Emotional immaturity and maturity in relationships/ marriages (Part 1)

Emotional immaturity and maturity in relationships/ marriages (Part 1)

By Rev Sam Oye

• When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
• The first lesson to pick from this text is that manhood is attained. Being born a male is a matter of chance; to become a man is a process. This is why a male can age and not become a man. Manhood is attained and it is not a function of age. The proof of manhood is that you put off all the childhood ways away.
• The hope is that at the end of today’s message, we would have learned that being emotionally mature requires one to have stopped talking like a child, thinking like a child, or reasoning like one. Such a person would have attained maturity by putting away these childhood things. This is because the stability of your marriage is dependent on your maturity as an individual. Emotional immaturity or instability is often well concealed before the marriage or relationship.

What is emotional maturity?

Emotional maturity is the ability to manage your emotions under pressure or provocation. It also has the ability to delay reaction. Emotional maturity is the ability to maintain or display a high and an appropriate level of emotional control. It can also be described as emotional indiscipline. What you don’t deal with now will likely be responsible for taking you down. So, ask yourself, what is it you must stop now so that it doesn’t stop you later? Among many things, emotional maturity includes how you manage your expressions. In relationships, emotionally mature partners deal with the negative behaviour of their partners with a great level of control.
Notice one thing, emotionally immature people who are quick to attack are usually slow to apologise. Emotional maturity is the ability to manage your partner’s negative expressions without becoming negative yourself.

Seven signs of emotionally mature persons

1. They take responsibility; they own their own mistakes. In fact, the action and reaction by either party must be taken responsibility for.
2. They are flexible and teachable.
3. They keep a gap between their feeling and their reaction.
4. They delay their utterances when they are emotionally enraged. The situation may be over, but people don’t forget what you say.
5. They accept their partners for who they are without conditioning their partners to give up who they are, without giving them the demand to become who they want them to be.
6. They listen more to you than talk back at you. The greatest maturity is learning to listen without talking.
7. They will never expose you to people that will hurt you by virtue of closeness to them. They will shield their partners from speaking ill to others.

Closing Remark
I want you to begin to ask yourself a question about the things you need to deal with now privately before they bring you down. What are the things that your family and loved ones have been asking you to deal with and you are making excuses for? Why not deal with them now before they bring you down?