Characteristics of emotionally unavailable men

Bubblingbrownshuga

Well-Known Member
I am seeing this term a lot now. I have some ideas of what this means, but I would like to hear other viewpoints.
 
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I read this once and it fit:

1) Glibness
2) Extreme charisma,
3) The need to always be doing something
4) Feelings of high self-worth (to the point of narcissism)
5) pathological lying
6) Proneness to boredom
7) Unwilling to open up about life or past (guarded to the extreme)

My ex hub was 2, 3, 4 and 7 to the nth degree. It was a few years after the divorce and his seeing a therapist that made him a better person for the next woman in his life.
 
Love them selves tooo much

Has little empathy

Has other things that are keeping his emotions so he has nothing for you (ie, other women, still in love with an ex, a workaholic)

Doesn't share his life with you (you don't know too much about him or his past)

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They seem settled in just about every area of their life (good job, nice living situation, good personality) yet they've managed to reach the age of 30+ without ever having a relationship of at least 6 months. In other words he's Mr. Perfect but has never been in a serious relationship. There may be a good reason but he may very well be a player.
 
Dating more than one woman at a time.

This guy always NEED to have a side piece or some woman that he can fall back on when things get difficult with the steady one.
 
Wow, this definitely describes someone I know .. well, knew :yep:

Ditto. I just want to exchange belongings and disappear into my life. If he won't give me my things back, I'm mailing his things and deserting mine for good. He's just holding onto them so he has a reason to contact me in the future. As if I will answer. There goes that narcissism.
 
I am seeing this term a lot now. I have some ideas of what this means, but I would like to hear other viewpoints.


I see someone other than myself and a few select here have been listening to Dedan Tolbert. He's really the only person in media who is using this term specifically to describe women.
 
Narcissistic, will give material things to replace his lack of emotional available, doesn't like to speak about anything from his past, will elude to difficult times in his past but will never share, I go on for days...
 
I read this once and it fit:

1) Glibness
2) Extreme charisma,
3) The need to always be doing something
4) Feelings of high self-worth (to the point of narcissism)
5) pathological lying
6) Proneness to boredom
7) Unwilling to open up about life or past (guarded to the extreme)

Where was this list when I needed it! Fits one of my exs to the T.
 
Oh my. goodness! fits my ex to the T!

I don't know if this applies to the category but he took pride in sharing that he broke up with every girlfriend he had

And also denied being in love with either one but he did mention many times about one exgirlfriend in particular. Asking whether he did the right thing in breaking up with her a few years ago! Wth lol
 
I feel emotionally unavailable men and serial monogmists go hand in hand:

My theory: these men never seem to able to be alone for more than a few months at a time if that. They seem like they are sooooooo into you but when things get are past the honeymoon stages they're ready to run. They always have these fantasies about the perfect relationships yet they are never consistent, willing to try, lie at the drop of a dime and most of them cheat in some form or another.

I've observed male friends who are serial monogomists and these guys are ruthless:

One guy I know was living with a girl loving her up talking about she is the one, a few months down the line broke up with her moved out and was shacked up with another young lady loving her up taking her on vacas and everything she moved from Westchester to Brooklyn and a yr or so later he broke up wiith her fast forward two yrs later he got married to someone he met on the train. SMH

On a sidenote: I also feel that these men really do try in the beginning but because of the excess baggage that they carry and the deep rooted emotional scars, they can't emotionally work through any issues that they might have when in a relationship. Their escape is a relationship or women in general it makes them feel wanted, needed, and reassured of their manhood and once that feeling disappears they are in too deep so to speak that's when they bounce.
 
I feel emotionally unavailable men and serial monogmists go hand in hand:

My theory: these men never seem to able to be alone for more than a few months at a time if that. They seem like they are sooooooo into you but when things get are past the honeymoon stages they're ready to run. They always have these fantasies about the perfect relationships yet they are never consistent, willing to try, lie at the drop of a dime and most of them cheat in some form or another.

I've observed male friends who are serial monogomists and these guys are ruthless:

One guy I know was living with a girl loving her up talking about she is the one, a few months down the line broke up with her moved out and was shacked up with another young lady loving her up taking her on vacas and everything she moved from Westchester to Brooklyn and a yr or so later he broke up wiith her fast forward two yrs later he got married to someone he met on the train. SMH

On a sidenote: I also feel that these men really do try in the beginning but because of the excess baggage that they carry and the deep rooted emotional scars, they can't emotionally work through any issues that they might have when in a relationship. Their escape is a relationship or women in general it makes them feel wanted, needed, and reassured of their manhood and once that feeling disappears they are in too deep so to speak that's when they bounce.

