Chasing those emotionally unavailable

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There was a lot I found attractive about my now-husband. His unavailability was a challenge. I don’t mean that I thought I could change him - because I didn’t. We broke up twice because he gave all of his attention to his work and had almost no life outside of work. But at some point I made the trade-off. He offered me a secure life and as much love as he could provide, less than some others, but more than I had without him. It was a very conscious decision. I knew at the time what I was getting. I went in with my eyes wide open.

He still really has no idea what I mean by intimacy. And he’s not sure he wants to explore the concept. When the kids were little I got most of my emotional needs met through my relationships with them. Not in a sick way, just loving them and being loved by them. But now that our nest is nearly empty, I feel pretty empty too. I don’t think dh is going to engage with me in any deep way. I am in the process of constructing a life of my own. He agreed to counseling a while ago but really just wants the counselor to affirm that he’s just a normal guy and that it’s all my problems that get in the way of our happiness.

Do I regret that I married an emotionally unavailable man? Somewhat. But I regret more that we were not practicing Catholics when we married. Way too much water under that bridge to go back now, and the faith is what gives me strength, but what gives us a huge chasm in our approach to life.
 
I had a history of falling for emotionally unavailable men through my twenties and early in my thirties. For me, it was because of the family of origin/low self-esteem issues people already described so well in earlier posts. Deep down I was afraid of relationships, so getting involved with another commitmentphobic person kept me “safe” in a way, while providing the illusion that I was still trying to have a relationship.

A few times the word “chemistry” has come up in these posts. When looking back over past relationships, I realized that every single time I felt an immediate chemistry with someone, they were unhealthy people. It’s like my chemistry-radar only beeped for toxic people…like a radiation detector! If someone was charming and charismatic on the surface, but had deep-rooted issues, I was instantly attracted to him. It was like, “bing bing bing, I must have this person and make him love me, so I can prove to myself that I’m special after all and it’s not my fault I had an alcoholic father. By changing this guy, I will change the past.” Of course that never happened.

Over time, as I went to therapy and learned more about myself, I retrained my brain to notice the steady, nice, normal guys whom I would have previously considered boring. Now I’m married to a great guy who is very emotionally available, but if I’d met him in my twenties, I would have said, “I don’t know, I just don’t feel that chemistry.” But that really meant, “He doesn’t stir the anxiety, nervousness and eagerness to please that was such a big part of my childhood growing up with an alcoholic father.” For many years, I confused anxiety for chemistry.
 
Hi all:

I still do believe in “chemistry” although I’m not sure what it is…is it mere physical attraction?

is this love?

Is this “being in love”?

I am not sure.

As I said above, my h still makes my knees weak with unbelievable physical chemistry, most likely more me for him, than him for me…((bad sign)…oh well…

I am sorry to report that I think I was more in love with him than he was with me. maybe this is one reason we broke up.

Besides his sex addiction problem. Which is what everyone says is his problem, our whole marriage isssue…YES, I agree, my h is a sex addict. Sooooo hard to admit such. Thx for listening…😊 He has gone to SA on and off. I go to S-Anon…just like Al-Anon…12 step work.

My heart is so very wounded still today. pray for me friends.
 
I had one relationship after another ever since I was 18. leading up to my h and marriage. I never got a chance to know who “Corinne” was/is.

I guess maybe this is part of my problem. Now at 50, I have no identity apart from a lover.

Help me to know it friends. Can you? Has anyone else been in this same boat?
 
PS: I want to sell my wedding rings cuz my h was unfaithful. Should I?

It has no meaning to me cuz he was so unfaithful. IF, Lord willing we ever reconcile, we’ll have to new wedding ring… This is my two cents…

What are anyone’s thoughts? My heart is hurting;. Help if you can…:(:confused::rolleyes:🤷 Still, I wait upon the Lord~
 
Well, from the POV of a woman…I think that often, women do this because they themselves are actually not ready to commit to a relationship. However, I think women are often expected to be looking for long-term commitment in relationships, that despite the Sex and the City types that get attention in much secular media, there is still somewhat of a double standard here. If a man just wants fun and no commitment, he’s seen as a typical male, while a woman who admits this is not seen as a typical female. So, I think many women will purposefully pursue (or let themselves be pursued by) unavailable men, knowing the relationship is likely to crash and burn, but being able to save face and claim that they tried. And then get a lot of sympathy from friends about what a jerk the guy was.

