We have just talked about how empathy without boundaries can drain us of energy. But there is an even finer layer to that conversation: what happens when emotions in relationships are neither expressed nor absent, but hidden, camouflaged in behaviours that seem to say something different from what is actually happening inside?

Hidden emotions are perhaps the most common source of confusion in relationships, both intimate and professional. People rarely say directly what they feel, not out of ill will, but because they often don't know clearly themselves, or because they have learned that certain emotions are not safe to express. And so they appear in another form.

Why emotions hide

There is a concept in psychology called a "substitute emotion," meaning the emotion we display in place of the real one, because the real one feels too vulnerable, too shameful or too risky to show. Anger is the most common substitute emotion for pain. It is easier to be angry than to admit you are hurt. Anger gives a sense of power, while pain exposes.

Similarly, irony or detachment can conceal fear. Excessive humour can cover deep sadness. Hyperactivity and control can be responses to an anxiety the person doesn't acknowledge in themselves. Emotional freezing, meaning the apparent absence of any emotion, is often a response to an overwhelm the nervous system cannot process any other way.

In intimate relationships

In a couple, hidden emotions produce a particular kind of distance. Two people can live together, speak daily and move through life in parallel without having truly touched each other emotionally for months or years. Not because emotions don't exist, but because each person is living them internally, without bringing them into the space between them.

One of the signals I notice most often is repeated criticism of small things. A partner who is constantly irritated by trivial matters is rarely genuinely bothered by the unwashed plate or the door left open. Almost always, there is something deeper underneath: an unmet need, an unspoken fear, an accumulated pain that hasn't found another channel. The small thing is the trigger, not the source.

Similarly, sudden withdrawal or prolonged silence in an intimate relationship is not usually indifference. It is often a form of self-protection activated by an emotion the person doesn't know how to express, or is afraid to express.

In professional relationships

The professional environment is fertile ground for hidden emotions precisely because the cultural norm says that emotions have no place at work. As a result, people bring them anyway, but in disguise.

The colleague who subtly sabotages others' projects may be living a deep frustration connected to her own lack of recognition. The manager who controls every detail excessively may be driven by a fear of failure he cannot acknowledge. The employee who appears disengaged or passive may in fact be demotivated by an injustice they didn't feel safe to name directly.

Reading these dynamics doesn't mean excusing the behaviours, but understanding them well enough to respond to the cause rather than the symptom.

How to learn to read beneath the surface

The first skill is noticing discrepancies between what someone says and how they behave. The words say one thing; the body, tone and behaviour say another. When there is a consistent dissonance, the hidden emotion is usually in the behaviour, not in the words.

The second skill is gentle curiosity. Not cold analysis or rapid diagnosis, but an open question asked at the right moment. "How are you really doing these days?" Or, in a professional context, "I've noticed you seem more withdrawn lately, is there something on your mind?" These questions don't guarantee an honest answer, but they open a door that many people have been waiting for someone to open.

The third skill, and the hardest to cultivate, is recognising your own hidden emotions. Before you can read beneath the surface of another person, you need to be able to do it with yourself. And that is a lifelong practice.

Think of a relationship, intimate or professional, in which you sense something is being left unsaid. What emotion do you think is hiding beneath the surface of the behaviours you observe? And, more importantly, what emotion are you yourself hiding in that relationship?