As a child, your caregivers might not have been able to meet your emotional needs. These unmet needs can follow you into adulthood, influencing the way you relate to people later in life.
Maybe you’ve had tumultuous romantic relationships, or you keep yourself guarded rather than pursuing potential romantic partners. Perhaps you have trouble relating to your friends or turn down invitations because you have trouble believing that people genuinely want to spend time with you.
Whether you feel lonely because you lack close connections, or you’re often tangled in conflicts with people in your life, you might be reacting to unmet childhood needs. Here’s how a lack of emotional support early in life can affect your relationships in adulthood.
Difficulty Establishing Independence
If you did not receive the love, empathy, and compassion you needed from your caregivers, there’s a high probability that you’ll find yourself chasing this love in your adult relationships. In fact, you may have trouble spending time alone. You might fall into a pattern of dating people with little to no time spent single in between relationships.
Even doing a fun activity on your own might feel out of reach. For example, going shopping by yourself, or catching a movie solo when your friends are busy, can leave you feeling awkward and lonely. If you were your own sole source of emotional support in childhood, you might deeply crave the company of others in adulthood, no matter how they treat you.
Seeking Validation
Throughout your childhood, you may have spent years wishing that the adults in your life would validate your feelings and your accomplishments. But rather than lifting you up, they might have put you down. Maybe they dismissed your emotions or denigrated your achievements. As a result, you may end up seeking validation everywhere you turn.
You might need frequent reassurance from your partner or friends that they genuinely care about you. Mild disagreements, gentle criticism, or mundane misunderstandings could set off alarm bells in your mind, causing you to question whether they’re secretly angry with you.
Pushing People Away
When you were a child, you might have been forced into hyper-independence. Your parents or caregivers may have been unwilling or unable to meet your emotional or physical needs.
Because of this, you might have had to take on responsibilities that no child should be expected to cover. As an adult, you may have a habit of pushing people away. You may believe that you should be able to handle everything entirely by yourself.
Codependency
Maybe you tend to develop strong attachments to romantic partners or close friends, despite the fact that they do not respect your needs or boundaries. You might find yourself frustrated by these relationships.
Yet you can’t pull yourself away. Being close to someone provides an illusion of true connection, and codependency can feel comfortable for an individual with unmet childhood needs.
Unhealthy Approach to Conflicts
Conflict is a normal, unavoidable part of relationships. But when you’re still grappling with unmet childhood needs in adulthood, you might be extremely conflict avoidant. On the other hand, you might feel like every time you try to express your feelings honestly to your partner or a friend, the situation tends to spiral into an argument.
Learning how to navigate conflicts while staying calm is an important skill for adult relationships. But if your caregivers did not model this, it’s tough to put those principles into practice as an adult.
–
Are you struggling in your adult relationships because of unmet childhood needs? Connect with our practice to find out how couples therapy can help you create healthier relationships.