The Question: How do you handle it with an emotionally unavailable man?
“Emotionally unavailable” here means that your partner appears to you to be distant or does not reciprocate the love you give to them, doesn’t give you lots of attention perhaps. This doesn’t mean you’re emotionally incompatible – or it shouldn’t. It will all become clearer in the next few paragraphs.
A related question is, “How do you handle/cope with a difference in how you and your man communicate love?
Read on…
The Answer:
Before we get to the answers, first here’s the problem as posted online by one woman in a public forum where people could post anonymously. Her frustrations may say something about your situation or prepare you for a problem you may face at some point…
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“I studied men and seldom think like a man and act like a lady but I think I just met my match and I didn’t even see it coming.
“I met this guy through a mutual friend who contacted me on FB. It was a genuine meeting. We talked for 8hrs and I had to call off from work the next day. There was great chemistry and we were fond of each other. i was skeptical ‘coz its long distance but he was chasing me so hard that I thought ok I’ll give it a try. He started saying “He loved me from the first week”
“Thought he was moving too fast but went with the flow since this is what I’ve been wishing for all last yr. We talked for a month and he flew me over and we had sex the next day. Nothing changed.
“As a matter of fact we didn’t have to discuss our relationship status ‘coz he started calling me his wifey and told his friends I’m his girlfriend. Told me and his mother who he is close to that I’m the one and he’s marrying me. Well after a while I’m losing my mind. I’m in love.
“Can’t stop thinking about him. Want him to call me every day but he wasn’t doing it. Happens to be a very busy guy. After giving so much thought and talking to him about communication gap he tells me ‘I don’t want to lose you.’
“He is 37 and he has not accomplished everything he wants at that age and begged me to be patient that everything he is doing is for OUR FUTURE.
“Well back in those days if a guy wasn’t giving me all the attention, I tend to circular date and talk and flirt with other guys. I don’t know why I can’t do this with him. He is so nice and sincere. I heard from a friend he is getting ready to propose to me soon and his mom loves me. This is what I want but I question if I can be happy.
“My way of dealing with emotionally unavailable men is dating other guys even if there is no sex, it takes my mind away from being so needy for his attention. However because of how much I have fallen for him and respect my commitment, I can’t do this. What do I do? He is a keeper, don’t want to lose him and don’t want to play games.
“Just don’t understand how he chased me so hard and I was in control to how I am now the one craving the attention. I want to fall un-in love (if that’s a word) ‘coz I hate how it feels now. I want to harden my heart. When I do this he notices the change in attitude and asks ‘Why are you talking like someone who doesn’t love me?’
“He just doesn’t get it does he?
“I’m in love and yearning for equal attention and want to stop being vulnerable by walking away and de-attaching myself emotionally but he is not helping. If he can’t help me from feeling this way, then I seriously need to help myself. It hurts so bad ‘coz I thought the same way he was chasing me was the same way he will be once I gave my heart to him.
“Damn LOVE could be ugly sometimes!”
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The Solution and Answers
The BIG problem here is that the woman is failing to understand that the way she communicates love is very different from how her guy communicates love.
There are 5 different ways people show that they care: verbally, time & attention, physical affection, giving gifts, and one other. (Remember The Five Love Languages?)
While all of these are important, each person has their own opinion about which is most important. It’s a personal thing. For some, physical affection is most important. People like that show how much they care by hugging, kissing, holding hands, etc. For such people this will also be the form that is easiest for them to recognize.
For a man who communicates via physical affection for example, when his girlfriend snuggles up next to him during a movie, he’ll know she cares.
In the case of this original poster above, her boyfriend expresses himself verbally. He wants his gal to know how much he loves her, so he tells her. And if his gal isn’t doing the same, he picks up on it immediately.
The original poster expresses herself through time and attention. She loves her boyfriend, so she wants to spend lots of time with him and focus her attention on him.
If he’s not spending time and attention on her every day, it feels like he doesn’t care.
When two partners share the same love language preference, this is effortless. For a guy who prefers physical affection, when he has an overwhelming need to let his girlfriend know how much he loves her, he’ll walk over and give her a big hug and kiss. Since her preference is also for physical affection, she gets the message clearly.
For a guy who prefers verbal love language, when he has an overwhelming need to let his woman know that he loves her, he tells her. So, in the case of this OP, since she wants time & attention, his words don’t mean very much to her.
Similarly, when she has that overwhelming urge, she tries to spend time and attention on her boyfriend. While he probably thinks that’s nice, it’s not as meaningful as when she tells him that she loves him.
