Much like the first book, Growing Up Again, you can read this book from many perspectives. Were your parents emotionally immature? Are you? Is your potential or current partner immature?

I skipped to halfway to "what it's like being with an emotionally immature person", because it's more useful to identify one today and get rid of them, or manage them if you can't cut them out of your life. For example, Mother-in-Law. These descriptions are seen over and over on /JustNoMIL

Personally, the hugest sign of an EI person is.. the conversation is just weird. I think I'm having a back and forth, they think they're having (and winning) an argument. All the time.

  • Communication is difficult or impossible – they aren't interested in listening, comprehending or reciprocating. Their goal isn't understanding.

  • They provoke anger – pretty much just by existing, being so annoying and needy. (called "Bitch Eating Crackers" on JNM. They need attention and all eyes on them for every mundane thing, or feel the right to intrude and grab your attention whenever they feel like it).

  • They communicate by emotional contagion – they fuss when they're distressed and expect everyone else to make them feel better. (Rocking the boat)

  • They don't do emotional work – being unwilling to take responsibility, they just shrug and say “that's how they are”.

  • They're hard to give to – they create a malignant guessing game that keeps everyone uneasy. “If you loved me you'd read my mind”.

  • They resist repairing relationships – EI people expect to be taken off the hook immediately. If you don't forgive them and “put the past behind us”, you're to blame. They don't understand that rebuilding trust takes time and that they need to apologize and recognize the harm they have caused.

  • They demand mirroring – EI people expect others to act the way they want them to, their fragile self-esteem depends on it. They have a fantasy that a child (or partner) will make them feel good about themselves.

  • Their self-esteem rides on your compliance, approval, acceptance and success – they respond to complaints about their behaviour (or you asserting your boundaries) with extreme statements like “I must be the worst xyz ever!” in order to shut down communication. They don't want to hear it or think that they might be bad. They want you to back down and reassure them that they aren't the worst Mother/boyfriend ever.

  • They see roles as sacred – as a parent/spouse they feel entitled to respect and obedience, and being exempt from respecting boundaries or being considerate. They stop by unannounced and rearrange your furniture because “family” or “I'm your mother”. They use the same concept to coerce – threatening to reject you or getting family members to gang up on you.

  • They seek enmeshment, not intimacy. They may play favourites towards the one who is the best clone of themselves, ignoring any bad behaviour and gushing over the good. They might pick up strays to enmesh with.

  • They have an inconsistent sense of time – once they are emotionally aroused, it feels like an eternal now. They can't self-reflect to use their past mistakes for growth, and they can't anticipate the future. They'll do whatever it takes to make the uncomfortable emotions of now stop.

https://www.amazon.com/Adult-Children-Emotionally-Immature-Parents-ebook/dp/B00TZE87S4

12 minute video on emotionally immature parents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uDLqL3zxr4