Unfortunately, I think this is why some women purposefully date married men. They may say they’re waiting for the guy to leave his wife and marry them, but they don’t really expect that to happen. Now, I’m not saying this is always a conscious decision. In my case, I didn’t set out to date a married man, and didn’t actually do so, but I did have a friendship with a married man that bordered on inapproproiate. I do remember a conversation I had with him when he asked if I was dating anyone and I told him I wasn’t, and wasn’t even sure I wanted to (I was really in a somewhat bitter “dating is a waste of time” state of mind at the time.) So I think in a way, I started to seek him out to meet my emotional intimacy needs knowing, somewhere, that I had a built-in excuse for not getting those needs met, that obviously his first commitment was to his wife and family. As opposed to dating someone available and having the same things happen, and wondering if there was something wrong with me.

Also, I think that while many men see dating as almost a battle, where the object is to conquer a woman sexually, many women see dating as a battle to conquer a man emotionally. Getting an aloof man to open up and become emotionally intimate is a triumph for such a woman, as is the stereotypical idea of “taming the bad boy”. The appeal isn’t really the man (or, it’s not just the man), it’s the possibility of stroking your own ego either because you must be special and exceptional to win the man’s heart where so many other women have failed, or at the very least has the ability to manipulating the man into changing.

Some women even find it ego-stroking to be “queen of the harem” and don’t mind having a boyfriend or husband who sleeps around, as long as he’s always coming back home at the end…I guess some “normal” women married to athletes or other celebrities fit this category, and I’m sure the boost to their bottom line doesn’t hurt either. Even when that’s not an issue and the man is, say, Big Man on Campus in HS or college but only above average in the larger world…their self-esteem isn’t that high, that they can’t believe Dazzling Prince Charming would actually want to date and marry Plain Jane, and accept his cheating as part of the deal because they figure, “Well, of course he’s going to cheat, he can have any woman he wants! I should be grateful that at least he picked me to bear his name and raise his children.”

Again, I make the disclaimer that I think a lot of this is not due to a conscious thinking process. I’m sure the same is true for men who chase unavailable women.
 
Corinne3 said:
I had one relationship after another ever since I was 18. leading up to my h and marriage. I never got a chance to know who “Corinne” was/is.

I guess maybe this is part of my problem. Now at 50, I have no identity apart from a lover.

Help me to know it friends. Can you? Has anyone else been in this same boat?
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I can relate except in my case, it was my kids who absorbed all my attention and who I sacrificed my own life for. You have to find out who you are now, not who you would have been if you’d made other choices. S/Anon will help a lot. I’d advise you to keep going to the meetings.
 
Well, I think some of it goes back to the old saw “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.” In other words, I know a lot of women who never liked men who were “too into them” right off the bat. They liked the guy who was a mystery, who held back, who had to be waited for.

I personally never liked that in a guy. If I liked him, I wanted to know if he liked me. No games, no tip-toeing around. Sure, it meant I got my feelings hurt, because I would put myself out there, and often, the answer from the guy was “I’m just not that into you” and at that point, I would walk away, not invest further.

I also observed that some people thrive on drama. I always hated drama in my life (as I do to this day). I guess some people think if it’s too easy, it’s boring.

I also believe that some people don’t want to admit to themselves after they have emotionally invested themselves, that the object of their affection has NOT invested equally. It’s humiliating perhaps?

And lastly, I believe some people hang on to someone who they have “chemistry” with, because they fear that there are no other fish in the sea.
 
