Potent quotables
You’ll learn to manage the overdeveloped empathy that may have held you emotionally hostage to manipulative, nonreciprocal people. Finally, you’ll be able to recognize people who are capable of genuine emotional intimacy and satisfying communication.
When the children of emotionally immature parents grow up, the core emptiness remains, even if they have a superficially normal adult life. Their loneliness can continue into adulthood if they unwittingly choose relationships that can’t give them enough emotional connection. They may go to school, work, marry, and raise children, but all the while they’ll still be haunted by that core sense of emotional isolation.
Emotional intimacy involves knowing that you have someone you can tell anything to, someone to go to with all your feelings, about anything and everything. You feel completely safe opening up to the other person, whether in the form of words, through an exchange of looks, or by just being together quietly in a state of connection. Emotional intimacy is profoundly fulfilling, creating a sense of being seen for who you really are. It can only exist when the other person seeks to know you, not judge you.
Sadly, in their rush to leave home they may end up marrying the wrong person, tolerating exploitation, or staying with a job that takes more than it gives. They often settle for emotional loneliness in their relationships because it feels normal to them, like their early home life.
Emotionally disconnected parents don’t suddenly develop a capacity for empathy just because a child does something to please them.
It isn’t asking too much to generally feel happy when you see your partner or look forward to time together. When people say, “You can’t have everything,” they’re really saying they don’t have what they need. As a human being, you can trust yourself to know when you’re emotionally satisfied. You know when you’ve been given full measure. You aren’t a bottomless pit of ceaseless demands. You can trust the inner prompts that tell you when something is missing.
I want to matter the most to someone. I want someone to want to be with me.
Throughout human evolution, being part of a group has always meant more safety and less stress…. So when you’re longing for a deep emotional connection, remind yourself that your painful feeling of aloneness is coming not just from your individual history, but also from human genetic memory.
You aren’t betraying your parents by seeing them accurately. Thinking about them objectively can’t hurt them. But it can help you.