Is Your Partner Emotionally Immature?

One of the biggest problems in a relationship is a emotional immaturity. Maintaining a healthy, fulfilling, and happy relationship requires that both parties be able communicate effectively and be at ease in doing so.

Emotional maturity manifests in a person’s behavior. It is true that immaturity is very common, even normal in certain stages of a romantic relationship. And, it is normal that, in those cases, the balance of maturity tends to tilt to one side of the relationship.

Immaturity can often be related to the fact that someone’s personality has not fully developed or a fear of growing up that many people face. Both of these factors will affect a person’s behavior and by extension, the relationships they maintain.

The level of independence (or lack thereof) a person has from his or her parents can also affect emotional maturity. If, as an adult, a person’s parents still call all the time, demand his or her presence more than normal, or just generally treat him or her like a child, your partner surely has not even had the chance yet to fully mature.

Here are seven signs that your partner is probably not emotionally mature.

They don’t bother to manage their finances.

Mature people exercise power and restraint over their own lives and everything to do with it – they demonstrate responsibility. General responsibilities such as controlling your finances and earning your own money are a basic requirement to being independent.

An immature person does not budget their finances or does not bother to do it properly. They probably do not look very far into the future – they do not save up any of their money, they do not care about making more money further on down the road, and they may turn to their parents to fix their financial mistakes.

They act like they’re still eighteen.

Living in an eternal adolescence is one of the clearest signs that may help you judge if your partner still has not fully matured. Of course, there are some ways in which living life like we did when we were eighteen, can be good, but living like that all the time is not recommended for your well being. If this is happening, it is because something is not developing properly within the person.

They fear commitment.

Many scientific psychological studies confirm that immaturity is synonymous with a fear of commitment. Mature people are aware of their relationships and the seriousness that a relationship implies. They take the future into account and establish common goals with their partners – such as marriage or other dreams – as actual possibilities.

They do not know how to express their feelings.

Timidity and expression of your feelings complement one another as we learn to manage them more easily. Maturity is the foundation for this balance. Immaturity creates a barrier that impedes clear or easy expression of feelings, and may even make someone embarrassed to try. A situation like this within a couple can dangerously erode the relationship by establishing general frustration and exhaustion.

They couldn’t care less to maintain their appearance.

When we are young, we care less about caring for our appearance. A person’s maturity can be reflected in his or her clothes and hygiene. Mature individuals take care with their physical appearance; that’s not to say that they obsessively worry about it, or are focused on their appearance in order to impress others, but rather they simply recognize that it’s important to take care of yourself.

They do not accept or admit to their mistakes.

The vocabulary of an immature person often lacks the phrases “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong.” Maturity gives us a better perspective on things and allows us to see our mistakes and failures more clearly. As such, it allows us to accept those mistakes and change ourselves for the better. If your partner is immature, they likely repeat their mistakes over and over, never learning from them.