The foundation of mature behavior is to act like an adult. The basic definition of adult behavior is that an adult is someone who solves more problems than they create. A child, on the other hand, is someone who creates more problems than they solve. Regardless of a person’s actual age, we can therefore determine whether someone behaves in a mature or childish way.
We might even have a five-year-old child who behaves much more maturely than their parents. That is, a child might solve more problems than they create, or create so few that the parents are actually the ones causing more problems. In such a case, the child is excessively emotionally mature for their age. If this child has a sibling, the other child will usually behave in the opposite way—excessively childish for their age.
From this follows the AEQ definition of an emotionally mature partnership: a relationship in which both individuals are adults who each, independently, solve more problems than they create. When such mature individuals form a couple, they become even more effective together and are thus more attracted to each other. The attraction between two people in a partnership is fundamentally conditioned by their effectiveness. Because they are important to each other, they behave responsibly toward one another and gradually develop increasing trust. This leads to increasing effectiveness, which in turn leads to increasing mutual attraction.
An effective and emotionally mature relationship is thus one in which the partners are able to solve more and more problems and create fewer and fewer, leading to a situation where they have fewer and fewer problems. This allows them to be increasingly parasympathetic. We can only be parasympathetic when things are properly managed. The more parasympathetic two partners are, the thinner their membranes and the lighter their emotional armor.
The more parasympathetic the woman is, the stronger her internal energy becomes. Internal pressure also decreases in the man, who can likewise be parasympathetic, with his potential energy stored in muscles that are ready for action. Both the man and woman then have no excessive potential energy in the abdominal cavity—only as much as they truly need. In such a situation, the woman becomes emotionally strong, meaning she has powerful emotions and can see much farther into the future than a man (or a woman who is not parasympathetic). Such a couple becomes even more emotionally effective in solving problems and, due to growing mutual attraction, shares increasingly thinner emotional boundaries. The flow of emotions between the man and woman consequently becomes higher.
The partners begin to act more and more like a single entity or system with two heads, four arms, and four legs. This gives them the ability to be even more effective at solving problems, while also experiencing stronger emotions. Although the stronger emotions between them are positive, they require adequate emotional maturity. This is also the greatest challenge and the reason why the process of raising emotional maturity—taught in AEQ programs—takes so much time.
The challenge lies in the fact that with the AEQ explanation of the processes that define relationships, the influence of the past, AEQ exercises, and the reduction of sensorimotor amnesia, we soften the body and become less rigid and more spontaneous, which then leads to stronger emotions. These emotions can surpass our current level of emotional maturity. This is particularly challenging for men, who may then flee from the woman. On one hand, men try to satisfy the woman, give her what she needs, show her attention and affection, take care of her, and demonstrate that she can trust them… But then what happens is that the woman starts to trust him more because she sees that he is more effective at solving problems. As the man becomes more competent, the woman relaxes. When she relaxes, she also opens up more and overwhelms the man with stronger emotions—emotions he cannot handle because he never saw how to do so from his own father and never had the opportunity to learn.
His father usually reacted immaturely to the woman’s strong emotions, whether positive or negative—either he attacked her, causing her to feel fear and close off again, or he fled from her, which also caused her to withdraw due to lack of trust. Because of all this, the parents could never move toward stronger emotions and therefore never managed to raise their own emotional maturity.
The more we can operate with stronger emotions due to higher emotional maturity, the more energy we can use effectively and the higher our ability to solve problems becomes. We are also less afraid of the future because we know we’ll be able to manage most potential problems in a timely and effective way. This is especially true when the woman is sufficiently parasympathetic to see into the future and can alert the man in time about an approaching issue. The man can then ensure that everything is ready so that, when the problem gets close enough, he can tackle and solve it effectively.
In such a case, a toxic environment cannot develop—aside from the occasional acute or short-term version of toxicity, there is no long-term or chronic toxic environment. According to the AEQ method, a long-term non-toxic environment is the foundation for a properly emotionally mature parental relationship. This means that the central relationship is the one between the parents, as they are the core of the family and the ones who solve problems. A child raised in such a less problematic or non-problematic environment can independently develop into their own version—a combination of father and mother—and find their own life path. From the parents, the child learns how to solve problems in terms of technique, approach, and practice. The more the child learns from the parents, the more self-evident problem solving becomes. When this child grows up, they are attracted to similarly emotionally mature individuals. This is the guarantee that the child will be able to create an emotionally mature relationship and from it, in turn, an emotionally mature parental relationship.
