I have a friend, Jane, mid-twenties, who is going to get married to Joe, mid-thirties. Joe has a good job, owns a house and generally has things 'in order'. Jane had several (short, low paying) jobs and an education without many job prospects.
She moved in with Joe a couple of years ago, and while he is working she does cleaning and cooking and held some part time jobs. She left these jobs for reasons like "The colleagues were not nice", "the manager was not nice", "the rules were not nice".
Because of Joe earning enough money, they have a generally comfortable lifestyle. They are definitely not having any money problems.
Currently she is without job as she has a burn out, and has two things to do: cleaning and cooking. She is seeing a psychologist and has group therapy.
She tells me:
- group therapy is not working, as when she doesn't do the homework, there's no consequences
- she can't focus on one thing, she gets distracted a lot and doesn't get work done
- a 'to do'-list doesn't work
- she can't get government support because her future husband makes too much money and she thinks this is unfair
- she's very tired because she read comic books for hours/played games until 2 am
- she can't do the cleaning and now hired someone to do it for her (leaving only cooking to her)
I am in my mid-thirties, have a good job and had good education. I have had my hardships in life, but a burn out has (luckily) not been one of them. Obviously I would rather play games all day, but I understand there's things in life that aren't as fun as others but need to get done anyway, like paying the rent.
I have a very hard time understanding her, as I find most of what she tells me a result of her not having the discipline to do something/her being lazy. I understand she can have a burn out, but I don't feel like she's doing much to make it better. In my opinion she blames other people for her problems ("the colleagues/manager/rules were not nice", "there's no consequences if I don't do the homework") and wants other people to solve her problems ("it's unfair I don't get government support", hiring someone else to do the cleaning for her).
I don't want to agree with/confirm everything she tells me, as I just have a very different view on life than her, but I do understand that "just do it, you're home doing nothing all day!" is not going to help our friendship and could be understood as condescending or not believing the burn out is real.
I absolutely think her burn out is real and I would like to give her some different views on what she is saying. I especially disagree on the government support part, they don't need it, since as a family they earn enough to (comfortably) pay for everything.
How can I talk with my friend about her problems without being condensending about it, but not just agree with everything she says?
Note: I am not looking to sit her down and start a talk with her, it's just when she brings these things up when we're hanging out.
Edit
Answer to a comment what my relationship to her is: she's my friend for over 10 years. We used to work together. She moved away (~1 hour drive) to live with her future husband a couple of years ago. We don't see each other often because of this and possibly this started with me asking how she was doing (in a general greeting kind of way). Later that day we were just talking and the subject came to this.
edit2 In the comments it was pointed out I might not actually believe the burn out. This might be, thank you for noticing. There are some situations Jane is in which could definitely cause great stress, but I have left out of the question. Think of family issues and the wedding coming up. I could easily understand these issues, but this question is about things I think should could easily change.