Reviewed by Kaja Perina
Actually, it doesn’t exactly creep in. Instead, it strides through the back door, silently and stealthily undermining communication, connection, compassion, and warmth in your relationship.
Usually, emotional neglect is brought into the marriage through the childhood of one or both of the partners. When one or both partners comes from a family that’s not aware of feelings and under-attends to them (childhood emotional neglect), that partner naturally continues that process.
Growing up with emotional neglect makes you blind to your own emotions, the essential ingredient that is absolutely necessary to connect in a real way with your spouse. The “emotion blindness” also extends to your partner. You may have difficulty noticing and responding to their feelings as well. This may result in an emotionally lonely partner.
If you and your partner both brought the emotional blind spot into your relationship, then a somewhat different problem ensues, because neither of you can see what’s missing. Neither of you may realize what should be happening and what you should be feeling. With no one able to call out the problem, you are in danger of slowly, painfully drifting apart until the growing wall of emotional neglect distorts your vision of each other, and the positive, healthy feelings that brought you together slowly drain away.
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