Sustaining a loving relationship depends very much on both
partners’ having achieved a level of emotional maturity at which they are
genuinely capable of mutual concern, of consciously choosing to be there for
your partner and to allow your partner to be there for you. This has nothing to
do with chronological age, because emotionally we can be stuck at any age. Most
people have no sense at all of the emotional age of the people with whom we
choose to become intimate. It emerges only when we are sharing our lives. And
it has nothing to do with how we or they handle a work situation. People who
are extremely competent in their careers may behave like emotional infants at
home.
In getting to know each other with an eye toward starting a
long-term intimate relationship, we might keep these categories in mind. And we
might consider them in how we interact with our partners at home now.
Emotional Infants
Chronological adults who remain emotionally infants are basically
self-centred. They expect to be taken care of and to get what they want when
they want it, without having to give in return. They know only what they need,
see others primarily as objects to meet their needs and are incapable of
empathizing with the needs of others. In their personal relationships, they
tend to be tyrants.
Emotional Children
Chronological adults who behave like emotional children tend
to be obedient, passive, placaters, appeasers or covertly rebellious. They say
in effect,”Tell me what to do,”
and expect to have their needs met in return without really having to spell
them out. They assume that they will be taken care of if they do what is
expected of them. When they are disappointed, they act out their feelings,
often in covert or devious ways, such as lying, stealing, manipulation, foot
dragging, deception, blaming, sarcasm, withholding, daydreaming, and
withdrawing. They are not verbally honest about their discontent, nor can they
negotiate openly for what they want.
Emotional
Adolescent
Chronological
adults who are emotional adolescents are stuck at the stage of working through
dependence-versus-independence. They are still asserting their own right to
decide for themselves, so their position is, ”Don’t tell me what to do.”
Feeling that any expression of others’ feelings or needs is an attempt to
control and exert power over them, they reject them. They see meeting them as
being reduced to a child. They tend to see others’ pain, disappointment or
requests as manipulations intended to control them, and defend against them by
withholding the very thing their partners want. If you say “I’d like flowers
for my birthday,” such a person may well bring you a card or nothing at all. He
or she will wait until the last minute to meet your requests or will ignore
them altogether, finding reasons why they are irrational. He or she cannot give
you what you want without feeling diminished, and feeling a loss of
independence.
Emotional Maturity
Only at the
adult level of emotional maturity are we capable of empathizing with our
partner’s thoughts, feelings and needs, capable of mutual concern, and self-sufficient
enough to be responsible for revealing our own. Only at this level can we
sustain a loving relationship, giving and receiving love.
Achieving
an adult level of maturity requires a sense of your own worth and respect for
the same in your partner. Otherwise you may efface yourself so much that your
needs don’t get met, you may be so arrogantly overbearing that you ignore the
needs of your partner, you may need so much reassurance that it becomes a
burden to your partner.
Gordon, Lori H. (1993) Passage to Intimacy. Weston: The
PAIRS Foundation.
