039 | Living with an Emotionally Cut-off Person

Colt (00:00.0)
Hello, my name is Colt Gordon and I am a licensed therapist. I’m out here in Yellowstone, Cody, Wyoming. And I’m a Bowen Family Systems expert. not only work in Wyoming and California as a therapist, but I work all over for people wanting to become a more well-defined self, a self-differentiation, becoming more of who you are regardless of the background you come from.

Colt (00:30.7)
regardless if you come from a very enmeshed family, a very emotionally unavailable family, whatever the case may be, you can get on the road to becoming a more well-defined, healthy version of who you are. Something I talk a lot about with my clients is enmeshment and emotional cutoff. They’re the same coin, different sides of dysfunctionality, coming from dysfunction. Enmeshment looks more like people-pleasing.

Colt (00:59.162)
Emotional cutoff looks more like distance, rigidity. So working with people, it’s really important to figure out, where do I favor more? Do I favor more of the people-pleasing, nice guy syndrome, if you will, or am I more on the side of rigidity, pushing people away? And understanding that can be very vital, very important to healing, to getting more aligned with who you are, getting aligned with your values.

Colt (01:29.142)
and having a more meaningful life. So today I’m really talking about living with someone who struggles with emotional cutoff behavior. Next video I’m probably going to do living with somebody. What does it look like to live with someone that is more enmeshed? So emotional cutoff is the Hallmark concept and is a Hallmark concept in Bowie and Family Systems. It can feel both challenging and isolating to live with someone.

Colt (01:57.762)
that’s emotionally cut off. They’re emotionally someone that runs away. we’ve heard, I’m sure some people have heard here lately in the psycho pop psychology, anxiously attached, anxiously avoidant can be synonymous here. Anxiously avoidant people are emotionally cut off people. Come from distant families. Typically, not always. So emotionally cut off typically stems from unresolved family relationships.

Colt (02:26.942)
often characterized by emotional distance or avoidance of conflict. And here’s what it’s like and how Bowen Family Systems theory can shed light on these dynamics. I’m gonna go over emotional dynamics of living with an emotionally cutoff person, challenges you might experience living with an emotionally cutoff person, Bowen Family insights with living with an emotionally cutoff person, and strategies for living.

Colt (02:56.194)
with emotionally cut off person. One of the main goals before I get into those areas of discussion today is getting light between you and the person, whether the person you’re living with is enmeshed, the person you’re living with is a very cut off person, getting some more light between you and that person, right? Especially if you’re on the mesh side, becoming more of who you are versus engaging and reinforcing that behavior.

Colt (03:25.184)
And a lot of that process is calmness is everything. If you’re not calm, you’re going to be reacting, knee-jerk reacting. And typically if you’re living with, this is so key, if you’re living with someone who’s emotionally cut off, not available, avoidant, your proclivity will be to run towards them. Your work is to hold, like I’m Brayfart, hold. So emotional dynamics.

Colt (03:54.67)
So number one, difficulty with intimacy. People who are emotionally cut off from their families, who come from a distant family, often struggle to form deep, vulnerable connections. They may build walls in their relationships to protect themselves from pain, leading to a lack of emotional closeness in your romantic relationship or whatever relationship we’re talking about. Two, avoidance of conflict.

Colt (04:22.062)
They might go to great lengths to avoid confrontation, preferring to withdraw rather than engage in emotionally charged discussions. This can leave you feeling unheard or dismissed when trying to address concerns. Three, reactive behaviors. Emotional cutoffs can lead to intense reactions when stress or unresolved family issues arise. This person may oscillate between being overly accommodating and distant.

Colt (04:50.73)
leaving you uncertain about where you stand. And four, compartmentalization. They might compartmentalize their relationships or emotions, keeping you at arm’s length when discussing their family or past. This can create a sense of mystery or frustration as you may feel excluded from significant aspects of their inner world. That’s a very painful process to be around someone that’s not emotionally available. Their difficulty with intimacy, they avoid conflict.

Colt (05:19.788)
reactive behaviors and compartmentalization. And something in here, here’s a bonus one, number five, is they can also, because of those reactive behaviors, create conflict. So on one hand, they avoid conflict, but they can also create conflict. And that, a lot of times, is out of this expectation for the other person to be perfect, requiring you to be perfect in order for everything to be okay. And perfection is not a thing. It’s not actually…

Colt (05:48.256)
something anyone can do, especially if you’re human. I don’t think there’s any gods here. Maybe there are, but if you are human, you can’t be perfect. So that rigidity creates conflict. So these emotional dynamics are very painful when you’re living with an emotionally cut off person. And a lot of times too, emotions aren’t allowed. You’re not allowed to have emotions, right? Or they may not say that because of their hip on the

Colt (06:17.902)
top psychology, but when you bring up emotions, they can very readily be dismissed. And that’s a big sign that you’re, you might be with someone that has that lean towards emotional cutoff or lack of emotional availability. And obviously these lead into some challenges, feeling isolated. You feel very lonely, even though you may physically be with that person. Repeated patterns.