If dude wasnt in NY I would swear you were talking about someone I know.:perplexed
 
SUBBING!

1. negligence
2. insensitivity
3. distance
4. undecided
5. moody (one day they are keen, next they are not)
6. untrustworthy

Oh Em Gee!!! lesedi, KEIONI'S MOM & Dos Si Dos.....You've listed the EXACT characteristics of an "X" precisely!:yep: Did we share the same.......?! lol! He was the best thing I Never had & I dodged a bullet. I have No tolerance 4 bs! I'm now happily engaged to my best friend!:grin:
 
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I’m often asked ‘How do I find someone who is emotionally available?’ and fundamentally, the job of finding someone who is emotionally present and accountable for a mutually fulfilling relationship is made a hell of a lot easier by being emotionally available yourself. It is important to remember that when you attract or are attracted to people who are emotionally (and possibly spiritually or physically) unavailable, that if you stick around in spite of this, you need to address your own unavailability.

We all experience times in our lives where we can be a bit emotionally unavailable, for instance when we experience a death or feel emotionally exhausted because of intense stress or an illness, or when we are fresh out of a relationship. However, that is very different to people who are habitually emotionally unavailable – it’s their ‘emotional lifestyle choice’. If you habitually engage with emotionally unavailable people, it’s imperative that you face your own emotional unavailability if you genuinely do want to find love and a relationship.

When you’re emotionally available, you’re willing to emotionally engage on an ongoing basis. The trouble with emotionally unavailable people is that they tend to do it in short bursts or have an intense period followed by a much longer lasting stretch of lukewarm or cold followed by occasional bursts or ‘spits’ of warmth. This is why, in particular, I get a lot of women mentioning the word ‘passion’ to me because in being involved with emotionally unavailable men, they’re used to getting bursts of sexual and emotional intensity that they think equates to passion. What it equates to is that persons inability to go the distance.

Emotionally available people can cope beyond the stage of ‘newness’ and are not reliant on the sensation of drama or feeling like they are in danger of losing the relationship to feel desire. They recognise that you need to nurture a relationship and let it steadily grow, whereas relationships with emotionally unavailable people tend to come in fits and starts, come to a standstill or regress.

Emotionally available people are consistently emotionally available. They’re people who don’t just talk the talk but consistently through actions engage their emotions which is reflected in what results. It’s important also to realise that part of being emotionally available is that desire, willingness, action, and actual need to feel your emotions, not run from them. This means not just feeling the ‘good stuff’ but feeling your fears and not being restrained by them.

Emotionally unavailable people are often running from feeling. When you get too close they pull away, when you’re around someone decent, you pull away, when you’re seemingly offered what you want, you second guess it or suddenly find issues with it. You don’t know how many emails I’ve received from women who have dated men who had wives/girlfriends or were otherwise unavailable and when they became available, they panicked and were suddenly not ready or interested.

Emotionally available people don’t limit themselves. They’re actively working to ensure they don’t have limited beliefs and they don’t limit their capacity to feel and emotionally engage with other people and be truly intimate.When you align yourself with emotionally unavailable people, you are limiting yourself by being with someone that has a limited capacity to emotionally engage, has a limited offering, and whose initial emotional persona is limited. Literally. What you get is only out for a limited time and then they’ll either slow fade out to the real emotional persona or just literally switch over and whip the proverbial rug from under your feet.

Emotionally available people don’t keep running from true intimacy. Emotionally unavailable people are afraid of the consequences of being truly intimate with someone and ‘letting them in’. They’re afraid of what they will feel if they truly put themselves out there and feel genuine intimacy and end up being vulnerable and/or the relationship doesn’t work out.

They’re afraid they’ll lose the relationship as soon as they’re vulnerable.

This is why a lot of emotionally unavailable people are afraid of abandonment/of being ‘left’ and so they don’t let themselves get intimate because they’re afraid of realising their fear. Of course, in carrying a belief that people will leave, they tend to align themselves with people who will leave and who are emotionally disconnected, or end up doing their utmost best to sabotage things so that they do realise the fear of abandonment and the self-fulfillinf prophecy is proved.

Emotionally available people don’t sabotage what results from emotionally engaging with others. They don’t create drama, disappear, sprint from the scene of the relationship, and put up walls.

Emotionally available people don’t lose themselves in relationships with emotionally unavailable people because it would feel too damn awkward for them.

Emotionally available people love themselves and don’t spend copious amounts of energy talking negatively to themselves, wallowing in blame and shame, and lacking compassion and understanding. They act with love, care, trust, and respect to themselves hence making it easier to recognise when others don’t.

