What is emotional unavailability?
Emotional unavailability refers to that mode of functioning in which a person does not respond to your emotional needs. An emotionally unavailable man or woman has difficulty expressing or managing emotions and being emotionally close to other people.
Emotional unavailability can be temporary, generated by a life situation or stable, generated by previous life experience, which is consolidated in elements of the personality structure.
Temporary emotional unavailability occurs when the person goes through a bereavement (death of a loved one, separation or divorce) and cannot open up emotionally to another person. Also, temporary emotional unavailability can manifest itself when the person is already emotionally connected with someone, a relationship that they usually keep secret.
Stable emotional unavailability, as an element of the personality structure, is formed when the person has gone through life events in which the suffering out of an emotional connection was so great, that their psyche decided that in the future they will do anything to protect themselves from this suffering. This is how the essential mechanism of emotional unavailability is created, which is emotional dissociation.
In emotional dissociation, the psyche is split and separated from its own emotions. The person decides to stop feeling, to stop having emotions, which produces a break between consciousness and the emotional dimension. Emotional unavailability is different from psychopathy, in which the person no longer experiences certain emotions and no longer has empathy for the emotions of others.
When we talk about emotional unavailability, the person experiences emotions, but they are mostly repressed, they are denied access to consciousness. This is why an emotionally unavailable person will not be able to feel or name their own emotions. His actions will be predominantly mental, having difficult access to the emotional plane and to his own consciousness.
Having great difficulties in becoming aware of and regulating their own emotional experiences, the person will live in a state of quasi-permanent emotional tension that will mainly manifest itself outside of the consciousness. This inner tension leads to irritability, heightened nervousness, acute stress, multiple somatizations and relationship problems.Having difficulties in being aware of their own emotions and empathizing with the emotions and needs of others, emotionally unavailable people have great difficulties in creating and sustaining emotional intimacy. This creates an inner conflict, the approach-avoidance conflict, because the person wants to approach, but when they approach they feel overwhelmed and withdraw.
I have not found quantitative studies in this regard, but from my clinical experience and personal observations I would say that emotional unavailability affects men more than women. Having less native skills in the expression and management of emotions, men feel more challenged by the emotional domain and frequently resort to emotional dissociation as a defense mechanism in the face of emotional storms. Of course, this is not true for all men, just as there are women who show emotional unavailability, to varying degrees.How is emotional unavailability formed?
The need for human connection is innate and universal in all human beings. Unfortunately, traumatic childhood experiences, abuse and neglect fracture the contact of the psyche with this essential need and distort the ways of fulfilling it. The physically, emotionally, verbally abused child learns through direct experience that interpersonal relationships are the source of pain and suffering and consequently seeks ways to avoid them and protect himself. The neglected child, whose basic or emotional needs were systematically unfulfilled or partially fulfilled, concludes that other people are not a resource in his life, that he cannot rely on them and creates life strategies to manage alone.
To ensure psychological survival when faced with traumatic events, the child develops a series of defense mechanisms, which can be very different depending on the child’s temperament and the traumatic context in which he developed. The central defense mechanism underlying emotional unavailability is emotional dissociation.In emotional dissociation, there is a split, a break in the psyche, so that the contact between consciousness and the emotional dimension is lost. Thus the person loses the ability to be aware of his emotions, he does not realize what he feels, he cannot communicate to another what he feels and it is very difficult for him to manage his emotions. As a paradoxical consequence, in trying to avoid emotions, the person actually lives in unconscious emotional overwhelm. The lack of awareness and externalization of emotions blocks the process of constant emotional hygiene, the emotions remain blocked in the unconscious and in the deep physical and mental structures, so that dysfunction and physical and mental illness set in over time.
Another factor in the formation of emotional unavailability is sensitivity as an innate temperamental structure. Sensitivity refers to the fact that the person perceives reality in a more intense way and has more intense emotional reactions than the average population. Thus, at the intersection between a sensitive background and traumatic experiences, the fear of emotions and the desire to avoid them, almost at any cost, is created.As a result, that child grows into an adolescent and then an adult who will live with the unconscious priority of protecting himself. To protect oneself from emotions, to avoid personal and social situations that arouse emotions, which can make him vulnerable and injure him. Personal and social relationships will be superficial, people will be kept at a distance, the person will become hyper-independent and hyperactive, both protection mechanisms generally found in emotionally unavailable people.
What are the manifestations of emotional unavailability? How do you recognize an emotionally unavailable person?
In an attempt to keep himself emotionally safe, an emotionally unavailable person does not engage in deep and lasting relationships, except when they are mandatory (work relationships, relationships with the family of origin). Such a person avoids intimacy at all costs, does not make long-term plans, does not make commitments, does not make promises. In the romantic area, he prefers to have casual relationships with several people, rather than deepening a relationship with just one. When building a relationship with a person, this relationship is kept at a superficial level (passing meetings, without too many common activities, avoiding introducing family or friends, avoiding long-term plans). They also avoid discussions and confrontations regarding their commitment in relationships, preferring to keep ambiguity and thus creating confusion.
An emotionally unavailable person avoids giving too many details about their own life. He will avoid talking about himself, his concerns or his activity. He does not discuss his experiences and emotions at all, he is very reserved, being shrouded in an aura of mystery.An emotionally unavailable person experiences an inner conflict between the need to create an emotional connection and the fear of suffering that the loss of this connection could cause. As a result, his behavior towards a potential partner will be that of yo-yo, I want it, I don’t want it. When creating emotional/sexual intimacy with a partner, the person will get scared and run away, when the potential partner moves away, the emotionally unavailable one returns and requests connection. This dynamic is extremely unhealthy and causes deep wounds and a lot of confusion to his partner.
