Emotional Openness: What We Lose by Hiding Feelings

What gets lost as we grow up?

We tend to believe that our minds mature as we get older. Broadly speaking, research supports that belief.

In research examining 47 aspects of personality maturation, psychologists found that most people develop traits in adulthood that better support healthy relationships and working lives. With age, adults tend to show greater leadership, agreeableness, responsibility and emotional stability. They also become more careful, considerate, organized, decisive and kind.

These changes deserve celebration. We really are growing into the capable adults we hoped to become.

But a small cloud can drift across that otherwise bright picture. It brings questions that are harder to dismiss: You are becoming more mature, but are you less happy? Have you become more accustomed to holding everything in? Are you less willing to let anyone see what you feel?

That cloud concerns something called openness to feelings. The same research reported that, even as most personality traits developed in more mature and adaptive directions, adults’ openness to feelings gradually declined.

If growing older has also meant feeling more emotionally constrained, you are not alone. Many other adults recognize that experience.

Does keeping your feelings hidden protect your relationships?

Emotional suppression means making an effort to keep other people from detecting what you are feeling. This contrasts with emotional openness.

There are understandable reasons to do this. Feeling emotional can leave us vulnerable and more easily hurt, so revealing an emotion sometimes feels dangerous. We may believe that putting up with a little hurt now will make us stronger, keep our relationships stable for longer and preserve a peaceful environment.

The reasoning can sound persuasive:

“If no one can tell whether I am happy or angry, I must be getting stronger.”

“My discomfort and dissatisfaction have not disturbed this relationship. Surely that means it is less fragile.”

“As long as I stay in my comfort zone, I do not have to keep worrying about disagreements. That feels much less frightening.”

But do those expectations hold up? Is hiding our emotions really the secret to getting along with everyone?

The vulnerability involved in expressing feelings is easy to see. The costs of suppressing them can be less obvious. Yet research cited here reports costs to individuals, their relationships and the surrounding environment.

People who suppress their feelings can experience more low mood, fatigue and weariness, along with lower self-esteem and less satisfaction with life. In relationships, they may feel less supported, perceive others as pulling away and feel less satisfied with the connection.

Consider anger. The cited research describes expressing anger, rather than concealing it, as a constructive action that can help maintain or strengthen a relationship. When a partner leaves their anger unexpressed, dissatisfaction within the relationship can increase.

If a friend crosses a boundary and you do not dare show that you are angry, it can feel as though a thick wall has appeared between you. The relationship no longer feels close. You may feel that the other person will never understand what you are going through, and the distance between you can keep growing.

The problem is not limited to hiding unpleasant emotions. It can appear in positive situations too. Other cited research reports that relationship satisfaction can fall when efforts involving self-sacrifice remain unknown to the other person.

Think again of preparing a tableful of food. You are physically tired, but also proud of what you have made. If your family knows about neither the exhaustion nor the pride, might you become less willing to make that sacrifice again?

These effects may extend beyond the immediate encounter. The cited research reports that, among people who frequently suppress their feelings, low mood can continue to rise and relationship satisfaction can continue to fall even three months after an event.

What emotional openness can make possible

Revealing our feelings involves more than the vulnerability and risk of hurt we tend to imagine. It can also bring benefits that are easy to overlook in daily life.

Through emotional expression, we can experience acceptance, greater intimacy and less of a sense that others are keeping their distance. In an experiment cited here, participants’ self-esteem and relationship satisfaction improved significantly during the three months following emotional expression.

When feelings emerge naturally, the separation between two people can seem to dissolve. It is as though they have entered a shared space where joy, anger and sadness can be experienced together. Feeling seen, understood and respected can give us more confidence in the relationship’s future.

Expression can also help us stay with happiness for longer. Research cited here suggests that expressing positive emotions lets us revisit what made an experience enjoyable, sustaining and strengthening the feeling.

Sharing a happy experience with a friend, writing about it in a diary or composing an enthusiastic social media post can bring back some of the excitement and energy we felt at the time. In expressing the experience, we get to enjoy it again.

Painful feelings can benefit from being put into words too. The cited research suggests that describing pain can deepen understanding and insight, which may in turn help romantic relationships.

When we feel hurt or unfairly treated, speaking about it may help us understand our own emotions more clearly. If both people take those feelings seriously, what was unpleasant can become a driving force for progress in the relationship, instead of a stumbling block.

Start with what you can express

If expressing yourself still feels difficult, there is no need to become overly anxious about it. The everyday emotional fluctuations and effects discussed here fall within a normal range; they do not have an overwhelmingly large impact on life.

Still, if you would like to feel happier, more supported and more satisfied with your life and close relationships, gradually letting more of your feelings show may be one change worth trying.