Emotionally available people don’t keep looking for excuses to stay in their comfort zone because in being emotionally available, they’re intimate with the honesty of what they feel and experience. While we’re all prone to bull****ting ourselves from time to time, if I had a penny for every reader who told me how available they are, told me how much they want to change and then when presented with options of what they could do, dodged the bullet, I’d be loaded. Emotionally unavailable people either want to completely delude themselves or feed themselves honesty a chunk at a time. While for some people, they eventually get all the chunks and see a full picture, the difficulty in only wanting to be partially honest with yourself is that you’re likely to be dishonest with yourself about the very things that stand between you and your happiness.

Emotionally available people have fears like everyone does but they don’t live by their fears and they actively address them – they don’t limit themselves with limiting beliefs and catering to their fears because part of the process of being emotionally honest with yourself and allowing yourself to feel means that you take mini, medium, and sometimes big risks.

Emotionally available people don’t close off parts of themselves. There was a lot of me that used to be closed off but it meant that aside from keeping me distant in my interactions, I was actually shut off from parts of myself. The present day me has opened up

How willing are you to be consistently emotionally available? I have spoken about the importance of consistency many times on this blog and how the inconsistency that is present in emotionally unavailable relationships is a red flag in itself. What I find is that often we are all too quick to focus on the willingness of the other party to be consistently emotionally available. But what about YOU?

How willing are you to get out of your uncomfortable comfort zone and get uncomfortable in the unknown that will actually be a far healthier comfortable in the medium and long-term?

How willing are you to have an honest conversation with yourself and address any limitations that you are imposing upon yourself?

How willing are you to be open? As in, how willing are you to open up and not have aspects of yourself closed off?

How willing are you to address the fears that hold you back?

How willing are you to address any limiting beliefs that you have?

How willing are you to stop catering to the self-fulfillinf prophecy?

How willing are you to walk the walk?

Being emotionally available is not just about saying ‘I’m off Mr Unavailables, so send me The Perfect Man’.

It is not the job of an emotionally available person to ‘make’ you available.

It’s not a case of ‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ – if you want a healthier relationship with an emotionally available person you need to be emotionally available yourself. It means taking real risks, not calculated, self-fulfilling prophecy risks with limited people that reflect your beliefs.
http://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/do-you-want-to-be-with-an-emotionally-available-person-be-emotionally-available-yourself/
 
Is he emotionally unavailable? How To Spot Emotionally Unavailable MenMr Unavailables are very much about the chase. They pursue hard, shower you with attention and lay it on thick with a trowel in order to reel you in, but from the moment that you are hooked and things get comfortable, he backs off. Then he homes in again. This is the Pushey Pulley Game that he uses to achieve The Status Quo. After a while it seems like they want to avoid doing anything that involves them being close to you despite starting off the “relationship” very eagerly.

Here are just some of the signs that you’re with a Mr Unavailable. If you find one sign, you’ll find many, but often one sign is enough and you should use this to evaluate whether this is the type of relationship that you actually want to be involved in, because each and every one of these signs, especially when more than one of them exists, spell pain and trouble. Here goes…

He has a girlfriend or is married – read my post on being the other woman.

He’s recently separated – read my post on how to cope when he’s separated.

Or he’s divorced but clinging to the fact that he’s been divorced to avoid committing – see my post on ‘Am I right not to go back to my flip-flapping divorcee?‘

He’s in a long distance relationship. With someone else. Or you’re in one with him and he has no desire to get closer – read my roughguide to a new long distance relationship.

He’s very reliant on text messages, instant messaging and email for the majority of his contact – read my post on why you should be wary of any man who is reliant on text messaging etc.

They’re ambiguous about the status of the relationship – check out my post on defining the relationship.

You’re not sure when you’ll hear from the next, even though you’ve been dating them for a while.

You think you’re in a relationship, but it’s closer to a booty call.


He says stuff like ‘If only the timing was different, you’d be the perfect girlfriend’;'If only things were different I’d definitely marry you’.


When you try to tackle the status of your relationship or any issues, he either tells you what you want to hear and then returns to his normal behaviour or he just skirts the issue. One way or the other, you wind up back at square one.

He lives with his ex.

He shares a bed with a woman that he claims is his friend.

He admits that he is dating multiple women continuously.

He’s openly not over his ex.

He says he’s over his ex but he’s quietly still trying to cope with the end of the relationship.

He mentions his ex or things that happened between the two of them often.

He’s an overt mother lover/mummy’s boy.

He’s a mother hater – has an overtly negative relationship with his mother.

He doesn’t call when he’s supposed to. Ever.

He’s one big walking excuse.

You feel empty after you sleep with him.

He creeps out after sleeping with you even though you’ve been together for a while

He has a stringent routine that he just won’t deviate from – sometimes a sign that he has someone else.

