A Sex Therapist’s View: How Emotionally Immature Parents Impact Their Kid’s Adult Relationships

By: Dr. Denise Renye

Growing up with emotionally immature parents can have profound and lasting effects on a person's ability to understand their sexual self and navigate intimate relationships. In my experience as a Marin County sexologist and psychologist, I have observed how these early familial dynamics often shape the foundational aspects of a person’s sexual identity and relational patterns.

Impact on Sexual Self-Understanding

First off, what is emotional immaturity? Emotional immaturity means being unable to regulate emotions in an age-appropriate way. If a toddler has a meltdown because they can’t push an elevator button, that’s appropriate. If an adult does that, not so much. Responding with extreme anger or frustration to relatively minor issues creates a tense and unpredictable environment for those in the vicinity. In the home, emotionally immature parents are often inconsistent, neglectful, or overly controlling because they are focused on their needs, wants, desires, and emotions rather than their child’s.

The result is that a child’s emotional and psychological needs are inadequately met. When those kids grow up, they may not have a clear understanding of their own feelings, desires, and boundaries because they’re so used to focusing on their parent’s. This causes children to become disembodied. However, recognizing your own feelings, desires, and boundaries are crucial components of a healthy sexual self. Let’s get into the specifics.

1. Inconsistent Emotional Support: Children of emotionally immature parents frequently experience unpredictability in emotional support – sometimes they receive emotional support and sometimes they don’t. This inconsistency can lead to confusion about what is acceptable or normal in expressing affection and desire. Consequently, these children may struggle to trust their own feelings and instincts regarding sexuality.

2. Lack of Open Communication: Emotionally immature parents often avoid or mishandle discussions about sex and sexuality, fostering a sense of shame or secrecy. Note: There’s nothing shameful about sex and sexuality. However, this lack of open communication from emotionally immature parents deprives children of essential education and validation. This leaves them ill-equipped to explore and understand their sexual identities healthily. As a Marin County sexologist, I can support this exploration.

3. Internalized Shame and Guilt: In families where emotions and vulnerabilities are dismissed or ridiculed, children may internalize feelings of shame and guilt about their natural sexual development. This can result in difficulties embracing their sexual selves fully, potentially leading to issues such as sexual dysfunction or an aversion to intimacy. If a person believes there’s something wrong with them and their sexuality, they won’t want to express it or share it with someone else.

Challenges in Navigating Intimate Relationships

Related to the last point, the ability to form and sustain healthy intimate relationships is significantly influenced by early attachment experiences. Growing up with emotionally immature parents can disrupt this process in several ways:

1. Attachment Styles: People with emotionally immature parents are more likely to develop insecure attachment styles, characterized by anxiety, avoidance, or ambivalence in relationships. As an adult, the person may either cling to partners for validation or distance themselves to avoid the pain of potential rejection, making it difficult to establish stable, fulfilling connections. There’s hope though – emotional availability exists on a spectrum and with effort, a person can change these patterns. As a Marin County psychologist and sexologist, I’ve witnessed this healing many times.

2. Boundaries and Communication: Healthy relationships require clear boundaries and effective communication. However, individuals raised by emotionally immature parents often struggle with both. They may either lack boundaries, leading to codependent relationships, or erect rigid ones, preventing deep emotional intimacy. Additionally, their communication styles may be maladaptive, mirroring the dysfunction they observed in their parents.

3. Self-Esteem and Self-Worth: A fragile sense of self-esteem, common among those with emotionally immature parents, can drive people to seek external validation through their relationships. This dependency can lead to unhealthy dynamics where the person’s sense of worth is contingent upon the approval of others, often resulting in a cycle of toxic relationships.

Therapeutic Interventions

As a Marin County sexologist and psychologist, my approach to helping people affected by these early experiences involves several key strategies:

1. Psychoeducation: Educating clients about the impact of their upbringing on their current relational and sexual challenges is crucial. It gives them awareness and understanding of what happened. Knowing the roots of their difficulties can empower them to make conscious changes.

2. Building Emotional Awareness: Helping clients develop a greater awareness of their emotions and bodily sensations can reconnect them with their sexual selves. If you’re not in touch with yourself, how can you satisfyingly connect with others? Mindfulness practices and body-oriented therapies can be particularly effective in building emotional and somatic awareness. I have a meditation about this in my shoppe.

3. Enhancing Communication Skills: Working on assertive communication and boundary-setting skills is essential for adults who were raised by emotionally immature parents. Role-playing exercises and therapeutic dialogues can provide clients with practical tools to improve their interactions in intimate relationships because they are neither erecting rigid boundaries nor losing themselves by constantly acquiescing to someone else.

4. Fostering Self-Compassion: Encouraging self-compassion and self-acceptance helps people move past internalized shame and guilt. It’s hard to change anything until a person accepts where they are and what happened to them. This means recognizing there’s a very good reason why they do what they do in relationships. That reason may have outlived its usefulness but it didn’t appear out of nowhere.

5. Developing Secure Attachment Patterns: Therapy can help clients form secure attachment patterns by creating a safe, supportive environment where they can experience reliable emotional support. That’s why I say therapy is not just navel-gazing. Therapy creates a container where a person can be wholly themselves with a reliable, stable, emotionally mature person (ideally anyway). Regular contact in a secure relationship can gradually reshape a person’s relational expectations and behaviors.

Growing up with emotionally immature parents presents significant challenges to understanding a person’s sexual self and forming healthy intimate relationships. However, with targeted therapeutic interventions, people can learn to navigate these complexities, fostering a healthier and more fulfilling sexual and relational life.

If you’d like support with that, I’m a Marin County sexologist and psychologist. Contact me about working together.