An emotionally unavailable person does not recognize and cannot identify his own emotions. To the question „How do you feel?” will most likely answer „I don’t know.” or „I have to think.” Living with fear of emotions, such a person will also avoid the emotions of others and in general the situations that generate emotionality. Consequently, such a person works a lot mentally.
In the process of finding a romantic partner, he is very critical of potential partners and finds faults and flaws in each one. Or he tends to start relationships with people with whom he cannot deepen the relationship anyway (married people, people living far away etc.)How does the relationship with an emotionally unavailable partner feel?
The relationship with an emotionally unavailable partner is extremely frustrating and painful. Such a partner maintains emotional and physical distance and makes it very difficult to build intimacy. Through his yo-yo behavior, I want it, I don’t want it, the emotionally unavailable person creates a lot of confusion in the mind of the potential partner, alternating between mixed signals of interest/disinterest. Many times, the partner’s confidence and self-esteem become deeply eroded, leading him to ask himself questions like „Am I not good enough?”, „Haven’t I done enough?”
Paradoxically, emotionally unavailable people tend to be more seductive than emotionally available ones. Wrapped in an aura of mystery and being difficult to conquer, they create greater emotional and sexual tension than an emotionally balanced person. Emotional unavailability also overcompensates in other areas of life. Developing hyperactivity and hyper independence as defense mechanisms, these people have above average professional, financial and social achievements and these, in turn, increase their attractiveness.
Unfortunately, the possibility of building a healthy long-term relationship with an emotionally unavailable person is limited and, even more, long-term interaction with an emotionally unavailable person can be downright traumatic. Not a few times I received women in the office who had interacted for years with emotionally unavailable partners, still in love and with the hope that in the end they will be able to make a connection. In all these cases the emotional consumption was huge and the interaction had already dug deep wounds in their psyche. These clients confessed to me! „I never doubted myself before, but now it’s like I don’t know who I am and what I want!”, „I constantly wonder if I did enough or where I went wrong!” „I have the impression that I am no longer good for anything and no one else will want me.” In the end, most often the potential partner gives up, after many years of effort and emotional and psychological exhaustion.
Can emotional unavailability be cured?
The answer is „Yes”, with two important conditions. The same two conditions that exist for any consistent therapeutic objective, namely: the deep and strong motivation of the client for healing and the constant and considerable effort over a long period of time.
Emotional unavailability is a big challenge, both for the person who manifests it, and for the therapist who accepts to work with this subject. Having its origin in childhood abuse and neglect, emotional unavailability has deep roots in the person’s psyche, initially it is a defense mechanism that kept the person in a certain psychological integrity, which during the life sedimented as a way of being, which started to become dysfunctional.
What are the steps for change?
- When the persons’ own suffering becomes greater than the benefits of the emotional unavailability mechanism. This is absolutely the first step in creating motivation for any therapeutic goal. We become interested in healing and change when something hurts and it hurts so much that the status quo, the state of affairs, can no longer be tolerated.
The apparent benefits of unavailability are multiple. More or less emotionally anesthetized, the person does not waste time and energy with the usual human dramas, with connecting, with relaxation, with time with others and channels his time and energy towards professional or personal goals. After a few years in such a function, the first fruits ripe: professional and personal achievements above average, social and financial status above average, vanity, pride, increased self-esteem. The person is desired, admired, at the same time untouchable. At the same time, he begins to feel empty inside, unloved, disconnected. Anxiety, depression appear. He is trying to connect, but he can’t. He lives in a permanent inner tension and begins to develop emotional disorders and physical symptoms. Crises appear in personal and professional life and the person begins to question himself.
– In a personal or therapeutic setting, the person understands and accepts that he is working with a mechanism of emotional unavailability and assumes the change
– Begins the therapeutic process of healing and change that starts from the causes of the problem and proposes healing as a way of functioning reversed from the one that produced the problem.
We are working on the healing and integration of childhood traumas and the management of current symptoms, in order to free the psyche from these 2 big energy-eaters. Our psyche consumes an enormous amount of energy unconsciously carrying unprocessed traumas and managing current symptoms (depression, anxiety, physical pain, etc.). Once these processes are improved, the psyche acquires a surplus of energy that can be invested in structural and functional changes of the personality.
With this new energy released, the hard core of emotional unavailability, which is emotional dissociation, is attacked. Considering that emotional dissociation is a closure to emotions, the opposite path of openness and re-friending with emotions is followed. The person is encouraged to consciously live their own emotions, without trying to change them, to observe their associated physiological sensations, thus experiencing many times the fact that emotions come and go, they do not kill us, they do not cripple us, they are not stronger than us. The person is encouraged to recognize and name their emotions, so called emotional literacy. For men especially, the idea of inner strength from „I am strong and I have no emotions” is re-signified. to „I am strong, I have emotions and I act in the presence of these emotions.”
Little by little, a re-friending with emotions, a mental reintegration of mind-soul-body, an improvement of physical and emotional symptoms, an improvement of relationships with others and of the general emotional state is restored.
If you are a person with emotional unavailability or love, live, work or are friends with such a person, I hope that the text above helped you to understand yourself better or to understand the person next to you better. I hope at the same time that it motivates you to start contemplating the possibility of getting out of this mechanism for an authentic, real, deep connection with those around you! We are born from the connection with another human being and we die into a connection with everything, the state of connection is our natural, human, primordial state!