ToeInTheWater said:
Well, from the POV of a woman…I think that often, women do this because they themselves are actually not ready to commit to a relationship. However, I think women are often expected to be looking for long-term commitment in relationships, that despite the Sex and the City types that get attention in much secular media, there is still somewhat of a double standard here. If a man just wants fun and no commitment, he’s seen as a typical male, while a woman who admits this is not seen as a typical female. So, I think many women will purposefully pursue (or let themselves be pursued by) unavailable men, knowing the relationship is likely to crash and burn, but being able to save face and claim that they tried. And then get a lot of sympathy from friends about what a jerk the guy was.
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Hmm… I suppose it depends which sex you’re talking to. Sometimes when talking to women I get the impression that when a man is the social butterfly, all the “typical male” diatribes apply to him; on the other hand, when a woman does that, it’s perfectly legitimate and how dare a male imply she has any obligations etc. All in all, I guess it comes down to blaming the other sex’s behaviours as more wrong, more unnatural because they’re less known, less familiar, even if it’s the same behaviours we exhibit.
Unfortunately, I think this is why some women purposefully date married men. They may say they’re waiting for the guy to leave his wife and marry them, but they don’t really expect that to happen. Now, I’m not saying this is always a conscious decision. In my case, I didn’t set out to date a married man, and didn’t actually do so, but I did have a friendship with a married man that bordered on inapproproiate. I do remember a conversation I had with him when he asked if I was dating anyone and I told him I wasn’t, and wasn’t even sure I wanted to (I was really in a somewhat bitter “dating is a waste of time” state of mind at the time.) So I think in a way, I started to seek him out to meet my emotional intimacy needs knowing, somewhere, that I had a built-in excuse for not getting those needs met, that obviously his first commitment was to his wife and family. As opposed to dating someone available and having the same things happen, and wondering if there was something wrong with me.
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That could be and it sounds plausible, though I wonder if it could explain the chemistry.
Also, I think that while many men see dating as almost a battle, where the object is to conquer a woman sexually, many women see dating as a battle to conquer a man emotionally. Getting an aloof man to open up and become emotionally intimate is a triumph for such a woman, as is the stereotypical idea of “taming the bad boy”. The appeal isn’t really the man (or, it’s not just the man), it’s the possibility of stroking your own ego either because you must be special and exceptional to win the man’s heart where so many other women have failed, or at the very least has the ability to manipulating the man into changing.
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Many a woman is out to conquer a man sexually these days. 😉 Anyway, I suppose the ego comment could apply to men with the damsel-in-distress complex, though as a man myself, I might be inclined to see them as simply caring or protective.
Some women even find it ego-stroking to be “queen of the harem” and don’t mind having a boyfriend or husband who sleeps around, as long as he’s always coming back home at the end…I guess some “normal” women married to athletes or other celebrities fit this category, and I’m sure the boost to their bottom line doesn’t hurt either.
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Men also have some version of it: claiming the woman that everybody else wants. Doesn’t work for me because I don’t like sharing. Stuff’s actually worse for me because I’m somewhat better at reading clues than your typical male and I read the sexual tension between people better. Therefore I could be seriously unhappy in a relationship with a serious flirt.
Even when that’s not an issue and the man is, say, Big Man on Campus in HS or college but only above average in the larger world…their self-esteem isn’t that high, that they can’t believe Dazzling Prince Charming would actually want to date and marry Plain Jane, and accept his cheating as part of the deal because they figure, “Well, of course he’s going to cheat, he can have any woman he wants! I should be grateful that at least he picked me to bear his name and raise his children.”
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Didn’t think of that…
Again, I make the disclaimer that I think a lot of this is not due to a conscious thinking process. I’m sure the same is true for men who chase unavailable women.
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Yeah, I believe that as well.

For the record, I possibly have a knack for chasing those who chase the emotionally unavailable… or bumping into emotional unavailables if we class them in that category. But it more like seems that any woman I’m interested in sooner or later proves to have issues and mostly not interested in me (which mostly changes after a time).
 