He won’t take calls either before or after a certain time – often a sign that he’s cheating.

He doesn’t come around to your place until late.

He is resistant to involving himself in your life.

He talks about his problems, his successes, his life – it’s me, me, me all the way.

He determines the momentum of the relationship – you meet up when he wants to meet up.

He pushes for an ‘open’ relationship.

He never refers to you as a girlfriend, partner or any form of significant other.

He uses sex as his way of demonstrating his so-called ‘emotion’.

There are pockets of time when he seems to just disappear, and then he resurfaces with little or no explanation.

It feels like he blows hot and cold.

He’s quick out the gate in pursuing you, gets your attention, and then goes into a slow canter.


He tells you that he has a lot of issues that he needs to deal with.

He actually says ‘I’m not ready for a relationship’, but is still with you.


He says he wants to get married, but there is no sign of a ring, no sign of a date and years are going by.

He can’t commit to anything, no matter how miniscule. Everything that he’s asked, such as whether he can do something with you is a big drama to get him to say yay or nay.

Hes got about as much emotion in him as a stone.

He may try and sleep with you on the first night.

Make sure you are aware of the implications of red flags in relationships and having little or no boundaries
 
I read this once and it fit:

1) Glibness
2) Extreme charisma,
3) The need to always be doing something
4) Feelings of high self-worth (to the point of narcissism)
5) pathological lying
6) Proneness to boredom
7) Unwilling to open up about life or past (guarded to the extreme)

Wait. This fits the persona of one of the guys I'm kinda seeing but not really. I didn't know that the above makes someone emotionally available?

He's pretty much all of these things except that he's not particularly guarded and and he's very confident, but I don't think he's a narcissist. He might be a pathological liar, but I can't know for sure. Haven't caught him in any lies. I'm finding him a little difficult to pin down, but ultimately I still want him. He is soooooo hot.

Should I not want him?
Can you tell me where you found this? Let me save myself before I get caught up in something terrible. :look:
 
Emotionally unavailable people are afraid of the consequences of being truly intimate with someone and ‘letting them in’. They’re afraid of what they will feel if they truly put themselves out there and feel genuine intimacy and end up being vulnerable and/or the relationship doesn’t work out.

This is why a lot of emotionally unavailable people are afraid of abandonment/of being ‘left’ and so they don’t let themselves get intimate because they’re afraid of realizing their fear. Of course, in carrying a belief that people will leave, they tend to align themselves with people who will leave and who are emotionally disconnected, or end up doing their utmost best to sabotage things so that they do realize the fear of abandonment and the self-fulfilling prophecy is proved.

:nono: nothing like reading something that describes yourself...the truth hurts
 
I read this once and it fit:
7) Unwilling to open up about life or past (guarded to the extreme)

Doesn't share his life with you (you don't know too much about him or his past)

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using T-Mobile G2

Doesn't like to speak about anything from his past, will elude to difficult times in his past but will never share, I go on for days...

This seems to be a recurring theme throughout the thread. I'm wondering what the basis of this could be.
What are they hiding? :sekret:
 
When you’re emotionally available, you’re willing to emotionally engage on an ongoing basis. The trouble with emotionally unavailable people is that they tend to do it in short bursts or have an intense period followed by a much longer lasting stretch of lukewarm or cold followed by occasional bursts or ‘spits’ of warmth. This is why, in particular, I get a lot of women mentioning the word ‘passion’ to me because in being involved with emotionally unavailable men, they’re used to getting bursts of sexual and emotional intensity that they think equates to passion. What it equates to is that persons inability to go the distance.

Mitre, that entire post was so amazing, but this in particular blew my mind. Thanks for introducing us to that site. I have a feeling that I'll be bookmarking it real soon. :spinning: There are cat people and there are mouse people, but I'm trying to avoid all that drama from the get go. (eta: Ooh, I see another amazing post, brb).

Should I not want him?
Can you tell me where you found this? Let me save myself before I get caught up in something terrible. :look:

You probably don't want to get caught up in that. He'll only hurt your feelings, and you'll tell yourself that you should have known better. This my be a case of "Love em and leave em" or rather just not bother at all.
 
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ccd said:
How does one become emotionally available....

That's probably a whole nother thread right there.

nothing like reading something that describes yourself...the truth hurts

I heard that. I read a few unsettling things myself. But awareness is the first step, no?
 
This seems to be a recurring theme throughout the thread. I'm wondering what the basis of this could be.
What are they hiding? :sekret:

I'm not a guy but I'll answer for myself, I'm not hiding anything per se, I just don't want to talk about the bad things that have happened to me in my lifetime. I know life isn't perfect and s*** happens but I don't think I need to give him a play-by-play of things I think he shouldn't know.
 
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