The key question we have to ask is: Why is this familiar to us? Where did we learn this? Who was the first emotionally unavailable person in our life?

Often it was/is one or both of our parents. This is the start of emotional unavailability being something we are familiar with in a love relationship.

Someone being unavailable could come about because of parents who worked long hours, divorce, if we didn’t see enough of one parent, our parent was/is emotionally unavailable themselves, they didn’t know how to respond to our needs the way we needed, illness, caring for those who were ill, or mental health issues that were not acknowledged or treated.

If any of this was our experience growing up, it will imprint emotional unavailability into our nervous systems.⠀

Not only are emotionally unavailable people going to be familiar to us, but our behavioural responses to those people are the second half of the equation.

We will attract or be attracted to emotionally unavailable people + Our learned behaviours of codependency, Adult Child characteristics, people-pleasing and attachment issues = Perpetuating the pattern.

Therapy work is about *our behaviour* (second part of equation). Changing our behaviour to something more secure, less fear-based and that prioritises ourselves more directly and appropriately.

In this Agony Aunt session I discuss what emotional unavailability is and why we choose unavailable people.

We didn’t get what we wanted – that will be part of our pattern and what we expect of our partners. We will be drawn to people who will unconsciously evoke these familiar feelings and relationship dynamics.

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