The relationship damage of emotional withholding

A difference of opinion used to lead to banishment. Sometimes physically, but always emotionally.

Psychologists call this avoidant abuse or emotional withholding. Psychologists also say it’s becoming increasingly more common, and it comes with serious consequences.

Emotional withholding, or “avoidant abuse is someone willingly withdrawing affection with the specific goal to hurt your feelings or control you.” –Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash

Thomas G. Fiffer, Senior Editor, Ethics, at The Good Men Project has this to say about it:

“Simply put, avoidant abuse is someone willingly withdrawing affection with the specific goal to hurt your feelings or control you. It’s a form of psychological abuse that’s particularly cutting, since humans need love and affection in order to feel happy in a relationship.”

In a separate blog, Fiffer states:

“Emotional withholding is, I believe, the toughest tactic to deal with when trying to create and maintain a healthy relationship, because it plays on our deepest fears — rejection, unworthiness, shame and guilt, the worry that we’ve done something wrong or failed or worse, that there’s something wrong with us.”

Emotional withholding, or conditional love as I used to call it, tears at the very center of a person’s identity. It makes them feel as though there’s something fundamentally wrong with them, with the way they think, behave, and express themselves. It makes them feel shame…