Yesterday I was visiting with my father who happened to be watching an episode of Divorce Court where a wife was frustrated with her husband’s lack of financial and emotional contributions to the family and to their relationship. She felt that he just wanted to lay up and live off of her while he pursued a music career. She said he was a great father to his kids, but otherwise, he was a deadbeat when it came to their marriage and with being a responsible adult.

As I talked with my friend later that evening, my thoughts kept coming back to that TV show and our respective relationships, and I realized that we too had experienced deadbeats in our romantic lives.

How to tell if you’re an emotional deadbeat:

You know how some people like to say relationships are 50/50?

I never liked that analogy, because what if both parties are giving a half-assed 50%, or one person gives their best 50 and the other person is half-assing? And since very little success comes from a half-assed effort, give it your all, or keep it moving.

If you feel that your relationship is only worth 50% of your effort, and perhaps not even your best effort, than chances are that’s what you give to your whole life, and that makes you an emotional deadbeat.

Have you ever said something like, “The next time around, I’m not doing this, that, or the third? “

So your last relationship burned you. Real bad.

Does that mean the new person is going to do the same thing to you?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But because you’ve brought past emotional baggage into your new relationship, the least bit of conflict will open up old wounds, and you’ll blame the other person instead of addressing the fact that you haven’t healed from the pain of your previous relationship.

And that makes you an emotional deadbeat.

“I was the BEST s/he ever had and they fucked it up. The next person who comes my way will have to work to earn my love. I’m done.”

So, you’ve decided that you’re going to punish the new person for everything your ex did to you that hurt you. Relationships built on this mindset never end well, but they always end.

If you’ve done this/are doing this now, you’re an emotional deadbeat.

“This is my last effort to have a real, meaningful relationship.”

I haven’t been around for that long, but I have seen far too many people enter relationships with this mindset. It’s especially disturbing when I hear people under 30 say this, because, really, one hasn’t lived long enough to have that feeling at 30 or younger.

This sentiment is often a culmination of all the previously mentioned examples and is the worst kind, because this person has essentially become the living dead.

A person who feels this way has checked out emotionally. They are not fully engaged, even though they may tell you that they want and are seriously committed to the relationship. Their behavior is passive-aggressive, and when the relationship doesn’t work out, they will tell you that none of what went wrong had anything to do with them. In fact, they will have you believe that they were a good partner the whole time, whereby being good, they hardly participated, and by default, they can’t be held responsible for what went wrong.

Emotional deadbeats are like vampires.

If you’re not careful, they will suck the life force out of you and turn you into one of them.

Have you been an emotional deadbeat or been in a relationship with an emotional deadbeat?

When did you realize it, and what did you do about it?