Action steps to change a man who is emotionally unavailable
So, if you have the same problem as the original poster above, here’s what to do:
Stop trying to pull away, withholding affection, or ”un-loving” your man. This guy in the agony piece surely loves his woman, and he is trying to be completely loving toward her. He’s not playing games. It’s the woman who’s playing games in fact. How do you know an emotionally unavailable man is trying, or is into you, loves you? If nothing else, see if he is doing more of his native love language thing!
Explain to him what we just outlined above. In order to overcome this issue, you both need to understand it. And you both need to work to accommodate each other. He instinctively shows that he cares by telling his woman. In addition, he needs to consciously and deliberately spend time and focus attention on her, in the currency she understands best. (This has to be conscious and deliberate, because he is incapable of spending enough time and attention instinctively).
Is there a way to fix this emotionally unavailable problem in a man?
What to do to fix a problem where your guy is emotionally unavailable
For the woman whose language is time an attention, in addition to spending time and attention on him, you also need to consciously and deliberately tell him that you love him and how much he means to you. You need to do so frequently and extravagantly (and that might seem ridiculous to you, because you’re also incapable of saying you care often enough and extravagantly enough instinctively).
Closing this love language gap is a bit difficult because it requires persistent effort by both partners. It’s really easy for one person to slack off. This is because, if your language is time and attention, if he spends lots of time and attention on you, you’ll feel like he loves you. And if you’re spending lots of time and attention on him, it’ll feel like you’re reciprocating sufficiently… well, it’ll feel that way to you.
But, for a guy who responds to verbal language, unless you keep telling him how much you love him, you won’t be reciprocating equally.
It’s a hard problem to overcome, and it’s deceptively easy to backslide. If you two can’t accomplish this, you have only one other option: to break up.
In this post we focused only on the two love languages that are the issue in the example. So, in case the languages are different in your case, simply substitute the relevant languages in your particular case and you’ll be good to go.
Another point…
There can be more to a man being emotionally unavailable in a relationship than simply a difference in how you two communicate love. Because a man can become emotionally unavailable over time, when he wasn’t always this way. This can happen in a married relationship, or a man becomes emotionally unavailable to his ex after a breakup or a divorce.
In these cases a man/husband becomes emotionally unavailable because as his woman you’re not privileged (no longer privileged) to touch his emotional hot buttons – to laugh or cry or share his feelings with him – meaning he doesn’t trust you enough to open up to you and reveal his emotions where the things that matter to him the most are concerned.
And that rarely has anything to do with sex. It may have everything to do with his job, his dreams, or his plans for the future, or the pains he goes through on a daily basis at his place of work.
Some of the signs that your man is emotionally unavailable in a relationship will be that he prefers to confided his dreams and plans to women he works with, or his men friends – but not to you!
This is a broad topic. If you want good answers we can recommend the book, Fascinating Womanhood by Helen Andelin
In one part she wrote:
“Sometimes a man has to work long hours to build up a business, or get out of debt. He may put all his energy into his work and neglect the house maintenance for a time… [But]… a man who is admired and praised, especially by his wife, grows in confidence and nobility. There is a ready smile to his face, and a spring in his step. He holds his head high…your man needs your admiration more than he needs your love. Few women know this great truth.”
If this seems to be your problem, we can’t recommend this book enough. It will give you solutions how to cope in these situations, how to touch your man’s hot emotional buttons. Here are some more benefits you’ll get from reading it:
- Ways how to ensure your man grows in confidence and nobility. Leverage your God-given powers and become a successful, happier person yourself by causing his confidence and self-esteem to soar in a way that arouses his energy, and his success drive. When you can do this he’ll open up to you.
- How to find qualities in your man you never knew existed… and what to say to him – and how – to make him feel more manly and worthy of success.
- What to do to get your man to confide to you his deepest and innermost thoughts… know what his most cherished goals and dreams are, so you can position yourself to become his cherished goal buddy and his success muse. If you can get him to open up to you this will arouse his deepest love (and make him emotionally available).
- How to help your man overcome his doubts, his detractors, and his self-limiting beliefs. If you have gotten him to confide in you, this puts you in a power position because two heads are always better than one.
That book above was written specifically to help married women become better wives, basically to “to show you how to unlock all the love and tenderness in your man.” But let’s face it: men are men, whether he’s your husband, or you’re just dating him!
Also, if you can find the original version of Fascinating Womanhood it’s the better version, from the reviews. The versions which came later have been “sanitized” by Helen Andelin’s daughter apparently, to appeal to feminists, and they omit some of the really good stuff. Read it crude and refine for yourself… the really good stuff will distil automatically to give you insights that help you understand men – and give you epiphanies.
For more answers to dating questions, problems and frustrations click this link.
You may also like: The Intelligent Way How To Find Mr. Right
