What Does Being Emotionally Unavailable Mean?

I’ve been there. I’ve been the person who struggled to open up to people who genuinely wanted to know me. Expressing how I felt seemed uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and sometimes even unsafe. That tendency led me into relationships that weren’t fulfilling for either person. Eventually, I realized I didn’t want to spend my entire life living that way. We can’t choose how we were raised, but we can choose what we do with that knowledge once we recognize the pattern.

People who are emotionally unavailable are not simply not vulnerable. Emotional unavailability is typically characterized by patterns, and those patterns consist of avoiding deeper emotional engagement and/or making sure to stay at a distance in relationships that would tend to be typically close, such as a friendship or a partnership with a significant other.

The good news is that emotional unavailability isn’t a fixed trait, and I often think it’s synonymous with a growth mindset. We are all able to do things when we choose to do them, and opening up to those around you is one of those things. A person can want meaningful relationships and have no idea how to achieve them, likely because of the oppression of their feelings that probably started long before they can remember.

In my article, I’ll explain from my viewpoint what being emotionally unavailable means, lay out some of the signs and causes, talk about how it affects relationships, and also share some simple ways to navigate relationships with emotionally unavailable people.

This is the one million dollar question today. What does being emotionally unavailable mean? I have loads of experience with people who are this way, and I’ll give as many of my own experiences as well as things I’ve researched. Generally, these are people who struggle with expressing feelings at all, have a hard time building intimacy, and generally can’t maintain emotional closeness with others. It’s one thing to desire these things; it’s another to actually live them out. Some people will not let themselves fully engage on an emotional level.

Vulnerability feels like a death sentence because it’s so unfamiliar and uncomfortable. It feels risky and unsafe to open up to another. Conversations will stay surface level, and any sniff of emotional intimacy will send them packing down the road. It’s a painful thing to experience as a person who is very much emotionally available, and equally as painful for the opposite for very different reasons.

Even though emotional unavailability may look slightly different from one person to the next, the common thread is an avoidance of emotional risk. This type of person cannot sit with the thought of rejection, disappointment, or hurt from another, so they decide it’s easier to just not, creating the distance they need to keep themselves “safe” from the world. The irony is that it’s a very lonely place to be.

Music Therapy

Here are some signs that are common in emotionally unavailable people:

• Avoid discussing feelings or personal struggles
• Change the subject during emotional conversations
• Have difficulty committing to long-term plans
• Keep partners at arm’s length
• Struggle to communicate emotional needs
• Appear detached during emotional situations
• Send mixed signals about relationships
• Prioritize independence to an extreme degree
• Avoid difficult conversations
• Have trouble expressing affection through words or emotional expressions
• Prefer relationships to remain at surface level
• Withdraw when relationships get deeper

I see one or two of these in myself, like the struggle to commit to long-term plans, but I wouldn’t consider myself all-around emotionally unavailable. Not every person who displays one or two of these is emotionally unavailable as a whole. What to look for is patterns of behavior, and that’s where you start to understand what you’re dealing with.

You're Only a Child Once

I’m one to think that many of our fears and insecurities, which would include emotional unavailability, start very early on by the people who influenced us the most. That would include parents, guardians, siblings, peers, and more. There may not be one single cause of it, and likely a combination of experiences (some against our will), beliefs, and how we cope with circumstances. Here are some typical causes.

Childhood Attachment Experiences

As I stated, I often attribute a lot of how we behave as adults to how we were raised as children. Our earliest relationships usually shape the way we develop our emotional connections later in life. For me, because things were so conditional in my house and love had to be earned by acting a certain way or doing tasks to please my parents, I have some core beliefs that people are fleeting and they come and go if they decide you aren’t doing “enough” to be loved. I work on this every day to break this belief.

Fear of Rejection or Abandonment

We are wired as humans to fear rejection and abandonment by whoever our “tribe” is in our lives. Tolerating things we wouldn’t normally tolerate and shrinking ourselves so someone doesn’t reject us are very common. There’s a safety in keeping emotional distance, and if the relationship ends, it wasn’t surprising or as painful, It’s a farce, but this is what we sometimes tell ourselves to survive.

Previous Heartbreak or Betrayal

I have a real example of this and I was the one who inflicted the pain on someone because of my own emotional distance. My loving, kind, doting high school boyfriend dated me through his first year in college while I was in my senior year. When I got to college, though, I realized how big the world was and completely disregarded his feelings. I dated fraternity brothers of his, strung him along, and was a total jerk to him. A friend of his told me, and I’ll never forget it, that I was the cause of him being unwilling to connect with someone else. I’ve learned a lot since then, but as a 18 year old, I had no idea what I was doing emotionally. It was a direct result of my childhood, and it’s stuck with me to this day.

