shut out

stop sharing your feelings with someone or keep them out of your emotional life

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What does "shut sb out" mean?

To shut someone out in an emotional sense means to deliberately keep them at a distance by refusing to share your feelings, thoughts, or inner life with them. It implies a kind of deliberate withdrawal — building an invisible wall so that even people who care deeply about you cannot get close. This is often a habitual pattern rather than a one-off moment: someone who shuts people out tends to go silent, stop confiding, or emotionally disappear when things become difficult. The phrase carries a strong sense that the excluded person is left helpless — they want to connect but are simply not allowed in. It appears in a wide range of contexts, from everyday conversation about relationships to therapy, self-help writing, and literary fiction.

Examples

How to use it

shut + pronoun + out

The most common pattern in this sense — pronoun objects always go between 'shut' and 'out', never after.

Every time she tried to talk about their problems, he just shut her out completely.

shut + person/noun + out

Used when the object is a short noun phrase referring to a person or group; separation is preferred over keeping the object after 'out'.

After the falling-out, he shut his closest friends out and refused to explain why.

shut out + person/group

When the noun phrase is longer or more formal, the object can follow 'out' without separation.

She had a habit of shutting out everyone who tried to get emotionally close to her.

feel / be shut out

The passive is natural and frequently used to express the perspective of the person who has been emotionally excluded.

His partner felt completely shut out because he never talked about what he was going through.

tend to / try to shut + object + out

This phrasal verb often follows verbs like 'tend to' or 'try to' to describe habitual or effortful patterns of emotional withdrawal.

She knows she tends to shut people out when she's stressed, but she finds it hard to change.

Common Collocations

shut someone out emotionallyfeel shut outshut out a partnershut out the people you loveshut out family and friendstend to shut people out

Common Mistakes

Using an abstract object for the emotional sense

In the emotional sense, 'shut out' must take a person as its object. Using an abstract noun like 'feelings' or 'pain' shifts the meaning to a different sense of the phrasal verb — blocking something from your mind — which is a separate usage.

✗ He shut out his emotions after the divorce.
✓ He shut everyone out after the divorce and refused to talk about how he was feeling.
Pronoun placed after 'out'

When the object is a pronoun, it must go between 'shut' and 'out'. Placing it after 'out' is a grammatical error in English.

✗ She shut out me whenever she was going through something difficult.
✓ She shut me out whenever she was going through something difficult.
Confusing 'shut out' with 'push away'

'Push away' suggests behaviour — often unintentional — that causes someone to leave of their own accord. 'Shut out' focuses specifically on refusing to grant someone access to your emotional world, implying a more internal, deliberate act of exclusion.

✗ He pushed her out by never sharing how he felt.
✓ He shut her out by never sharing how he felt.

Usage

This phrasal verb is neutral in register and works equally well in spoken and written English, from everyday conversation to literary prose. It often describes a pattern of behaviour rather than a single action, so it frequently appears in continuous or habitual forms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does 'shut out' always describe something deliberate, or can it be unintentional?

It often implies a degree of deliberateness, but it can also describe a habitual pattern that someone may not be fully conscious of — for example, a person who automatically withdraws emotionally without realising the effect it has. The key idea is that the exclusion is coming from within the person, whether they intend it or not, rather than being an external circumstance.

Can 'shut out' describe a single moment, or does it have to be a repeated pattern?

It can describe a single instance, but it most naturally suggests repeated or habitual behaviour. Adverbs and phrases like 'always', 'whenever', or 'tends to' are very common alongside it precisely because it often describes how someone characteristically responds to emotional difficulty rather than a one-time event.

Does 'shut out' have other meanings I might come across?

Yes — the same form appears in other senses, such as blocking something from entering (light, noise, or unwanted thoughts) and in sports contexts meaning to prevent an opponent from scoring. In those senses, the object is not a person you have a relationship with. If you see 'shut out' with a human object in a relationship or emotional context, it almost certainly refers to emotional exclusion.

Is 'shut out' more common in spoken English or written English?

It's equally at home in both. You'll hear it in everyday conversations about relationships and see it in advice columns, self-help books, therapy contexts, and literary fiction. There's no strong preference for one medium over the other.

Can I use 'shut out' to talk about my own behaviour, or only about what someone else does to me?

Both are completely natural. You can describe what someone does to others ('he shut his family out') or reflect on your own patterns ('I know I tend to shut people out when I'm overwhelmed'). The passive form is particularly useful when you want to express how it felt to be on the receiving end: 'I felt completely shut out'.

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