Are You Compassionate...Or Emotionally Intrusive?

When Your Capacity To Care For Your Partner Is Actually Violation

Buckle up babes, this one is deep and thorny.

I am low key allergic to jargon and psychobabble, so I'm not going to say "empaths, this post is for you." But let's just say, if that's a term you resonate with, you're going to want to read to the end.

For people who strongly value emotional intimacy, you may inadvertently become so latched onto your partner's emotions that you cannot fully discern where they end emotionally and where you begin. This isn't a conscious choice or behavior; it's a subtle, below the surface way of being and interacting. And if you know you have this tendency, you might be well aware that it takes a toll on you. You get compassion fatigue. You feel frustrated when your partner doesn't take action to feel better.

Relational Hypervigilance Is Sabotaging Your Relationship

When Your Perceptiveness Doesn’t Serve You I’ve written recently about how your life experiences can leave you with an overly sensitive alarm system when it comes to relationships. Safety After TraumaWhen You Can’t Trust Your Own Alarm System Recently, I put up a question box on Instagram, and was

Love Notes for Real LifeMarina Rosenthal

But the sneaky thing is, this way of being also has a negative impact on your partner and the relationship itself. It's just that those impacts are often invisible—and insidious.

Today, I'm exploring how you can start to determine the line for yourself between connected compassion and emotional intrusion. Plus, I'll share practical ways to break out of emotionally intrusive tendencies (and what to do instead).

Let's go!