StJudePray4Me said:
Well, I think some of it goes back to the old saw “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.” In other words, I know a lot of women who never liked men who were “too into them” right off the bat. They liked the guy who was a mystery, who held back, who had to be waited for.
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Yeah, I’ve always seen that as kinda sick. I only understand the part of it which is in not liking someone who’s too pushy and demanding of reciprocation, or who seems to live in a fantasy, but the rest of it is something that causes bad feelings in me.
I personally never liked that in a guy. If I liked him, I wanted to know if he liked me. No games, no tip-toeing around. Sure, it meant I got my feelings hurt, because I would put myself out there, and often, the answer from the guy was “I’m just not that into you” and at that point, I would walk away, not invest further.
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Things change after the 34th or 46th attempt. 😉 One’s starting to ask “why always?” 😉
I also observed that some people thrive on drama. I always hated drama in my life (as I do to this day). I guess some people think if it’s too easy, it’s boring.
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Yeah, some people cannot live without complicating their lives.
I also believe that some people don’t want to admit to themselves after they have emotionally invested themselves, that the object of their affection has NOT invested equally. It’s humiliating perhaps?
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Yes, very.

A comparable experience is when a woman simply changes her mind along the way but pretends she never thought of anything romantic (mixed signals). Signs of being physically attracted to somebody are among the easiest things to read and it makes for some bitter rolling of eyes when someone’s denying what was obvious. Then such relationships are complicated by the fact that my limited patience for such things and unwillingness to buy into the “official versions” tends to show. I suppose it actually gives me some bad boy charm at that moment.
And lastly, I believe some people hang on to someone who they have “chemistry” with, because they fear that there are no other fish in the sea.
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True. But after a couple of times one sort of gets a clue that such a feeling isn’t happening for the first time ever, ergo it has already been wrong a couple of times. 😉
 
BadTurkey said:
There’re a few reasons I can think of.


  1. *]People want what they can’t have.
    ]People who are emotionally unavailable are usually those who have many choices, so they’re in no hurry to make a decision.]Women tend to think they can change a man, and turn it into a project of sorts.
    *]And sometimes it’s just an ego thing.
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  1. I dated around a lot AFTER college (I was physically unavailable during college). Several women (and girls) seemed to like the idea of a young college educated man that was extremely physically fit (those days are long gone), with a good paying job, a nice car and no debt. I dated around for a couple years then eventually met my wife and got married after another 3 years of dating.

    I didn’t know I was “emotionally unavailable” until my younger brother told me about a conversation he had with a woman that I had dated for 6 months then broke it off. They ran into each other a couple years after we had broke up. They had a good conversation going until she asked what I was doing and who he (my brother) was seeing. When he told her I was still single and he was too, she began to criticize him for being just like his older brother (me). Just having fun and not knowing what he wanted in a woman. My brother wasn’t happy having his very existence critiqued in this manner replied “He knew what he wanted; it just took him a while to see you didn’t have it”.

    What made the conversation more uncomfortable for my brother was the fact that the woman’s husband was sitting with them.
 
Such smart, insightful posts here all around. I wish I’d found this board when I was 25, but my story had a happy ending and I do believe God was protecting me all those years, through the pseudo-relationships and emotional deserts.

When I talked about the toxic chemistry I used to experience, I didn’t mean it’s bad to feel a physical attraction. For me, it was more of a toxic chemistry–chemistry in the sense of an unexplained reaction that didn’t always feel good, but somehow pulled me in. Of course the lure of intermittent reinforcement came into play too. The irony is, I sometimes had this toxic chemistry with guys who were physically so-so looking, while meanwhile a nice, handsome guy might not attract me. Looking back, it seems quite crazy!

When I first met my now-husband, I remember thinking that he was tall and cute, kind of shy, but he didn’t have that Heathcliff/tortured/Holden Caulfield thing that used to attract me like a magnet in my 20s. It’s so hard to explain how I used to be, especially looking back on it, after being freed of it.
 
Have you read De Rougement’s Love in the Western World?

It appears that the Western European and US view of love has been influenced by dualistic ideas.

