82. The psychology of emotional unavailability

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here. Back for another episode. This week, we're going to talk about emotional unavailability across a number of settings, not just in romantic relationships, which I think is where our mind often goes, but also in our friendships and the emotional availability that we have within ourselves. I think this term, this concept has become a massive part of our shared dialogue recently. I see it being talked about everywhere and use to describe certain people and relationships. It's very much a psychobabble term, and I think for good reason, it's a really important idea to discuss. But I also think there are a lot of misconceptions around this idea of emotional unavailability that I think we should clear up today. So I really want to break down exactly what it means to be emotionally unavailable versus available. On today's episode, I think on a similar level, it's also vital to discuss in our twenties because it's really a critical element of the work that we need to do to become good humans, to have healthy, long term relationships, to be happy, and emotional availability is so nuanced, as is kind of the psychology behind it. Really. I think we do often think about it in terms of our relationships, but as we always say on this show, the most important relationship you will ever have is the one that you have with yourself. And something that I think isn't discussed about enough is that you're never really going to be able to be emotionally available to others or vulnerable or find a partner who was emotionally available if you're not in touch with your own emotional needs. So I really want to focus on that today. But I think on that same level, a massive element of our twenties is romantic relationships. I get questions about emotional unavailability and romantic relationships all the time, And let me tell you, I have dated and meant enough emotionally unavailable people to write a book of this batter And I think these days it seems a lot harder to truly know someone and be vulnerable because a lot of people are more transactional about their relationships, and this often stems from emotional unavailability. And I think it could be really terrible to want to connect with someone and really care about them, but find that they're really closed off, they're unable to express their feelings, or they're tied down by emotions from a previous relationship. So how do we identify these people and what do we do in the face of emotional unavailability. I think our tendency is to keep pushing these individuals and thinking that they will change or that we can change them. But what will become apparent I think as we dive into the psychology is that that's not always the case, and I certainly don't think it's the way that we should do things. And I think the real, hard truth of the matter is that our own emotional unavailability is what actually attracts these people. So let's talk about it today. Let's talk about all those nuances. We're going to break down exactly what emotional availability versus unavailability looks like, how it manifests in our relationship, what it means on a personal and individual level, how to kind of cultivate emotional availability within yourself, and I also want to talk on, you know, some of the origins and the difference between men and women when it comes to this concept, and how we can really begin to recognize emotional unavailability in ourselves and in others. So there is a lot to cover, us, so much to cover, But I'm also really excited for this episode. I think it really is essential listening for anyone in this decade. So let's get into it as we always do. Let's firstly break down the basics, what exactly is emotional unavailability and where did the concept originate. I think it's important to look at emotional availability as a starting point because the profile of what an emotionally available person looks like kind of allows us to understand emotional unavailability a lot better. If you are someone who is emotionally available, I hope that is all of us who are listening. That essentially means that you are able to express your emotions in a healthy manner, You can form meaningful connections with others. You display commitment, particularly in romantic relationships. You're not afraid to be vulnerable, you are consistent in your emotional approach. You have meaningful conversations, and you're able to be honest about how you're feeling. Even if someone doesn't exhibit all of these traits, it doesn't mean that you're necessarily unavailable. You know, there are a range of factors as to why we're not vulnerable with everyone, or why you haven't been in a committed relationship. Sometimes it is personal preference, or you just haven't found the right person. I think a big misconception attached to emotional unavailability is that every individual who is like this is afraid of commitment. That is true, I would say in some case, maybe most, but it's not always the case. Many people who we would classify as emotionally unavailable do find themselves in long term partnerships and marriages. They want love like every other living and breathing person on this planet. But it's what occurs in those relationships that is the true hallmark of emotional unavailability. An emotionally unavailable person is going to have a hard time giving and receiving and reciprocating emotions, or being vulnerable and open with those in their lives. And it is normally the case that these people are highly socially advanced, and they will seek out romantic encounters. But when it comes to the complex emotional situations that are bound to occur in any long term relationship, when it comes to conflict or being emotionally intimate