Setting Boundaries About Emotional Dumping With Your Loved Ones

What Is Emotional Dumping?

We’ve all been there: you’re minding your own business when you receive a text, phone call, or (god-forbid) FaceTime call from that one friend or family member. You already know how this is going to play out: they’ll undoubtedly have some personal issue they’ll feel the need to take out on you. They’ll rant and rave, refusing to listen to or accept any advice you try to offer. Why do these things always happen to me? They’ll ask (rhetorically, of course). The one-sided conversation will go on far longer than necessary and end with zero resolutions to the situation. Afterward, you’ll feel like you’ve just run a 10K through a wasteland of potholes and dumpster fires, only to not be given any recognition for it at the end. Welcome to emotional dumping.

To maintain a healthy, functional relationship with anyone, clear communication is necessary. However, that line gets crossed when communication turns sharing or relating emotions into using another person as an emotional dumping ground.

Emotional dumping is the act of aggressively taking out one’s negative emotions on someone else with little to no regard for the other person’s feelings or overall well-being. People often do this to avoid being accountable for their actions. In turn, the…