DailyOM: What exactly is an emotionally unavailable partner?
Yvonne: At a certain point, intimacy and connection in a relationship stalls because one partner won't allow themselves, or doesn't know how to allow themselves, to be vulnerable. In other words, they won't let you in. Three common signs of an emotionally unavailable partner include discomfort when emotional topics or conflicts arise, controlling behaviors, and resistance to therapy. Discomfort around emotional topics or conflicts may be the first and most obvious sign. This discomfort can manifest as anger or numbness and may only turn up around certain subjects. Some people who struggle with emotional unavailability are able to connect with emotion in other aspects of their lives, while keeping themselves safe from feeling energy in other areas. This is where controlling behaviors and resistance to therapy enter the picture.
Through the illusion of control, an individual can cordon off themselves and others from areas in life that they do not want to engage in. For instance, a controlling person might pay for everything and even give lavish gifts because it's easier to be free with their money rather than free with their emotions. Control becomes a tool with which to avoid vulnerability at all costs. Any repetitive defensive behavior (e.g., people-pleasing, extreme socializing or social withdrawal, keeping up appearances) can be a sign of emotional unavailability. Addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex, or work is a major red flag as well. Even seemingly benign behaviors such as being a busybody can be an addiction if used to numb or deflect true feelings or done as a protective measure against authentic engagement.
DailyOM: How does a person become emotionally unavailable?
Yvonne: There are so many reasons why people become emotionally unavailable, but the cause often goes back to family dynamics, social conditioning, or trauma, possibly even a combination of the three. Trying to engage with an emotionally unavailable partner can be extremely difficult, but it's important to remember that somewhere along the way, this partner learned that withholding emotion or disconnecting from emotion protected them from pain, even abuse.
It's possible that disconnecting from feeling was a necessary coping response to life. An emotionally unavailable individual is suffering, perhaps unconsciously. If the experience of trauma and coping is not named and integrated, it can carry over as emotional unavailability into contexts where emotion is necessary for growth, intimacy, and connection. If left unacknowledged, emotional unavailability can halt the flow of life and create harmful patterns of anger, withdrawal, and breakage in relationships.
DailyOM: Does being with an emotionally unavailable partner mean the end of the relationship?
Yvonne: Not at all. It takes commitment from both partners to work, but two people who love and respect each other can absolutely remain together amid the challenges of emotional unavailability. They can heal and grow closer from the experience of engaging together. One of the biggest challenges to healing is tuning out the assumption that emotional unavailability is a dead end. Emotional unavailability has become a bit of a throwaway term in the culture, used to swiftly diagnose a range of relationship troubles and justify the easy tossing away of intimate partners the moment conflict arises.
Of course there are times when it is not right, or even safe, to remain in a relationship, but the assumptions around emotional unavailability are closely related to the enormous cultural value we put on ease. Engaging the broken and painful reality of emotional unavailability with your partner is not the easy choice, but it's rewarding on a profound, soulful level. The outside world would have us believe that it is always better to take the smoother path. But this work takes place on a much deeper plane, where tender hardship creates wonder and meaning. If we want to heal our relationships, we must be willing to take a risk and enter into that experience knowing that the journey is uncertain. It's a courageous choice.
DailyOM: The latter part of the course teaches about practicing compassion and forgiveness. Why are these two skills so vital to the process of healing?
Yvonne: Without compassion and forgiveness, we can't move forward. Compassion is what allows us to witness and name our emotionally unavailable partner's pain and struggle, as well as our own. Compassion enables us to mourn suffering together, to hold space for our partners to heal, instead of fighting them. We're able to see emotional unavailability for what it is, a form of suffering, instead of continuing to tell ourselves a story that puts our own desires and insecurities front and center and makes our partner's emotional unavailability a slight against or a reflection of us. Forgiveness is so important because through it, we finally let go of shame and guilt, of the negativity that hardens us against compassion and creates self-righteousness when we need humility. Through forgiveness, we admit our human limitations, accept them, and even learn to love them. This is necessary for both partners to heal.
It's also important to note that compassion and forgiveness create space in us to manage our expectations in intimate relationships. Managing expectations does not mean ignoring our own needs or "settling." Rather, it means developing the consciousness to recognize the boundaries of the other and the ways in which our expectations may intrude upon those boundaries. In our quest for emotional connection, we may be unintentionally forcing our partners to act in ways that do not accord with their own souls. We must recognize the truth that some people enjoy talking about and exploring their emotions more than others. Our own desire to engage emotion can't become a force that pushes on our partners in the hopes of changing them or "making" them more emotional.
DailyOM: The course offers meditation and journaling exercises. Why is this work important, and what are some feelings that may come up for a student?
Yvonne: Meditation and journaling take the course off the screen and bring it into your life, into your heart. It's not enough to simply read the course; it's important to put it into practice. Healing is a process, and meditation and journaling facilitate that process. Meditation helps clear the thought patterns and ego tendencies that stand in the way of connecting to your deepest self. Journaling is a way to allow your deepest self to express itself; your pen is its instrument. Old, buried feelings may come up. What those feelings are will depend on how the matter of emotional unavailability has constellated in your own self and how in touch you are with that process. You may have tears, but tears are good. They soften the heart and open the way for healing.
If you're entering into this course from a more ego-centered place, you may experience greater feelings of resistance and frustration before the tears flow. Journaling becomes all the more important. Through writing, you're creating a container for your feelings through which you can practice becoming an objective, conscious observer to the defenses of your ego. Through writing, you develop an intimate, conscious relationship with your emotions. You learn to discern between emotions that originate from your ego and those that come from your heart. You begin sorting this feeling from that feeling, opening the way for clarity.
DailyOM: Walk us through the journey somebody might experience while taking this 10-lesson course.
Yvonne: Above all, this course is a humbling journey. Those who are in relationships with emotionally unavailable partners may be surprised by how much the course asks them to engage in this process of surrender as well. Students must be willing to confront themselves with honesty and love. Healing from emotional unavailability is a journey of learning to be vulnerable, of connecting with the soul and inner child, of surrendering ego control, all of which requires humility. This course is a very human and heart-opening journey. All of us, wherever we are in our life's journey, have experienced emotional unavailability within ourselves. We have all protected ourselves from painful feelings. We have all experienced guilt or shame. And as human beings, we also share in the hope for healing. We're all capable of transformation.
DailyOM: We hope you enjoyed reading this interview. This course is beautifully presented over 10 lessons with gentle guidance and lots of helpful insights from Yvonne. Until next time, be well.
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