It all started with Provencal troubadours and their poetry of ‘courtly love,’ in which they sang the praises of an ideally virtuous and beautiful lady, who was invariably in a mundane, arranged, loveless marriage with someone else. They never hoped to receive anything from her, and she was completely unavailable. They saw her rarely, if ever, and the most they could expect was to be sent on a quest for her and receive, say, a ring in token of her gratitude and favor. There was no consummation, physical or emotional.

De Rougement believes this poetry was at least partly an allegory of the dualist Cathars’ relationship with (their) God. It was a yearning for self-annihilation in returning to the distant, indifferent, utterly transcendent Source of light from whom all the spirits were snatched into the evil material world. This system of belief scorned marriage and the drudgery that came with it, especially raising children. They cherished extreme, rapturous experiences, taking one from this prosaic world, and cultivated a sentiment of yearning for the unattainable other-worldly nothingness. Or something.

It appears this poetry and this sentiment has been increasingly influencing us - some revivals of the sentiment include Romanticism and Modernism - as more and more people consume narratives. And then there were those, now already ancient, romantic movies. Difficulties, obstacles, heartache, which all end in a kiss.

The moral of all these seems to be: true love has to hurt, to be difficult; the ‘One’ has to be elusive, mysterious, dark; but when you succeed, you enter a mystical union that will take you far from this boring, insignificant dungeon-world. Far from everyday life as you know it now, far from the drudgery, far above those average middle-class sheep blissfully trapped in it.

And stable, sane, nice people are boring and mundane in this view of the world. On the other hand, narcissists, messed up people, abusers, alcoholics, drug addicts and the like do just fine. They will put you through hell, they will elude you, you will suffer and never be just… content.

People can break free from this century-long mass hypnosis, but it isn’t easy. True, orthodox Christianity helps - and in this I include C. S. Lewis, who wrote in his *Mere **Christianity *against the ideal of constant romantic infatuation, although not ‘being in love’ itself.
 
From a review of the book Love in the Western World:

The lovers at the root of the myth (Tristan and Iseult) pursue each other despite the risks, despite the fact that she is married to King Mark, despite the whole world being against their union, and then when they run off together, they sleep with a sword between them, putting a gratuitous obstacle when the world offers none; they do all this
not because they are really in love with the other but because they are in love with love. Even more, the two lovers essentially seek peril for its own sake, because at the root of their love of love is actually a love of death (42-46).
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The influence of Tristan and Iseult upon the western world, therefore, is to equate “passionate love” with “a radical condemnation of marriage” (54).
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Planet_Claire said:
When I first met my now-husband, I remember thinking that he was tall and cute, kind of shy, but he didn’t have that Heathcliff/tortured/Holden Caulfield thing that used to attract me like a magnet in my 20s. It’s so hard to explain how I used to be, especially looking back on it, after being freed of it.
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If you found the Heathcliff/tortured/Holden Caulfield thing attractive I can only imagine the emotional baggage they carried with them. There is reason those guys didn’t have any male friends either…
 
Litcrit said:
Have you read De Rougement’s Love in the Western World?

It appears that the Western European and US view of love has been influenced by dualistic ideas.

It all started with Provencal troubadours and their poetry of ‘courtly love,’ in which they sang the praises of an ideally virtuous and beautiful lady, who was invariably in a mundane, arranged, loveless marriage with someone else. They never hoped to receive anything from her, and she was completely unavailable. They saw her rarely, if ever, and the most they could expect was to be sent on a quest for her and receive, say, a ring in token of her gratitude and favor. There was no consummation, physical or emotional.

De Rougement believes this poetry was at least partly an allegory of the dualist Cathars’ relationship with (their) God. It was a yearning for self-annihilation in returning to the distant, indifferent, utterly transcendent Source of light from whom all the spirits were snatched into the evil material world. This system of belief scorned marriage and the drudgery that came with it, especially raising children. They cherished extreme, rapturous experiences, taking one from this prosaic world, and cultivated a sentiment of yearning for the unattainable other-worldly nothingness. Or something.