Past Relationship Trauma

Relationship trauma can come in all different forms. It could be with parents, a significant other, or siblings. I’ve had all of these, and I do find it difficult to want to put myself out there almost at all. Because I have more curiosity than I do fear, and I believe that we are always able to evolve and improve and change, I continue to push myself with others. Many times I come away learning something more about myself and the way I want to conduct myself in future relationships. Other times I realize what I don’t want in a relationship, and I get to amend it. It’s all data, and it’s all good practice.

Emotional Neglect During Formative Years

Take it from me, when emotional neglect is present during formative years, you grow up to be an adult who doesn’t know who you are, what you feel, what is healthy. It’s taken me going on 15 years of therapy, a lot of coaching, and tons of self-evaluation, self-kindness, grace, and more to be who I am today. When this is the case for anyone (specifically for those who recognize it), it may take years to unpack and understand. What I can tell you is that it’s worth the effort. I’ve never felt so authentically me and free in all of my life.

Difficulty Identifying or Processing Emotions

Not all of us have the advantage that healthy families do of helping their kids learn emotional awareness. Some people genuinely cannot identify how or what they feel, so emotional conversations can be very difficult. Some therapists have cards printed with many feeling words so people understand where they are as a baseline in any given situation. When your parents failed you in this category, you can take ownership of learning these skills. All is not lost.

Chronic Stress or Burnout

If stress rules the roost in your life, it will affect every area, and that includes your personal relationships. Many people allow their jobs to give them long-term stress, burnout, and/or ongoing mental health challenges. This can make connecting emotionally feel overwhelming when you’re just trying to survive.

Learned Self-Protection Mechanisms

We’re going back to childhood, the root of so many people’s issues. Some of us had to develop protective habits that helped us cope with our environments as children. Whether it was avoiding vulnerability, suppressing feelings, or staying emotionally distant, these coping mechanisms served as a way to survive. Bringing them into adulthood and into relationships will lead to an unhealthy outcome. Identifying these and working through them is where we get to choose as adults.

Emotionally Available People Sometimes Feel Like Unicorns

The worst part about emotional distance is that it doesn’t just affect the emotionally unavailable person - it affects everyone who wants a closer relationship with them. Here are some ways this happens.

Creates Barriers to Emotional Intimacy

Emotional connection is now one of my top priorities in a relationship. This goes for friendships and partnerships alike. Healthy relationships thrive on emotional intimacy, and if a person is opting out of this by choice of by default, there is a break in the connection. Avoiding vulnerability is insurance that intimacy in general will be difficult to develop and maintain.

Leads to Communication Breakdowns

I recently ended a relationship that I thought had a lot of potential. When we were together, we were so good. However, because of the long distance, he chose to be a poor communicator, and it caused me to want to pry, push, and feel somewhat harassing to get any information out of him. The interesting thing is that, to me, connection can be fairly easy when you’re open. When you’re not, for whatever reason, it leads to breakdown.

Causes Frustration and Confusion for Partners

I’ve been with my fair share of unavailable partners because it’s what my brain and nervous system were used to from growing up with that. As I developed other skills and became more emotionally sound myself, it became hard to deal with because I was left feeling confused and wondering where I stood with my partner. Did they love me? Was I enough? From one relationship, I didn’t know if I was even attractive to anyone anymore because he never expressed any type of attraction or emotional pull towards me. It can be very damaging to another person.

Makes Conflict Resolution More Difficult

There’s a difference between healthy conflict that moves a relationship forward and conflict that is repetitive and feels like you can never exit a merry-go-round. Emotional distance is very difficult to understand, and getting into arguments with someone who is not available is a nightmare. You feel like you’re spinning your wheels and going nowhere.

Contributes to Trust Issues

Boy, do I know this one well. One of my longer term relationships had a big trust deficit because he was too scared to say how he felt, causing him to say yes to things he didn’t want to do, and then simply not doing them. To me, it became flat out lying. When your partner or someone else close to you refuses to say what they really mean or feel, lack of trust can develop with these patterns. It’s nearly impossible to maintain any type of decent relationship with this behavior.

Creates Uncertainty About Relationship Direction

How does one move forward in a relationship when feelings and emotions are not clearly communicated? If one partner is available and one is not, this is not a great combination for success. It creates uncertainty and stagnation, and the available partner will likely grow tired of guessing and trying to figure out what the other is thinking or feeling.

