Emotional immaturity and Inferiority

A second group of manifestations of emotional immaturity is in abnormal dependency. This is often seen as a kind of social timidity and shyness and a feeling of inadequacy and personal inferiority. Such people are often emotionally dependent on one or both parents, whose need to feel needed may well cause them to remain rather over-possessive. When they are away from home, even for a short time, they may feel a great lack of confidence and a need for someone on whom they can lean.

When two such young people meet, their emotional needs may encourage a very deep bond of sympathy between them, and a feeling of mutual confidence when they are together. If they are of the same sex this may intensify any homosexual trends, and if of the opposite sex it may well seem to them as “falling in love” and lead on to marriage. But it soon becomes obvious that each is trying to use the other for reassurance and support, and neither has the qualities to supply those needs in the other through the humdrum everyday concerns and the ups and downs of marriage. It was easy enough when they only saw each other outside their homes and all dressed up and on their best behavior, but marriage may well bring mutual disillusionment and recrimination, and even the possibility that one or both may be attracted to someone else who again may appear to satisfy the dependency needs.

This kind of situation may often be recognized by a good pre-marital counselor, because of small indications in either of them of possessiveness, sulkiness when demands are not fully met, and general “spoiled child” behavior. This would suggest that much of the “love” into which they have fallen is really self-love, and not what they think it to be. It may be very difficult or even impossible for the two young people, so deeply “in love,” to see anything of this, and the counselor’s most helpful contribution might then be to try to keep their mutual confidence in him, so that the way might be open for him to help them when the almost inevitable troubles come.

When the disillusionments and recriminations begin after marriage the emotional conflicts may become very intense, and there may be deep wounds on both sides, even leading to a “nervous breakdown” in one of them. In our society, in which the husband is generally the breadwinner, emotional immaturity is generally more destructive to marriage when it occurs in men than in women. Two common situations of this kind may be described.

Tags: Counseling