Relationship Reset: Emotional Immaturity

It may be hard to recall a time when we didn’t encounter emotional immaturity on a daily basis, but hear me out.

Because there’s more to it than what we see on the nightly news.

Someone who is emotionally mature is able to sustain emotional connections to others while also thinking objectively and functioning independently.

Emotionally mature people tend to get along with others and are comfortable with—and honest about—their own feelings.

They demonstrate empathy and deal directly with others.

They can adapt under stress and cope with reality, and use humor to strengthen their ties to others.

Emotional immaturity, by contrast, is characterized by qualities such as self-preoccupation, a lack of empathy, volatility, chronic irritability, impulsivity, black-and-white thinking, over-intellectualizing, and insensitivity.

Emotionally immature people navigate relationships in ways that are fundamentally designed to benefit themselves.

If you’ve ever felt like you have an unspoken emotional agreement with another person that functions largely (if not solely) to their benefit and that you never actually agreed to, chances are, you’re dealing with an emotionally immature person.

Obviously, all of use can devolve into emotional immaturity from time to time, especially when faced with stress or disappointment.

We can all do impulsive things, over-intellectualize a problem, prioritize ourselves, and say insensitive things from time to time.

In the case of an emotionally immature person, however, such behavior is the norm: although they may have what, on the surface, appear to be strong emotional connections with friends or family, closer inspection reveals those ties to be relatively shallow and self-serving.

When an emotionally mature person sees that someone they care about is struggling, they feel compelled to try to understand and help that person.

An emotionally immature person, by contrast, may overlook their loved one’s struggles completely.

Or, if they do take notice, it might be in order to criticize (“I knew this would happen!” “I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen…”)—an approach that reflects their tendency to prioritize themselves.

An emotionally immature person may “intellectualize” a loved one’s problem on the grounds that it’s important to be “objective,” even though the person on the receiving end will gain no real benefit from these intellectual musings (“Your spouse cheated on you? Hm… well, I for one have often wondered if monogamy is really a sustainable life choice… this latest development certainly suggests that it might not be.”)

Or, they may respond by saying insensitive things on the grounds that they’re a “truth-teller”—someone who just “tells it like it is.”

If you object, they’ll insist, “That’s just how I am—I can’t change it!”

Other signs of emotional immaturity are a bit more subtle.

For example, if you know someone who can’t seem to graciously accept a gift, who is uncomfortable around displays of vulnerability or genuine emotion, or who seems to quietly “keep score” to ensure that they can remind you of what you emotionally “owe” them, you may be dealing with an emotionally immature person.

Emotional immaturity is most apparent in moments of conflict.

Relationships are bound to experience stress, tension, and/or strife: how we attend to and, if necessary, repair those moments of conflict reveals a lot about our emotional maturity.

Emotionally immature people have unrealistic expectations: if they’ve hurt you, you “should” forgive them.

And “forgiveness” means you pretend the conflict never happened.

In the aftermath of a relationship conflict, emotionally immature people will want things to “go back to the way they were,” and may encourage you to “let it go” and “move on”—regardless of the degree to which you’ve been hurt and/or whether or not you’re ready to do so.

By contrast, if an emotionally immature person has been hurt, they expect their loved ones to mirror that emotion. (Ironically, the old saying, “If mama ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy” suggests that the mama in question is actually emotionally immature.)

As Lindsay C. Gibson, a long-time scholar and researcher of emotional immaturity points out, “the way EIP’s [Emotionally Immature People] protect themselves comes at a cost to others.” (Gibson, Disentangling From Emotionally Immature People (2023), 9).

Bearing in mind that the only person you can control in a relationship is yourself, Gibson’s advice for people coping with emotionally immature people in general—and emotionally immature parents in particular—is to see the person’s behaviors and coping mechanisms for what they are: signs of their emotional immaturity.

Emotionally immature people are not capable of connecting with others in deep, meaningful ways: it’s simply too terrifying for them.

To hope that an emotionally immature person will one day reward the effort that you’ve put into your relationship with them by demonstrating a long- and well-hidden capacity for kindness, empathy, and emotional connection is a recipe for disappointment (at best) and emotional exhaustion and bitterness (at worst).

Gibson’s advice is to “make your choices based on what’s best for you, inform them of your decisions, and repeat as necessary,” all the while remembering that “You don’t need their buy-in or approval” (Gibson, Disentangling, 19).

A piece of advice that is offered to people dealing with loved ones with personality disorders is “Don’t JADE”—that is, don’t Justify, Argue, Defend, or Explain.

Although we often assume that explaining ourselves will help others understand our reasoning or see our side of things, in the case of an emotionally immature or otherwise difficult person, justifying, arguing, defending, or explaining yourself simply opens the door to their emotional vortex.

As a friend of mine once put it, “They just suck you into their bullshit.”

Not opening the door and not getting drawn in is often easier said that done, of course.

So in my next Relationship Reset post, I’ll address how—and why— emotional manipulation makes it particularly difficult to disengage from an emotionally immature person.