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Do you want to make your relationship wholesome, joyful, and enduringly delightful? Then maybe it's time to choose to grow up rather than burden your partner with your unmet needs.
Imagine that you and your partner are about to take your vows. You are standing in front of the person who is performing the ceremony, and they turn to your partner. “Do you take this man/woman to become your child for the rest of your life, to be responsible for building their self-esteem from scratch - even when they are repeatedly doing esteem-destroying things - without any effort or intention on their part?”
You are looking blissfully contented, but your partner begins to look confused.
“Do you take this partner to provide for them not only the basics of financial and material security - because they have no intention of ever being responsible for anything other than consuming - but also being responsible for providing funding for their whims, indulgences, and instant gratifications, for the rest of their life?”
Now your partner is beginning to look alarmed.
“Do you take this partner to spend a lifetime controlling their emotional outbursts, managing their intensities so that they are not damaging to others or themselves, making sure that they keep friends and family relationships whole even though they refuse to consider others’ sensibilities or anyone else’s opinion about anything?”
“Do you take this partner to teach them discipline - in fact, to be teaching them discipline for the rest of their life because they have no intention of learning self-discipline?”
“Do you take this partner as a whiner, complainer, temper-tantrum thrower, and a depressed and morose wallower-in-self-pity?”
“Do you take this partner to raise, as a perpetual child and eternal adolescent, who will never become an adult responsible for his or her self-management?”
Who in their right mind would say “I do!” to such a preposterous arrangement? If your partner hasn’t run out the nearest exit by now, maybe you had better question their sanity!
We don’t expect our teachers or our mentors to accept our immaturity. School requires accountability.
Our churches require us to become more and more accountable.
We don’t expect our employers to accept our immaturity.
We don’t expect the military to accept our irresponsibility.
The only place we expect that we won’t have to grow up is in marriage.
We somehow believe that we shouldn’t have to compromise, be sensitive to others, be accountable for making things happen, do what needs doing, take care of our own stuff, and do our own share (and then some, every once in a while) with someone who loves us.
It’s as if we somehow think love means never having to do our own emotional chores - our partner is supposed to love us enough that we don’t have to temper our anger, build our own esteem or grow our own confidence.
If we're in a bad mood, we think it’s our partner’s responsibility to change it.
If we're feeling discouraged, it’s our partner’s job to build us up.
If we're feeling unlovable, our partner should love us well enough to change our mind. “You said you loved me, why aren’t I happy yet? What are you doing wrong?”
So, how do you move on from this type of immature thinking? Here is a project for you!
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Catch yourself being emotionally immature. It’s easiest when you simply notice that you aren’t feeling good, working hard at something meaningful or paying focused attention. If you’re miserable, there’s a strong chance you’re immature about something. Emotionally strong adults don’t spend much time in misery. They solve problems or they cope with difficulties; they don’t suffer much.
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Ask your partner how they’ve felt pressured to somehow fix your immaturity. Don’t get too caught up in feeling either resentful or guilty about their answer. (That’s immaturity compounding itself, you know!)
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Examine their answer as if it were entirely and completely true. Just pretend that they got it right. Imagine that the dynamics of the situation were exactly as they described it. If that were so, how would you expect them to fix your mood or mismanagement? What is it that they could or should do, if they were to become your emotional parent, in that situation? What is it that you would ask them to do?
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Recognize how impossible that would be for them to accomplish.
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Flip the accountability. If you were to be completely responsible for managing yourself, rather than pressuring them to take care of you, what would you do?
Learning to successfully manage your emotional needs will make your relationship rich with new levels of joy and delight. It's time to grow up! Try Project Maturity!
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