BalanceHour Therapy was recently featured in a recent Cosmopolitan article, “How to Know If You Are Emotionally Unavailable”. Using an Emotionally Focused Therapy lens, I will expand on some definitions, ideas, and what to do in regards to emotional unavailability.
What is Emotional Unavailability?
In couples therapy using Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), emotional unavailability (EU) is not considered a character flaw. Instead, we see EU as an evolved survival strategy, also known as the “avoidant,” or “withdrawer” attachment pattern. When a person’s childhood was characterized by criticism, judgment, overreaction, and isolation from their parents or caregivers, they learned early on that closeness equals danger and distance equals safety. People who inherit this attachment style are frequently described by their partners as shut down, cold, and emotionally unavailable. However, the partner who withdraws or avoids does so because they are completely overwhelmed, have never been shown how to handle difficult conversations, were taught to hide emotions, learned that vulnerability is dangerous, and feel shame and guilt for causing their partner’s distress.
For those who are “emotionally unavailable,” if vulnerability and intimacy of emotional closeness are perceived as harmful, your nervous system will try to protect you by doing what it did to survive in the past: freezing or fleeing. Your body attempts to protect you from the potential dangers of rejection, vulnerability, and failure by employing distance, peacekeeping, intellectualization, defensiveness, and isolation as a strategy to avoid worsening your relationship with your partner.
1. What constitutes emotional unavailability in a relationship?
It means your internal alarm system goes off when a relationship requires vulnerability and closeness. Many refer to this as, “We can talk about logistics, planning, and strategy whenever it comes to things outside of the relationship, but when we start talking about deeper connections between ourselves as a couple, that’s when we get disconnected.” If you create distance between yourself and your partner during times of conflict or distress, your partner may misinterpret this retreat for safety and peace as emotional unavailability.
2. Why is it difficult to recognize emotional unavailability in ourselves?
This is a frequent question, particularly in popular psychology. Many people confuse defense mechanisms and logic. When we tell ourselves that we are selective, independent, or waiting for the right person, we may be unintentionally responding to our anxiety and thus avoiding the fear of rejection or inadequacy.
3. What are the most prevalent unconscious signs of emotional unavailability?
Finding flaws: you look for flaws and reasons to disqualify potentially good partners, especially those who pursue you in a way that triggers your fears of being inadequate.
Intellectualizing: you use an analytical approach to understanding your feelings rather than experiencing or sharing them to feel less vulnerable.
Defensive peacekeeping: you try to avoid conflict by either retreating, defending, or keeping the peace because disagreeing with your partner feels like a danger or threat.
Overscheduling: you overschedule yourself with work or hobbies in order to avoid more time with your partner out of fear that more time means more conflict, risk, and danger of getting things wrong.
4. What are the less obvious signs of emotional unavailability?
There are times when trauma affects attachment, and so some people may have both a pursue and withdraw attachment, in which they feel the need and longing to be close, but once close, they are afraid of being abandoned or harmed by that person, so they distance themselves to a certain extent. This attachment is often the result of traumatic childhood experiences in which a child requires closeness with a parent or caregiver, but the parent or caregiver becomes abusive or harmful to the child whenever the distance is close.
5. Can you want a relationship but remain emotionally unavailable?
Yes, absolutely. Our minds try to protect us, but our evolution also prepares us for human interaction. When a person’s natural desire for connection is interpreted as danger, they frequently experience a conflict in which they desperately want to be loved while also fearing it. If you are someone who chases someone whenever there is a distance between them, but then withdraws when that distance is reduced, you may be doing so because you are torn between wanting connection and fearing it once you have it.
6. What causes someone to be emotionally unavailable?
In EFT-based couples therapy, we examine early childhood experiences and previous attachment injuries. These experiences of being rejected, ignored, criticized, ostracized, or judged frequently influence how people protect themselves from future emotional vulnerability.
7. How does emotional unavailability manifest itself during the various stages of dating?
How you select partners: You may seek out and only interact with people who are themselves unavailable. For example, you may only engage with people who are married or have other relationships.
Pulling back when things are going well: You may begin to withdraw as things become more serious and conversations become more intense. The fear of being discovered as an imposter or not being good enough intensifies, and you become more avoidant of conflict.
Ghosting or stonewalling: In order to protect yourself, you may avoid viable partners. When someone becomes significant to you, you fear losing them because you already believe you are not good enough for them or that you do not deserve them.
8. How do you distinguish unavailability from a lack of interest?
Lack of interest typically does not elicit the same anxiety and fear responses. Typically, our fear responses are triggered when we believe there is too much emotional risk involved or too much skin in the game. If you are walking away, especially as things become more intimate, closer, and deeper emotionally, you may be doing so out of fear rather than disinterest.
9. What practical steps can someone take to make a change?
Even if you are not in a relationship or seeking couples therapy, speaking with a therapist can be beneficial. Here’s a pro tip: just because a therapist claims to be a specialist in couples therapy does not mean they only work with couples. Many couples therapists are also highly skilled at treating individuals, particularly those who experience high levels of anxiety, worry, and fear associated with dating, relationships, marriage, and divorce.
10. What does emotional availability look like in your daily life?
Emotional availability begins with being aware of what is happening beneath the surface for each partner. We help partners provide a corrective experience for each other thru EFT, which includes improving openness, attunement, non-defensiveness, engagement consistency, and resiliency.
11. Does this always necessitate therapy?
No, but therapy can greatly speed up this process, particularly with a proven therapy method such as EFT, which is regarded as the “gold standard” of couples therapy. If you want to start on your own, begin by reading books about attachment and anxiety.
12. What is one thing you wish others understood about this?
A lack of emotional availability in yourself or your partner does not constitute a permanent flaw. It could be a protective survival strategy learned a long time ago. For many, this this was inherited during childhood or during traumatic pivotal moments in past relationships.