and committed, they become really anxious, They can't cope, they shut down, or they flee all together. So what happens is that these individuals may find themselves married or in long term relationships or with lots of friends, but they're going to be lacking because they are unable to reach the depths of their emotions and share what they're really feeling in a manner that is conducive to real emotional closeness and intimacy. Of course, emotional unavailability looks very different in the context of dating, particularly in our twenties. As you can imagine, if you are someone who is not comfortable with your own emotions and lacks the ability to be emotionally intimate, you are going to have a very hard time dating, especially if you're looking for commitment. These individuals, if you've come across them, they may come off as really standoffish. They lack affection, they fail to communicate, they ghost you, They may like to cool all the shots, or they shut things down when it starts to get serious and vulnerable. And it's not because they don't necessarily want to go deeper. It's actually because they can't. All of these characteristics come from a place of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of getting to know someone and then losing them. That is what's at the core, and it's a really crucial part of emotional unavailability, all of these evasive behavioral patterns. It's not because the person is a sociopath. It's because they're actually scared. Emotional unavailability pulling away from others when things get tough. It's essentially a coping mechanism that has been unconsciously enlisted to protect someone from emotional pain. Most of the time, I think most individuals who are going through this or who have this kind of characteristic, they may not even consciously realize what they're doing, but more importantly, they don't understand the why. And to understand and the why, we need to understand the origins of this concept. We need to understand the origins of this condition. You may have already put this together, but there is a lot of overlap between emotional unavailability and an avoidant attachment style. Much like how people with an avoidant attachment style avoid emotional closeness. They withdraw, they suppress emotions, they're highly independent, they fear rejection. Emotionally unavailable people are very much the same. They're highly similar, and most of the time they're linked. There was this one study conducted, i think at UC Berkeley, and it looked it parent and child separation and reunion. So this is what they use to understand attachment styles. They essentially have a child in a room, they ask their parent to leave for a few minutes, and they observe how the child reacts when they return, and based on their reaction, based on their behavior, these psychologists of the person observing can understand their attachment style. They ran one of these studies and what they found was that emotional unavailability was linked to avoidant attachment style or attachment disorganization. And we know that our attachment styles begin in infancy and in childhood, and many psychologists theorize that this is where the origins of emotional unavailability lie as well. When they had a bit of a deeper look into this idea, researchers found that most people who meet this profile have had an upbringing that is characterized by a lack of emotional closeness with their caregiver, or they report having a parent who was unresponsive to their emotional needs, didn't want to discuss hard things, was closed off, or didn't really have a great sense of empathy for their feelings. This is incredibly impactful on a child, especially during those forums years of life, because, as we know, we learn how to function and perform in relationships based off of our parents. We use them as a blueprint, We mimic their behavior. So if your parent never showed you love, you probably never learned how to show it from others or how to receive that yourself. Emotional unavailability it also stems from a deeper fear of intimacy and a fear of rejection. If you have been repeatedly rejected by a caregiver when you attempted to receive emotional support or comfort, you're going to learn through repeated conditioning that you should suppress those feelings because it will cause pain. If you don't, you will be rejected and it will hurt. So you shut off as a coping mechanism, and that pattern of repeated behavior that learned mechanism becomes harder to change the older we get and the more it becomes ingrained. But maybe this individual, maybe you're thinking of someone, they have tried to break down those barriers. They've entered their twenties, they are trying to become closer with others and fight this instinct. They're dating, they're falling in love. All seems to be going really well, but we all know that love doesn't come without its challenges. We've all had our hearts broken, We've been rejected a few times, and for most of us who are emotionally available or securely attached, we just kind of see this as part of the game, right, It's just part of life, and we move on and we know that we'll find someone better. But the emotionally unavailable person doesn't see it that way. Those experiences just reinforce their initial belief that to avoid pain they need to shut down. So those initial romantic encounters and learning experiences may actually have the effect of just reinforcing this pre existing behavioral pattern. It's not all about childhood experiences, though, Something like a traumatic breakup, even the death of a former partner, a close friend, or the end of a relationship may be because of cheating or abuse, or a toxic catalyst. It can also trigger temporary or permanent emotional unavailability. Some experiences are so