Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People: Avoid Emotional Traps, Stand Up for Your Self, and Transform Your Relationships as an Adult Child of Emotionally Immature Parents

by Lindsay C. Gibson PsyD

Contrary to their objections, being true to yourself is not the same thing as being unfair to them.

They focus on their immediate emotions and desires, seemingly oblivious to how they’re impacting others or even their own future. Instead of reflecting on their behavior, they get defensive and double down on their own position if someone gets upset with them.

They typically oversimplify complex topics in ways that make it hard to reason with them.

EIPs jump to conclusions and easily take offense, making it extremely hard—if not impossible—to talk out problems and disagreements. In conversation, they don’t listen well because, like children, they are always vying for center stage. When communicating, they are set on “broadcast” rather than “receive.” They have little curiosity for your viewpoint and feel affronted and unloved if you don’t do what they want.

Impatience plus egocentrism means that they take things personally and blame everything on other people. EIPs also can be irrationally stubborn, with hair-trigger defensiveness toward anything that threatens their beliefs or self-esteem.

Although EIPs are inconsistent, they seem utterly sincere in the moment. This is what makes them so convincing when they flip-flop later. But the part of them that you form a relationship with now may not be the same part you have to deal with later. As you can imagine, their capacity for hypocrisy is enormous.

When loved ones show curiosity about our subjective experience, we learn to extend that same curiosity to others. We learn that it’s important to show interest in others, and we learn how to hold a conversation.

You never owe anybody a do-over of their unhappy childhood.

They don’t respect your wishes because to them it’s absurd to think that your subjective experiences could differ from theirs.

If you still feel anger toward an EIP, you may be holding on to it because a part of you hopes to force the person to have a more emotionally genuine relationship with you. Perhaps some part of you fantasizes that your anger will prompt them to reflect on their part in the difficult relationship.

Since they didn’t have malevolent intent, they’re sure nothing bad happened. You are supposed to accept what they intended, not what it felt like to you.

Complaints of being unloved are common with EIPs. It’s their central wound and greatest fear. Perhaps something went wrong early in their life, making them feel unsafe and insecure. Perhaps fears around goodness and lovability make them worry that they won’t be valued or taken care of. As a result, they’re hyperalert to signs of untrustworthiness, infidelity of all types, or insufficient concern about them. Thanks to these suspicions, they often create the relationship problems they fear.

Real love has room for both people in a relationship. Affection and acceptance should go both ways, so one person is not exploiting the other. It’s not real love if one person takes control or demands proof of love through the other’s self-sacrifice.

When someone demands proof of love by expecting you to do something you don’t want to, you’re being treated as a possession, not a person.

As soon as an EIP puts you to the test regarding how much you love them, you know that person will never get enough love. Actually, “love” may not be the right word. Maybe it’s more like they can’t get enough of being put first, being allowed to dominate you, and being the innocent, injured party no matter what.

Sufficiently mature relationships require people to honor each other’s autonomy and inner psychological world. But EIPs are stuck at a developmental stage where they see others as extensions of themselves or as objects for their own gratification, with little empathic awareness of their needs. Like toddlers, they can’t grasp the idea that other people are meaningfully separate from them with minds of their own.

Remember, you and your preferences have the right to exist. You have the right to speak; they can then deal with their feelings about it. You are never to blame for something they imagine you made them feel.

You will stop feeling drained after you stop trying to please EIPs. It’s enough that you are in contact with them and are trying to maintain some kind of bond with them. You can’t expect yourself to enjoy it too. Lower your expectations and be realistic about how much work and waiting are still involved.

You build a case against them, becoming preoccupied with their shortcomings, and mentally replay incidents in which they treated you unlovingly or ignored your appeals. You might feel especially justified in your anger if EI family members or other EIPs rationalized their behavior toward you or denied that they did anything wrong.

Overall, EIPs usually lack the empathy and self-reflection necessary for a genuine apology. They are so adamantly self-involved with their certainties that they expect you to understand the situation from their point of view. They’re sure that if you just understood their experience, their actions would make perfect sense. With such a self-justifying attitude, relationships might be more likely to end up in estrangement rather than forgiveness.

But for truth and reconciliation to be effective, both sides have to be willing to listen, and this is often what EIPs refuse to do. Nor can reconciliation be achieved if one side stays dug in, defensive, and refuses responsibility. If this is your situation but you want to stay in contact, you might give up trying to have your truth heard and instead accept whatever level of relationship seems possible.