@nadiaaddesi: People who avoid their own emotions often struggle to respond appropriately when someone else expresses theirs. To acknowledge your pain, they would have to stay present with discomfort, vulnerability and emotional intensity, which may be exactly what they have spent most of their life learning to escape. This often develops in childhood. Some people grew up in homes where emotions were ignored, criticized or treated as an inconvenience. They may have learned that being upset made things worse, that vulnerability was unsafe or that difficult feelings needed to be pushed away as quickly as possible. Avoidance became the way they protected themselves. The problem is that the same coping mechanism that once helped them survive can make emotional intimacy very difficult in adulthood. When you tell them that you are hurt, they may minimize what happened, become defensive, focus on your delivery, change the subject or shut down completely. Your emotions can feel threatening because they bring them close to feelings they have never learned how to tolerate in themselves. This can leave you repeatedly trying to explain your pain more clearly, hoping that the right words will finally make them understand. You may soften your feelings, provide more examples or spend hours proving why your reaction makes sense. Eventually, you can start wondering whether you are too sensitive or expecting too much. You are not necessarily communicating incorrectly. You may be trying to create emotional closeness with someone whose automatic response to emotion is distance. Understanding where this pattern comes from can help you stop personalizing their reaction, but understanding it does not mean you have to continue accepting it. Their history may explain why emotional acknowledgement is difficult for them, but it is still their responsibility to recognize the pattern and work on it. Explaining someone’s behaviour and accepting it are not the same thing. You can understand where it comes from and still recognize that it is hurting the relationship. At some point, you may have to stop waiting for someone to acknowledge your emotions when they are still committed to avoiding their own.

Nadia Addesi

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Friday 24 July 2026 17:36:58 GMT