influential that they entirely change our attitudes towards intimacy and vulnerability. If you have been completely devastated by the end of a relationship, no matter what the context, our brains can often make a rapid but highly a logical assumption that in order to avoid that pain in the future, we should avoid all further instances of commitment and vulnerability as a protective mechanism. At the end of the day, the only thing our mind wants to do is help ups to avoid pain and help us to survive. And intense emotions associated with the end of a relationship are painful, so unconsciously the mind associates relationship with pain, commitment with pain, and it causes us to shut down and push away further instances of emotional intimacy. That is one of the big reasons why we always say not to date anyone right out of a relationship. Chances are that their emotional capacity is at an all time low and their emotional ability to commit is going to be highly stunted by their recent experience. This is particularly the case for men. I might get criticism for saying this, but honestly, the science does back it up. Men are much more likely to display emotional unavailability compared to women, particularly in their twenties, and there are a few reasons why this is the case. We know that men's brains develop later than women. Women reach full sen snaptic and global maturity at twenty three on average, compared to men at twenty six, so that's a three year head start that women have. And the last part of our brain to fully mature is the frontal lobe, and that part of the brain is responsible for things like complex executive emotions, understanding and reacting to others' feelings, judgment, and our attitudes and personality. Our emotional availability and capacity to connect with others is directly correlated to the development of that lobe, and therefore it's going to show up a lot later in men than women, which is why I think I get so many messages from women in the early twenties really struggling with dating men who are so closed off and they're almost emotionally incapable and unwilling to commit. It's not always the case but I do think it's rather frequent. And there was this additional theory put forward by this psychologist. I don't know how to pronounce her name, doctor Jernigan. If she's listening to this, she probably isn't she can correct me, but let's go with doctor Jernigan. And she suggested that men receive a lot more culturally reinforced messages from society that emotional vulnerability is weak, and in response, they develop patterns of emotional unavailability in an attempt to live up to their cultural and gender expectations. I do think that really aligns with my own personal experience. If I'm being honest, I've encountered a lot more men than women who I would say display signs of emotional unavailability. I've even dated a few of them, and it all follows the very much the same pattern of experiences. They love the beginning of the relationship, when it's all fun and talking and sex and dates. As soon as it becomes more committed and you have a fight or you have to overcome some kind of disagreement, their kneejeck reaction is to shut down and is to run. And we can understand the reasons why and the origins behind emotional unavailability. We could talk about it all day, but the truth is that it really sucks. It really sucks. It's really terrible to find someone that you connect with and whose company you enjoy, only to really discover that three or four months in they are incapable of truly connecting with you, or they push you away, and the thing is that they probably won't give you a reason either. Ghosting is actually a massive sign of emotional unavailability because these individuals don't have the capacity to navigate emotionally complex situations such as ending it with someone. It is honestly so much more disappointing to me to receive a message from someone when things are ending or fizzling, because I'm like, damn, that guy was actually emotionally available. I know that because when I'm being ghosted, it's a pretty clear sign that this person was never going to commit and they weren't going to go much deeper anyways, because they cannot navigate complex emotional situations such as hurting someone's feelings or dealing out rejection or breaking up with someone. Regardless, we do want to avoid relationships or falling for people who display this repeated pattern of behavior. And let me say very clearly, if you think that you can fix someone, the chances are that that will get you nowhere. The roots of emotional unavailability run very deep into our childhood wounds and unconscious coping mechanisms. That is not work that you can do for someone else. You cannot go into their brain and fix their early childhood experiences. You cannot force them to do anything. They're going to have to reach that decision for themselves, as disappointing as it may sound, but there is something that we can do. Often one of the reasons we find ourselves in a cycle of attracting or dating people who are emotionally unavailable is because we ourselves are not emotionally available, and we are using someone else's lack of emotional commitment as a very easy way to deflect or ignore our own unavailability. There have been studies on this. Emotionally unavailable people are often more attracted to each other because, when you really think about it, they share the same desire. They share the same goal, and that is to avoid intimacy, and that is to avoid vulnerability. So they're more aligned on the value set, they're more aligned on their desires. You may also find that you're actually not attracted to emotionally available people because it would put you in a situation in which you would have to be vulnerable and you would have