It appears this poetry and this sentiment has been increasingly influencing us - some revivals of the sentiment include Romanticism and Modernism - as more and more people consume narratives. And then there were those, now already ancient, romantic movies. Difficulties, obstacles, heartache, which all end in a kiss.

The moral of all these seems to be: true love has to hurt, to be difficult; the ‘One’ has to be elusive, mysterious, dark; but when you succeed, you enter a mystical union that will take you far from this boring, insignificant dungeon-world. Far from everyday life as you know it now, far from the drudgery, far above those average middle-class sheep blissfully trapped in it.

And stable, sane, nice people are boring and mundane in this view of the world. On the other hand, narcissists, messed up people, abusers, alcoholics, drug addicts and the like do just fine. They will put you through hell, they will elude you, you will suffer and never be just… content.

People can break free from this century-long mass hypnosis, but it isn’t easy. True, orthodox Christianity helps - and in this I include C. S. Lewis, who wrote in his *Mere **Christianity *against the ideal of constant romantic infatuation, although not ‘being in love’ itself.
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Yes! And this echoes all that I have mentioned about my own life…this “chasing a dream” mentality. And who’s most prone to do this? Well, I’m sure a myriad of things factor in to what propels one towards this type of mentality, but for me, I could even say that I was so cynical, so defeatest in my thinking, that I really doubted the possibility of being happy in a *true *relationship…I didn’t believe it was, or could be, a reality. And because of this, I sought out “relationships” which could never be real - could never reach that point because the person was emotionally unavaiable thus a real relationship could never be formed.

I had no parental or true parental figures in my life; my idea of “reality” was forged from the world of movies and books (hardly a good basis to found one’s life on) - but that’s how it was. So as a result, I expected, or *searched out *the “fairy tale” to support my beliefs. But I have lived enough to learn that such relationships are false. They’re empty, and hollow…because in life, there’s no such thing as “happily ever after.” That why books END, the stories are FINISHED, once the girl gets the guy or the guy gets the girl…which is really the BEGINNING in real life - the part where TRUE relationship begins. But modern society (or earlier it seems!!!) doesn’t concern itself with the AFTER - it’s just about the quest…the search. I think this is why so many relationships fail these days, and why so many people choose divorce. It’s because so many people have bought into the BS - they’ve drunken the Kool Aid - they live in fantasy, or they want a fantasy. And to make matters worse, like LitCrit mentions, they also have a negative view towards reality. Reality has no appeal. It’s not “sexy.” It’s not “glamorous”…because like I said, reality isn’t always about having fun, or butterflies and rainbows…it’s work.

But it offers far more than what any book or movie has to offer…and that’s reality. It’s REAL. And does true love really exist? Absolutely…absolutely…but not in the way it’s been sold, and not in the way it’s presented by troubadors and poets. I think this is what the Bible presents…and I feel this is what LitCrit is talking about.
 
Dear Toeinthe water:

*they can’t believe Dazzling Prince Charming would actually want to date and marry Plain Jane, and accept his cheating as part of the deal because they figure, “Well, of course he’s going to cheat, he can have any woman he wants! I should be grateful that at least he picked me to bear his name and raise his children.” *

I simply cannot imagine this view of any woman…

How sick must a woman be to feel this way?
 
Well, I had no issues from my family of origin. None. Very happy and loving and affirming wonderful Christian family. So…I assumed if I met a Christian man whose parents went to church, they must be the same. WRONG.

There are many folks sittin’ in the pews who are not Christians.

There are many Catholic families who take their whole family to church every Sunday, without fail, yet live like Pagans the rest of the week.

Lord help us parents who want to follow you and live rightly every moment of every day.

Love is really skewed nowadays when there is so much porn and filth out there consuming everyone’s mind.

A real man will adhere to God’s principals and want to be a man of God. A fake man will be worldly, consumed with the flesh, and immorality, (like my husband)…then go to Church, just because it’s the thing to do on Sundays.

🤷
 
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