs aren’t really considered. How do people deal with this kind of dynamic?