5 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You Have Emotionally Immature Parents

If you were raised by emotionally immature parents, you may still experience the effects in your adult life.

According to Dr. Lindsay Gibson, author of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, there are four main types of emotionally immature parents: emotional, driven, passive, and rejecting. Each of these types of emotionally immature parents range in severity. There may be overlap within each type as well.

The way your upbringing impacts your relationships in adulthood may often be misunderstood by those you share connections with. Here are five things people don’t realize you’re doing because you were raised by emotionally immature parents.

1. You struggle to open up and trust.

If you were raised by emotionally immature parents, you may have grown up in an unpredictable environment where your needs were not met due to your parents’ emotional negligence. As a result, vulnerability is incredibly hard for you. You have major trust issues and don’t reveal your feelings to others easily because you learned in childhood that being vulnerable only led to pain and loneliness. You learned that you could only rely on yourself.

2. You expect yourself to be perfect.

Some emotionally immature parents expected perfection from their kids, and these impossible standards created anxious, perfectionist, and workaholic adults. You may destroy yourself for your career and other achievements, desperate to prove your worth and to feel good enough.

3. You intellectualize your emotions instead of feeling them.

Because you may have been taught growing up that your emotions were burdensome, you learned it would be much safer for you to explain away your feelings instead of actually experiencing them. Basically, you were raised to ignore your feelings and so you dismiss any one that dares to come your way. You are deeply disconnected from your emotions and yourself, too.

4. You can act detached.

You can often be detached and distant in your relationships. Sometimes this is intentional, but sometimes you honestly don’t even realize what you’re doing or how you’re coming across. You push others away (even if you really want to connect).

5. You pick the wrong partners over and over and over again.

You constantly end up in toxic situationships or relationships, which makes sense. You’re attempting to recreate the instability and dynamics of your childhood because it feels familiar and therefore comfortable.

What you are failing to realize that you deserve to be loved fully and completely, without unfair stipulations. I hope one day you understand you deserve love that feels safe, supportive, and secure.