Have you ever felt consistently confused, frustrated, or lonely in a relationship dynamic with someone?

As humans, we are wired for connection, so it’s healthy to want close relationships with people, especially those we’ve known most of our lives, like parents or siblings. But sometimes these relationships can also be the most challenging, especially when there are underlying patterns of emotional immaturity.

Emotionally Immature Behaviors

Inability to to take accountability. One major sign of emotional immaturity is an inability to self-reflect and take responsibility for one’s feelings. When someone consistently blames others for how they feel, avoids accountability, or constantly plays the victim, it’s only a matter of time before you become the villain in their next victim story.

Avoidance of difficult feelings. Earlier, I mentioned feeling lonely in relationships. Often, this feeling comes up when someone in the relationship displays avoidant behaviors.

Avoidance can look like:

• constant small talk,
• changing the subject when conversations become “too deep,”
• emotional shutdown,
• uncomfortable when other people express emotions- quick to say “don’t cry” or that they are being “too sensitive” to get out of their own feelings,
• or avoiding conflict entirely.

Over time, emotional avoidance creates pent-up emotions that eventually surface through resentment, passive-aggressive behavior, impulsive reactions, or suddenly blowing up at someone “out of nowhere.”

People who struggle with emotional immaturity often develop unhealthy coping mechanisms because emotions are never truly processed or released from the body. This can contribute to anxiety, depression, substance use, or losing themselves in relationships as a way to escape emotional discomfort and seek quick dopamine relief and validation.

Emotional Codependency

If you grew up in a home with emotionally immature parents, you may have learned emotional codependency as a survival adaptation.

When a parent doesn’t take responsibility for their emotions, everyone in the household feels it.

Maybe you developed a “sixth sense” for your mother’s tone when she was angry, so you learned to suppress your own feelings until things felt emotionally safe again.

Or maybe your sibling gave you the silent treatment whenever they were upset, leaving you feeling punished simply for having emotions.

When we never learn that it’s safe to fully express and feel our emotions, we often begin suppressing them and trying to manage other people’s emotions instead.

Signs of emotional codependency can include:

• difficulty setting boundaries,
• fear of saying no,
• people-pleasing,
• love bombing,
• constantly asking if someone is “okay” to regain emotional safety,
• or taking on another person’s emotions as your responsibility to fix.

These behaviors are often rooted in survival. We subconsciously learn that we feel safer when other people’s emotions are calm and predictable.

A book I often recommend to clients beginning to understand these dynamics is Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.

Communication Issues and Emotional Regulation

Emotional immaturity often creates communication problems in relationships.

This is because the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for rational thinking, problem-solving, and clear communication, goes offline when the body is overwhelmed with unprocessed emotions.

The amygdala, which helps detect safety and process emotions, is designed to protect us from perceived threats. But it does not communicate through logic or rational thinking.

When anger, grief, fear, or emotional overwhelm build up in the body without being processed, the nervous system can remain stuck in protection mode.

This is why trying to “work things out” during emotional flooding rarely goes well. Instead, conversations often lead to:

• reactive communication,
• emotional shutdown,
• lashing out,
• shame spirals,
• or making the relationship feel even more overwhelming.

How to Raise Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

If you want to begin breaking dysfunctional emotional patterns, the first step is understanding that you are responsible for your feelings.

That doesn’t mean people can’t hurt you. But waiting for someone else to change, apologize, or validate your emotions will not release the feeling inside your body.

Feel Your Body

Healing begins when you stop living only in your mind and start reconnecting with your body.

In the beginning, this practice may only look like 30 seconds to a minute each day.

Close your eyes and notice the sensations in your body without judgment or creating a story around them. Instead of labeling emotions as “good” or “bad,” become curious.

Ask yourself:

• What am I feeling right now?
• Where do I feel it in my body?
• How does this emotion want to express itself?

Maybe the body needs movement, stretching, tears, deep breaths, sound, or rest.

As you build this practice over time, it becomes easier to stay present with emotions instead of avoiding them.

When you develop a safe relationship with your emotions and body, relationships often begin to feel lighter and more authentic — even relationships with emotionally immature people.

This is because you stop trying to control other people’s emotions to feel safe and begin allowing yourself to simply be who you are.

If this article resonated with you and you want to go deeper into somatic healing and emotional release work, you can book a session with me at Holistic Psychotherapy with Jenna.