Can Result in Feelings of Loneliness Despite Being in a Relationship

I know for myself, I’ve never felt more alone than when I was with an emotionally unavailable person. There was not any space for me to get into my hopes and dreams, my deep thoughts and feelings around, well, anything. It felt like I was a well trying to connect with a puddle. Physical presence does not make up for emotional distance, and it doesn’t create connection.

If you do strive for more connection and you are working through getting better at it, you may enjoy reading my guide on how to connect with people.

You Can Change!

Of course, anyone can change if they so choose. It all starts with self-awareness. A person must recognize the shortcomings within the emotional range before doing anything about it. Relationship after relationship has taught me the ways in which I could do better for myself and the other party with whom I’m in a relationship. The change may be gradual through practice and external help from a therapist or coach, journaling, and personal development books.

Someone must also have the will to make these changes. Because they are often deeply rooted in how we’ve operated for a very long time, it can take a lot of patience and grace for ourselves and from those around us. Though many times emotional unavailability is not intentional, it’s still very hurtful and harmful. As an adult, it’s our prerogative to become whomever we choose, and we can absolutely choose openness and vulnerability.

I won’t lie. It’s very difficult to navigate relationships with emotionally unavailable people. Here are a few tips I’ve learned along the way to help you and myself deal with them.

Set Realistic Expectations

I’ve been reflecting on meeting people where they are, and come to the conclusion that I’m actually ready for people to meet me where I am. Going backwards is not what I want in my life, and while I can understand a person’s shortcomings, I don’t have to tolerate them in my own life. I accept who they are, but don’t have to live with it.

Communicate Openly and Calmly

There are some people who will welcome your communication and some people that won’t. Experience will help you determine this, so use your energy wisely. If you feel like it’s worth discussing with someone, go for it. If you think it will fall on deaf ears, cut your losses and know you did your best.

Avoid Forcing Emotional Conversations

People generally do not like to be told what to do or pressured into changing. They flat out won’t most of the time. If the relationship means something to you, make opportunities to discuss things openly at the person’s pace.

Establish Healthy Boundaries

I’m a boundary queen, and wrote a piece on how to set boundaries with friends. It can be translated into any relationship you have, especially with emotionally deficient people. Most people are going to take care of and protect themselves, and you need to make sure you do that for yourself. Set boundaries against energy vampires, and don’t lose yourself to others’ needs all the time.

Pay Attention to Actions, Not Just Words

This has become the front and center of my life when it comes to any kind of relationship that I get into nowadays. I’ve had so much lip service in my life that the only thing that matters to me is the action. Actions, in fact, do speak louder than words, and you can hang your hat on that in every situation. Look for consistency and accountability.

Protect Your Own Emotional Well-Being

Being the martyr and giving away all of your emotional capacity does not win you any prizes in life. You’ll be worse off for it, and probably resentful and disgusted with those around you. People will change if they want to change, and only then will they change. Dumping your energy into someone to try to “help” them when they don’t want it will deplete you, so take it from me (who has way too much experience with this), just don’t do it.

Recognize When change is Unlikely Without Effort from Both Sides

This may come as a surprise to you, but relationships involve two people. So if both people are not actively participating and contributing, you don’t have much leg to stand on. I’ve been the person who seeks out betterment and growth, and in a relationship where the other person fought to the death to stay the same. To this day, this is the case, though we are no longer together. We’re both happier for it.

Feeling Connected

When you’ve been involved with people much of your life that are emotionally unavailable, this is the norm for you. However, if you have an epiphany and realize this isn’t the path you want to be on and you’re ready for a change, whether removing yourself from this type of person or becoming more available yourself, I hope this has helped you.

No one wins in life when there’s no connection, vulnerability, and courage to be a better version of oneself. The good news is that this is available to anyone who is brave enough and willing enough to take on getting better at it. You can develop these skills to connection, and you will absolutely be a happier and healthier person for it.

Whether you see these behaviors in yourself or in someone close to you, understanding emotional unavailability can be the beginning of a much more fulfilling journey. Taking those first steps toward vulnerability can feel uncomfortable, but as someone who has experienced both sides of this coin, I can tell you they are worth taking.

Emotional availability isn't about being perfect. It's about being willing to be seen. It's choosing connection even when vulnerability feels uncomfortable. Whether you're learning to open up yourself or trying to understand someone who struggles to do so, every step toward honesty and emotional connection creates the possibility for healthier and more meaningful relationships.

If you liked this blog, you might also like the one I wrote on why is growth mindset important or how to set boundaries with friends.

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