to reciprocate their candor and their depth and sometimes emotional unavailability. The will they won't they is kind of exciting, and that's a big sign that you might be the unavailable one if you are attracted to inconsistency and attracted to anxiety. Like I mentioned at the beginning, we do often think about emotional availability in terms of our relationships, but the most important relationship you will have is the one you have with yourself. You will never be able to be emotionally available to others if you are not in touch with your own emotional needs, you will repeatedly attract the same types of people into your life over and over again if you don't address the underlying reason why this is so. We are going to talk about how you can cultivate your own emotional availability in just a second. Here's the big secret. If you want to attract people and grow your relationships with those who are emotionally available, you won't get anywhere if you don't work on yourself first. I think that there is a growing rate of emotional shallowness in this generation because of a lot of factors, many outside of our control. But it can be seen in this rise of entirely new terms that we have for relationships that we haven't really encountered in previous generations, terms like situationships. I actually I had to explain this term to my mum the other day, and she was so confused that you could technically be in a relationship with someone but not be committed. And she made an excellent point that it's likely because a lot of people in our generation are more afraid of being emotionally vulnerable because of societal shifts away from commitment and away from traditional relationship archetypes. Some of that is very empowering. I think all power to people who want to decide how their relationships function, and they do so consensually, and they do so by communicating that. But I think it's also important to reflect on the impact that this may have on our emotional welfare and our ability to connect, particularly when dating. So, what are some of the signs that you are the emotionally unavailable one? It doesn't necessarily mean that there's something wrong with you. I will just put that disclaimer out there. It's really just a pattern of behavior and a habit that is formed in response to things, most of the time outside of our control. I don't think anyone wakes up and is like, I want to be emotionally unavailable. I want to push away the people that love me. It's not a conscious decision. It just kind of happens. But it's still worth being able to identify that. I think that's the first step to being able to heal that part of yourself. The first big major sign is that you fear intimacy. Maybe you have come out of a really traumatic breakup, a really traumatic situation, and the idea of being in a long term relationship leaves you feeling really anxious. Maybe you've been hurt before, and the concept of having to open up to someone in a long term partnership, potentially losing them, maybe encountering hard emotions that's really difficult for you to imagine, and it's almost a fear response. You feel your gut churning, you feel anxious, you feel nauseous. That's a fear of intimacy, and this may result in the second indicator, which is that you avoid commitment Obviously, like we stipulated, this isn't always the case, but sometimes you may like to keep your options open to prevent yourself from having to truly have to open up to one person. It's a fear mechanism. We use it to protect ourselves, but it's also a sign of emotional unavailability. This next one may be unexpected, but let me explain it a little bit more. You may find that you have a lot of superficial friends and very few meaningful relationships. You have built up this wide variety of acquaintances of people that you can casually go for a drink with or talk to, but none of them know you very deeply, and there's a reason behind that. It's because there is less chance of being abandoned or rejected, or feeling truly alone and vulnerable. If you have quote unquote backups and people who you aren't truly emotionally close to. In that way, you avoid pain. I think it's an important reminder that emotional unavailability it isn't just reserved for our romantic relationships. Our brains don't shut down and switch on that part of our brain when it comes to friendships, and at the core of emotional unavailability is a fear of rejection and abandonment, and that can come from multiple directions and multiple types of relationships. I'm sure that there have been many of you out there who have had better and closer and deeper relationships with your friends than some of the people that you've dated, and when those friendships might not work, when you have disagreements, that can sometimes hurt a lot. More So, if you find yourself surveying your friends and recognizing that you have voluntarily and deliberately chosen more shallow relationships and friendships compared to those which are deep and meaningful, it may be indicative of emotional unavailability. This final sign. I also think it's interesting, but I also think it's common sense. You may find that your very conflict averse. You get to defensive easily, and you turn off during emotionally complex situations. If you are around people who want emotional support, you may automatically try and minimize their emotions by changing the subject or simply withdrawing. You might also want to keep topics light so that they stick to the surface level stuff, to the comfortable themes that you feel safe discussing. That's because you're afraid of opening up. If you maybe are listening to this and being like that sounds like my friend, I will say, it's not because they want to shut you down. It's not because they want to reject your needs