Colt (06:46.072)
They may unintentionally replicate the emotional distancing they experience in their family of origin, making it hard to build a secure and trusting connection. And then emotional over-functioning. If they avoid emotional engagement, you might find yourself over-compensating by taking on the role of fixer or being the one who always initiates emotional intimacy, which keeps the train going, perpetuates it, keeps the dynamic in.

Colt (07:15.406)
place. Kind of like the codependent with the alcoholic, right? I’ll do everything but leave. So at least you keep the person, the warm body there, but you don’t actually get the intimacy. You don’t actually get the relationship. So let’s talk about some Bowen family system insights. According to Bowen theory, emotional cutoff is not just about the person. It reflects multi-generational patterns within their family system.

Colt (07:44.174)
People emotionally cut off from their families because unresolved issues feel overwhelming, leading to create physical or emotional distance, which is a pattern, it’s a pattern, it’s a pattern based on multi-generational patterns. However, this distance does not resolve the core issue. Short term, it makes them feel safe, but it doesn’t resolve anything. It merely suppresses them, often transferring the emotional load to other relationships.

Colt (08:11.79)
Living with someone who displays this behavior requires understanding a systemic, a systems lens in order for you to outgrow it. Otherwise, if you just focus on your individual self, which can be helpful, right? Self care, you know, going to therapy, go to the gym, all that stuff is helpful. But unless you’re seeing it from a systems lens, a systems viewpoint, it’s going to really hard to transform yourself outside of that dynamic that you’re stuck in with an emotionally cutoff person. Because typically,

Colt (08:42.03)
What you’re doing is going to reinforce and perpetuate what they’re doing. It’s a reaction. You’re both reacting to each other. So in this process of Bowen Family Systems Insights, working on differentiation of self, which is not a measurement. It’s not emotional cutoff. It’s a process of becoming more of who you are. You stay emotionally grounded and true to your values, even when the person you’re with pulls away.

Colt (09:10.486)
maintain your individuality or practicing it because maybe you don’t have much, while being compassionate helps you avoid being absorbed into their emotional turmoil or creating codependent behaviors. Two, family emotional patterns. Recognize that their behavior is reflection of a broader family dynamic rather than a rejection of you. This understanding can reduce resentment and increase empathy. having empathy, noticing that empathy,

Colt (09:38.286)
It’s important, but not letting the empathy turn into pity, right? Where you are feeling sorry and therefore that empathy is ruling or running the show, which again, reinforces the pattern. And three, reducing emotional reactivity. By remaining calm and non-reactive, you create a safe space for them to process their emotions without feeling pressured or judged or trying to fix.

Colt (10:08.942)
Okay, last section here, strategies for living with emotional cutoff. Foster open communication. Gently encourage it, especially if someone that’s emotionally cut off, they’re gonna wanna run away. Model emotional availability. Even though that’s not something they tend to do or have a lot of skill in, you can model it. What it looks like to be open, present, and consistent.

Colt (10:33.408)
Next, set healthy boundaries. Now this is really hard for someone that lives with an emotionally cut off person because boundaries, that just means pushing away more. No, you’re actually bringing self into the relationship. You’re actually bringing healthy tension to the dynamic. You’re bringing some light in between you and the other person. Encourage, which is again, it’s kind of counterintuitive. You would think you would want to not bring any more light. You want to get closer and closer.

Colt (11:01.336)
bringing light by having boundaries actually creates more of a self in that dynamic. Encourage support. Now, that is not something I recommend right away. You need therapy, right? No one likes hearing that. You need coaching. You need to read this book, but encourage it, especially when it makes sense to bring up when it’s already been, yeah, that sounds great. Maybe you need some support. Focus, this is probably the most important process with Bowen Family Systems, the part that made

Colt (11:31.202)
We fall in love with this work is the only person that really needs to change and the dynamic of you and another is you. When you change, if you’re a more on the mesh side, living with someone with emotional cutoff tendencies, when you’re more on the mesh side, when you focus on you, you do your own work, you give them space to do their own work. But when you continue to react, lack of calmness, you further reinforce.

Colt (12:01.366)
problems you may be having.

Colt (12:04.982)
Whenever someone’s either enmeshed or cut off, I want you to remember that familiar hells are preferable to strange heavens on automatic pilot. You will continue the pattern that was installed within you, if you will, depending on the kind of background you came from. And so it’s that much more important to think in systems, think in the way that the role you had to play in order for the system to perpetuate itself. The system’s not bad within itself.

Colt (12:34.828)
It’s just what the system was and it wants to maintain that homeostasis and that’s the pressure you feel. And so get really honest with yourself. Am I someone that leans on the mesh side or am I someone that leans on the emotional cutoff side, whatever it may be getting honest and making a plan on what that looks like, whether you’re working with a coach therapist. And if you’re interested in working with me, I want you to reach out. I got my contact information in the description and we can work together one-on-one.

Colt (13:05.722)
And this is work. It takes skin in the game It’s a lot of work, but it’s simple. It’s not easy, but it’s simple It’s pretty straightforward what this work looks like and you can do this and you no longer are Limited to the professionals in your area. You can find a coach across your state across the world Virtually, so please reach out and continue to the work. Take care