The festive season seems ideal for addressing this: family arguments are a staple at Christmas dinners and during New Year’s Eve gatherings. When adults sit down to eat, we often forget that children are watching, and we let conflicts loose that carry significant emotional weight for them.
“There was always shouting in my house”, “I would retreat to my bedroom”, “I learned not to bother.” These are just a few of the phrases psychologist Leticia Martín Enjuto has heard in her practice. “Many people don’t recall a particularly traumatic childhood, but they do recall a climate of constant tension. And that, even when not named, leaves a mark.”
The expert analyses for Cuerpomente some of the most common behaviours in adults who witnessed family arguments in childhood. Because “when a child grows up watching disputes between the figures who should protect them, they learn something very deep about the world and about themselves: they learn how to manage emotions, how conflicts are resolved and what place they occupy within the family system.” And that, of course, leaves its mark.
Emotional Hypervigilance
The first habitual behaviour among those adults who, as children, consistently observed family arguments, is a state of constant hypervigilance. “They develop a special sensitivity to others’ emotional states,” explains Leticia Martín Enjuto, “they detect even the smallest changes in the atmosphere: a different silence, a glance, a change in tone.”
This, the expert continues, is not a sign of possessing enhanced intuition but a survival method. “As children, staying alert was a way of anticipating conflict and protecting themselves,” she explains. In adulthood, this vigilance becomes a problem. “It causes emotional fatigue, anxiety and difficulty relaxing in relationships. Even when everything is fine, a part of the person still waits for something to go wrong,” says Leticia.
Warning signs
In adult life we need to “confront” the things that disquiet or irritate us. That doesn’t mean arguing, but it does mean communicating, in a healthy manner, what we need and what we’d prefer not to be part of our lives. The problem, according to Martín Enjuto, is that for many of these people confrontation, even in its most peaceful form, becomes a threat.
“That is why some people avoid conflict at all costs, staying silent or giving in too easily. Others react with great intensity when they can no longer bear the discomfort,” says the psychologist. In either case, the issue isn’t the conflict itself, but that the individual has not learned how to confront it without hurting, shouting, or severing the bond. “The body remembers that arguing hurt, and responds from that place, even when the circumstances are very different from those experienced in childhood,” she adds.
Emotional responsibility
Emotional responsibility is essential for building healthy relationships. But it can go too far when we feel responsible for others’ emotional well-being. And this, Leticia notes, is very common among adults who grew up with family arguments in childhood.
“It is very common for these adults to have a strong tendency to care for, to soothe or emotionally support those around them.” The problem is that, by doing so, they fail to set boundaries, they feel a deep fear of disappointing others and an immense sense of guilt when the other person is unwell. “It isn’t that they don’t know how to look after themselves; it’s that they learned very early that their value lay in keeping the peace,” the psychologist concludes.
Ambivalence about intimacy
The adults who lived through arguments during childhood, Leticia explains to this outlet, live in a dichotomy regarding intimacy. On the one hand, these people feel an intense need and desire to build deep relationships. But at the same time, they feel fear of intimacy.
When the relationship becomes significant, something kicks in, the psychologist explains: “Insecurity appears, a need for distance or the fear that the relationship will become painful. Intimacy, unwillingly, is linked to the conflict experienced at home,” the psychologist adds.
In psychology, this is known as “emotional ambivalence.” That is, the desire to be close, but not feeling entirely secure in doing so. “It isn’t a lack of love,” explains Martín Enjuto, “it is an emotional memory. The bond triggers old wounds that have yet to be worked through.”
Self-imposed perfectionism and inability to feel
“Growing up in a tense environment often leads the child to keep a tight rein on themselves: not crying, not getting angry, not worsening the situation,” the psychologist notes. And in adulthood, this translates into a “high self-imposed standard and difficulty expressing uncomfortable emotions.”
Thus, adults who grew up in unstable climates tend to present themselves as “strong, responsible and highly functional,” yet internally they carry a high level of stress. The regulation of emotions becomes a strategy that proved useful in childhood and has persisted into adulthood, which over time can lead to “an emotional disconnection, somatisation or a persistent sense of emptiness.”