or devalidate or minimize your reactions. It's because they feel trapped and they don't want to be forced into a position where they have to reciprocate or they have to share the good news. Though, is that emotional unavailability? It's just a description. It's not an indictment or a life sentence. Like we've discussed, many of the factors that influence emotional unavailability are beyond our control. But I also want to recognize that just because they are beyond our control doesn't mean that we don't have agency. And it can be really rough to have that self awareness whereby you can identify that you are emotionally unavailable, but you don't really know what to do. But that's what we're here for today. So how do we realize our most emotionally available and authentic selves and how do we work towards choosing emotionally available partners? The key is to start internally. Often our inability to be emotionally open it stems from a difficulty with being honest with ourselves about our emotional needs and our desires. We don't just avoid the complex feelings and experiences of others, we also tend to suppress our own hard emotions because they are difficult to manage if you can't share them or you can't trust others with your vulnerability. It's important to work on identifying what you're feeling when you're feeling it. I think a lot of us emotionally available or not have a tendency to pick up our phones, scroll TikTok, switch on the television, distract ourselves when uncomfortable emotions kind of bubble to the surface. Do whatever you can to avoid that. That goes for everyone. It's uncomfortable, but sometimes you need to feel uncomfortable to grow, and being able to recognize your own feelings and manage them yourself is a massive pathway to being emotionally available with others. Sometimes this comes from childhood wounds. I would say that is the biggest predictor, and particularly the behaviors of our caregivers and our parents. The sad reality is, no matter how hard you try, you cannot go back to childhood and fear things you cannot reshape how you think things should have gone. You can't undo the past, but what you can do is reparent yourself at the moment you are in now. I did a whole episode on healing your inner child. I think it's really valuable if this is something that's been on your mind for a while. But a brief synopsis of this episode is that in order to heal childhood attachment wounds that may be contributing to your emotional unavailability, you have to start treating yourself as if you are speaking to your childhood self, as if the tiny version of you is sitting in front of you and you need to protect them. So you need to create a personal and internal environment for them to feel safe by letting yourself feel your emotions, showing unconditional love for yourself whatever that means for you, and creating emotional safety. This may involve going to therapy or engaging in some kind of emotional real life like journaling, but it also involves just giving your inner child space to feel without shutting them down, without ignoring it, without suppressing it, because that mimics the way that you may have been shut down by a parent during childhood and by connecting deeper with your emotions, you really do profoundly shift your ability to connect with others, and you'll begin to notice I think a shift in the quality and the depth not just of your relationships or your relationships with your friends or your family, but in how you treat yourself as well. A wall will probably come down, and it may be painful. There's a lot of suppressed stuff that builds up from childhood or from experiences of rejection or breakups or trauma. But I think a lot of hard things are worth doing, and this is one of them. All of these habits and activities, they will help build a foundation for being able to identify people who are emotionally unavailable, who may bring you into that space and shut you down. I think that's probably the worst part about dating people who are emotionally unavailable, is that this behavioral and emotional pattern is in many ways contagious, and it can rub off on us by leading us to a question how we deserve to be treated and eventually becoming jaded around what true, unconditional, vulnerable love should feel like. They actually did a study on this, and what they examined was the impact of having an emotionally unavailable partner. So they found that individuals who reported that they were dating or married or in a long term partnership with someone who displayed lowered emotional capacity themselves had a lower emotional capacity. So essentially what that meant was this behavioral pattern, this emotional reaction, this failure to be vulnerable and emotionally intimate, rubs off on those around us. So it's a big reason why you want to avoid these individuals. Take a good hard look at your beliefs around what you want in a romantic partner. I have suggested this before, but I think it's a godsend. I think it is so valuable. If you have found yourself in this cycle of dating and finding people who just always shut you down, who never want to be committed, you need to make a list of non negotiables, and these need to be specific. What are the things that you are not going to tolerate, Especially if you're someone who is looking for a committed relationship. You need to have a hard line at what you're willing to accept around noncommittal dating and romantic experiences. And a big red flag is someone who is not able to engage in deep emotional conversations or acknowledge your feelings or their own. That's a huge indicator that they're not an emotionally available person. And that doesn't mean that you need to trauma dump on the first state to kind of understand if they're going to reciprocate your