He has no control over his emotions and bends reality to his advantage on the way to his wish. Relations with him are difficult. Depression and anxiety appear in him. Why? Because he hasn’t grown up emotionally.
“Maturity appears when we start to worry more about others than about ourselves.” Albert Einstein summed up the essentials in his statement, and experts agree with him. Behavior when a person does not think only of himself, does not only desire to satisfy his needs and is aware of his emotional strength, leads him to realistic and emotionally mature behavior. Of course, he experiences different emotional states and manages some more and others less, but emotional immaturity is different. Desires, fantasies and wishes of such a person are in the absolute foreground and become the center of the universe. To achieve them, he can even alter reality to fit his imagination. He does not avoid lying, emotional blackmail, crying or aggression. Do you feel that you experience such behavior in your surroundings? You are probably dealing with an emotionally immature person. However, the field of emotions is very complex and you do not need to detect an emotionally immature person at first.
Child or adult?
So how can we judge whether an adult is functioning emotionally more like a child? Couples therapist Sarah Heiter and author of the book titled From conflict to solution, which teaches the skills of joint communication, anger management and conflict resolution, recommends perceiving behavior according to emotional age. “At an international psychology conference, a therapist from Africa explained to me that in their country it is common to rate people in terms of physical and emotional age. Physical age can be calculated by the number of birthdays. Physical age, especially in children, tends to correlate with height, strength, and cognitive function. Psychological or emotional age, on the other hand, is manifested in emotional reactions and habits. For example, adults can remain calm while children have tendency to get angry quickly. Adults think about their words before they say them, while children often impulsively utter tactless and hurtful words,” writes the therapist in her book. However, behaviors that are normal for children look childish and rude when done by adults. And an emotionally immature person is born. However, it does not bring anything good for his life or those around him. What behavior is typical for such a person?
Emotionally immature people are egocentric
A big part of growing up is about understanding that the world doesn’t just revolve around us. The child does not understand this fact. That’s why he cries and demands food at two in the morning and doesn’t care if he wakes his parents. As he grows up, he discovers that he doesn’t always get everything he wants. They also learn that there are other people with needs of their own. And he stops thinking that he can achieve everything by crying. But sometimes this process of emotional growth doesn’t happen and you have a narcissist next to you, selfish, a self-centered person who does not pay attention to your concerns, interests, wishes, opinions, in short, anything that does not directly concern him.
Emotionally immature people have commitment issues
One sure sign of immaturity is difficulty with commitment. “Children can hardly do without what they want at a given moment in order to achieve a more important goal. As we mature, we learn that sacrifice and limitation are a necessary evil to achieve our goals. We also learn that commitment to a goal, or even to a person, does not limit our freedom. It’s simply a condition we agree to in order to get what we want,” points out the emotional maturation process, Timmothy J. Legg, a mental health psychologist at California Southern University in Irvine. An emotionally immature person feels that commitment would limit their freedom. That’s why he often doesn’t want to talk about the future, plan time together, invents reasons why he can’t meet your parents even after a year of relationship. Sometimes it is difficult for him to plan even a joint vacation or just a weekend. The degree of commitment phobia varies, but it is there.
Emotionally immature people tend to blame others
Adults try to solve the problem, while children shift the blame to someone else. They perceive only the punishment that may come. They don’t really care what they caused. However, with development, this view of the problem is changing. When an unpleasant situation arises, young children begin to lie to avoid getting into trouble. Adults deal with reality and reliably tell the truth. “Growing up means giving up sweets irresponsibly. Maturity means understanding that we are the only person responsible for what we do and don’t do. It means learning to recognize our mistakes and learn from them. And knowing how to repair the damage we cause. Know how to ask for forgiveness,” therapist Sarah Heiter very often reminds couples who are resolving conflicts together in sessions.
Emotionally immature people have dependent relationships
They themselves lack confidence in their abilities and in order to achieve something, including a happy life, they need others. Not because they love them, but because they need them. Therefore, they tend to have highly dependent relationships. However, autonomy is essential for a healthy relationship. However, the concept of autonomy is not clear to immature people. They may think that they are acting independently and responsibly, but most of the time, when a problem comes up, they try to blame it on others or cannot solve it at all.
Emotionally immature people do not know how to manage money
Impulsivity is one of the most striking emotional characteristics of immature people. Many times this impulsiveness is evident in how they manage their resources such as money. Since they are only interested in satisfying their own desires as quickly as possible, they do not hesitate to buy things they do not need with money they do not have. Sometimes they enter into huge financial risks because of this. They assess investments biasedly and find it difficult to make long-term financial plans. Because of this, it is common for this type of people to find themselves in debt. And all this just to satisfy their whims immediately.
The behavior of emotionally immature people is not conscious, it is mostly present because of their childhood, when they went through unfortunate things, traumas that prevented them from growing. Through therapy and self-awareness, such behavior can be changed and work on growing into an emotionally mature person.