An Emotionally Immature Person Will Drain Your Energy

The same way it's impossible for you to extract blood out of a stone, you will never be able to receive emotional strength, security or presence from someone who is emotionally immature.

As I speak to women every day, being the empath that I am, my heart feels so heavy as they tell me what they are being challenged with in relationships.

The saddest part of all is that they are looking for something in someone that does not exist. You will never be able to feel emotional stability or security with someone who is emotionally immature. 

What is also important to understand in this conversation is that you will draw to yourself someone who supports your emotional vibration. Too many are seeking for something in another person that they have not yet learned how to connect to for them self. This will never work. 

We all have emotional challenges in life. Our understanding of how to process our emotions and get others to respond to them was developed within us between the stages of newborn to 6 years old. We learned how to get attention, how to get our own way, how to repel others and how to receive when we were children.

Unfortunately many women and men are brainwashed and conditioned by brokenness. We are often not taught healthy ways to deal with our emotions and have a tendency to react to situations more than we respond within them.

Your dealings with another person will be a direct reflection of how you process your emotions and your thoughts about how you feel.

This is why it is key to learn how to love and respect yourself or being able to give authentic love, respect and maturity to someone else will never be. 

In relationships the biggest breakdown occurs when you are looking for someone else to fill your emotional needs. We are taught as children to be dependent on others for our emotional well being and strength. This is a dangerous way to live your life because if you don't know how to feed yourself and you give that power over to someone else... you are always looking for your needs to be met by someone else... you also give that person the power to starve you and decide what you don't need, or worse that you don't deserve to be fed.

Others can only value you to the degree that they value themselves. You will never be able to create a healthy relationship if you...

• Don't trust yourself
• Don't respect yourself
• Don't honor yourself
• Play it small to appease the insecurities of others
• Issue ultimatums to receive love
• Deny the truth of who you are and what you desire
• Always look for what could go wrong
• Prefer to suffer in silence rather than communicate your feelings

Relationships take work. The same way you would not expect to grow a healthy, nourishing garden if you don't tend to it is the same attention that you need to apply to your relationships. Healthy relationships don't just happen. They need to be nurtured, cared for and tended to with love, respect and care. And we need to be willing to grow together for the betterment of both persons in the relationship.

We all have the ability to be both ignorant and wise, childish and conscientious. Maturity and immaturity are both seen in the way a person behaves. Emotional immaturity usually results in a person who was not given the liberty or freedom to express their feelings as a child but rather had the experience of control and/or manipulation in their familial relationships.

Here are 10 traits of an emotionally immature person:

1. They operate from a place of ego and control more than love and understanding.

Operating from a place of maturity requires you understanding that the world does not revolve around you. In life you will not always get what you want from others. Other people have their own needs and desires and are not here to facilitate yours. Maturity involves releasing the illusion that relationships 'cater' to others and freeing yourself from the bonds of the ego nature.

2. They don't like talking about the way they feel.

Everyone has feelings. Emotionally immature people however are not comfortable when it comes to talking about their feelings. They find processing emotions overwhelming or attach a degree of shame to expressing them which causes them to withdraw and go into shut down mode.

3. They don't connect on a deep level but remain on the surface.

If you've been in a relationship with someone for a long time and you feel like they hold back you might be with someone who is unable or unwilling to connect on a deeper level. They may be very entertaining or like to have fun but when it comes to a deeper level of intimacy (allowing you to see into them) they don't want to go there. An intimate relationship requires opening yourself up to sharing and connection and will bring about a strong sense of closeness and affection.

4. They blame others for their faults.

We were not created to be controlled by others. We have all been given the gift of free will and free choice. However as children most of us experience being subjected to the will, control and manipulation of grown ups. When we are young children we believe that mistakes result in judgement and blame. We expect to be punished when we are at fault and usually look for someone else that we can pass the blame off on. When it's time to take responsibility for their own actions an emotionally immature person will often negate their responsibility by passing the blame, or part of the blame, off to someone else. Maturity requires that we take responsibility for our own actions, recognize our mistakes and learn from them. And when we learn to accept the responsibility and ask for forgiveness, we will learn how to repair the damage caused by the actions we took.

5. They create co-dependent relationships.

When you are not mature to stand on your own you will always depend on others. You tend to see others as a means to an end and will always feel that you need someone. So your desire to be in a relationship is not facilitated by love but rather by need. "I need you" is a classic line that is spoken by an emotionally immature person and is often an unconscious effort to manipulate the other person into doing what you want them to do. The concept of autonomy is not clear to emotionally immature people but autonomy is required for a relationship to be based on freedom.

6. They struggle with commitment.

One sure sign of emotional immaturity is difficulty with commitment. When we are mature we understand that discipline and sacrificed are necessary to achieve our goals. We also learn that commitment does not extract from us our freedom. It is simply a process that will assist us in achieving our long-term goal. In relationships you do not have a foundation for building without a commitment to build.

7. They want everything 'their way'.

Compromise is not something that emotionally immature people do well with. For me personally an inability to compromise is a  huge turn off. If your partner would rather throw a tantrum then find a common ground to a problem, you are in a relationship with an emotionally immature person. Being able to communicate in an effort to find resolution is crucial for the success of a relationship when an issue arises.

8​. They are irresponsible with their money.

Doing any and everything that they want to do with their money is a typical trait of an emotionally immature person. They tend to be impulsive and this is reflected in the way they manage and handle their money. Immediate satisfaction and gratification is a strong desire for an emotionally immature person and results in buying things they don't need with money they don't have. Their struggle with commitment makes it difficult for them to invest in long-term endeavors.  Because of this, this type of person often finds themselves in debt because they are more focused on satisfying their whims. This satisfaction however is very short term.

9. They live life on defense.

We will all experience hurt feelings in relationships but emotional maturity will prevent you from getting overly defensive in the face of small criticisms. In a healthy relationship, both partners should feel comfortable discussing potential issues with the intention to work on them. You should not have to feel as if you are walking on eggshells for fear of upsetting your partner. An emotionally immature person will become extremely defensive over the smallest issues, especially if they are in the wrong. Another sign of emotional immaturity is name-calling which often leads to verbal abuse and emotional abuse.

10. They don't give 100% to the relationship but require you to.

If you find yourself constantly showing up for the betterment of your relationship and your partner is not, that means that you are in a one-sided relationship and your own needs aren't being met. An emotionally immature partner expects you to do everything for them but tends not to be dependable or as generous with their efforts. They may often pick a fight when you ask them to do something that they don't want to do.

If you realize that your partner has some emotional growing up to do, your focused conversation should be on how you would like to grow as a couple to be a stronger team. Singling out your partners emotional limitations will likely make them defensive or feel criticized from your feedback. Expressing positive feelings for your partner will allow them to feel more embraced than rejected. You can also suggest relationship coaching or therapy where a professional can guide you in developing more emotional connection and awareness for each other.

If you're with a partner who exhibits any of the above traits, you will understandably feel frustrated and exhausted and may even wish to throw in the towel. Fortunately, if both of you are willing to grow emotionally you can come out on the other side stronger and more connected.