emotional intimacy. That's a bit extreme, but I think it's pretty telling as you get further into a relationship, whether they're willing to discuss how they're feeling or how you're feeling, and whether they want to connect with you or shut you down. It's also worth questioning how do you feel about yourself? Is the reason you always find yourself around emotionally unavailable people because you feel that you don't deserve love and a deep connection. Are you actually just terrified of rejection or are you suffering from low self esteem due to past relationships? You know, it's not your fault. I think that a lot of this kind of does sound like it's your responsibility to avoid these people. It's your fault for attracting these people. That's the case. I just to think it's something that tends to happen, and we don't always know until it's a bit too late or we find ourselves being ghosted by someone that they are emotionally unavailable, and that this just kind of helps you to avoid that pain. Much like the previous suggestion, you need to consciously rethink what you deserve and write that down, almost like affirmations. You know, I deserve to be loved. I deserve for my emotions to be reciprocated. It's all about faking it till you make it, I guess, because if you don't feel like you deserve deep, meaningful love and closeness, I promise that you do. And if you continue to tell yourself that, one day you will believe it as well. And whatever you do, if you take one thing out of this, do not try and force someone to change. It is not your responsibility to fix them. I think women in particular have been conditioned by society into believing that it is their duty to nurture others and to offer that maternal healing side of a relationship. But here's another hard truth for those of you who are listening who may be in denial about an emotionally unavailable person in your life. The more you push, the more you try to artificially create situations that they are forced to be vulnerable in the more they are going to pull back and they may take you with them. When I was researching this episode, it was shocking how many articles I found with titles like how to get an emotionally unavailable man to chase you, how to change an emotionally unavailable man, how to use sex to fix emotional unavailability. And it was super frustrating to me because I was like, we shouldn't be pushing this narrative to either men or women, that it is your duty to heal this person so that you can feel safe and vulnerable. That is not your job, that is not your responsibility. There are so many other people out there who will have done the work and who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated. And if you get one thing from this episode, like I said, you cannot change this person. Your job is just to heal yourself and focus on your own emotions and feelings. One final thing I do want to state, it's a bit of a disclaimer, and that's that you don't need to be emotionally available to everyone. That's a critical part of this conversation. I think when we strive for emotional availability, when we enlist all of those tools. Sometimes we accidentally find ourselves transforming into someone who is passive when it comes to our relationships because we force ourselves to hold space for everyone. But sometimes that can be equal as training as being emotionally unavailable. There is a lot of emotional energy and commitment that goes into sustaining deep connections, and as much as we like to think that that source is infinite, it's not. You have to sometimes except the fact that you can't give everything to everyone, so be selective, you can still be emotionally available even if you're picky. If anything, it's actually a sign of your availability because you understand what it means to invest and commit to a friend or a partner or a family member in a way that is meaningful, and that means not exhausting yourself with gathering and collecting every single connection that comes your way. It's how you show up in those relationships with the people you have chosen to invest in and that you care about and who can reciprocate all that love for you. That is an indicator and the biggest sign that you're emotionally available. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I really hope you learned something. I hope you enjoyed it. I definitely did. One of the best parts about doing this podcast is that I get to learn things that are really relevant to me, and this was definitely one of those cases. I had no idea how complicated emotional unavailability was. I think we really do for that phrase around and say, oh, you know, he's emotionally unavailable, she's emotionally unavailable without thinking deeply about what that really means. So I hope that this did enlighten you. Maybe there is someone in your life who needs to hear this episode. You should share it with them. You should send them a link. I'm sure they'll thank you later, and as always, if you feel compelled to do so. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to leave a five star review on Spotify, a podcasts, wherever you're listening right now. It really does help the show to grow and to reach new people. I'm so grateful if you have listened this far, Thank you for coming on this journey with me. If you have an episode suggestion, if you just want to be in touch, if you want to see what's going on behind the scenes, please feel free to follow us at that Psychology podcast. On Instagram, we share a lot of polls around what episodes you want to hear next. That's where this idea came from, so thank you for all of your suggestions. Hopefully we can see you over there. Well maybe not, it's up to you. I just really hope that you enjoyed this episode and we will be back next week for another