Dear Friends,
Being in a relationship with someone who is detached or emotionally unavailable can be painful and damaging. Many of our readers have experienced staying in a partnership that is not ideal or sometimes even unhealthy, so we wanted to bring you an online course that will help you navigate this connection in order to regain your sense of self, deepen your love, and restore your heart. Today we're talking about the 10-day DailyOM course, Dealing With Emotionally Unavailable Partners.
- Receive a new lesson every day for 10 days (total of 10 lessons).
- Have lifetime access to the course for reference whenever you want.
- Select the amount you can afford, and get the same course as everyone.
- If you are not 100% satisfied, you may request a refund.
Q: What exactly is an emotionally unavailable partner?
A: At a certain point intimacy and connection in a relationship stall 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 having trouble discussing emotional topics or handling conflicts, controlling behaviors, and resistance to therapy. Discomfort around these things may be the first and most obvious sign. It can manifest as anger or numbness and may only turn up around certain subjects. Some people who struggle with this are able to connect with their emotions in other aspects of their lives, while keeping themselves safe from their feelings 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 person might pay for everything and even give lavish gifts because it's easier to be free with their money rather than free in their thoughts. It becomes a tool with which to avoid vulnerability at all costs. The idea of therapy or counseling is a threat to this protective illusion.
Any repetitive defensive behavior such as 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.
Q: How does a person become emotionally unavailable?
A: There are so many reasons why, but the cause often goes back to family dynamics, social conditioning, trauma, or possibly even a combination of the three. Trying to engage with these partners can be extremely difficult, but it's important to remember that somewhere along the way this person learned that withholding, or disconnecting from their feelings, protected them from pain, even abuse. It's possible that disassociating from their thoughts was a necessary response to life. These individuals suffer, perhaps unconsciously. If the experience of trauma and coping is not named and integrated, it can carry over into contexts where feeling one's emotions 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.
Q: Does being with an emotionally unavailable partner mean the end of the relationship?
A: Not at all. It takes commitment from both partners to the work, but two people who love and respect one another can absolutely remain together amid the challenges. They can move forward and grow closer from the experience of engaging together. One of the biggest hurdles 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 partnership, but the assumptions around this topic are closely related to the enormous cultural value we put on ease. Engaging the broken and painful reality of this experience with your partner is not the easy choice, but it is 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 bonds, we must be willing to take a risk and enter into that, knowing the journey is uncertain. It's a courageous choice.
Q: The latter part of the course teaches about practicing compassion and forgiveness. Why are these two skills so vital to the process of healing?
A: Without compassion and forgiveness, we cannot move forward. Empathy is what allows us to witness and name our emotionally unavailable partner's pain and struggle, as well as our own. It enables us to mourn suffering together, to hold space for our partners to move forward instead of fighting them. We are able to see this experience for what it is -- a form of pain -- instead of continuing to tell ourselves a story that puts our own desires and insecurities front and center and makes our partner's detachment 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 sympathy and creates self-righteousness where we need humility. Through tenderness, we admit our human limitations, accept them, and even learn to love them. This is necessary for healing for both partners.
It's also important to note that being understanding creates space in us to manage our expectations in intimate relationships. This 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 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 feelings more than others. Our own desire to engage cannot become a force that pushes on our partners in the hopes of changing them or "making" them more emotional.
This is why intimate partners must look at the territory of emotional unavailability with discernment and care. They must lovingly decide for themselves and for their relationship the boundary between detachment, withdrawal, and/or withholding, and an individual's emotional capacity and/or personality. This is also why an equal part of the work surrounding these topics lies with the more emotionally available partner. Through forgiveness, the available partner is able to love and accept their partner as they are in the present moment instead of wishing they would change. Gratitude becomes possible.
Q: The course offers meditation and journaling exercises. Why is this work important, and what are some feelings that may come up for a student?
A: 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 these techniques facilitate that process. Meditation helps clear the thought patterns and ego tendencies that stand in the way of connecting to your deepest self. Reflections are 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 to move forward. If you are entering into this course from a more ego-centered place, you may experience greater feelings of resistance and frustration before the tears flow. Writing becomes all the more important in this moment. Through journaling, you are creating a container for your feelings through which you can practice becoming an objective, conscious observer to the defenses of your ego. You develop an intimate, conscious relationship with yourself. As well as learning to discern between thoughts that originate from your ego and those that come from your heart. You begin sorting this emotion from that feeling, opening the way for clarity.
Q: Walk me through the journey somebody might experience while taking this 10-lesson course.
A: 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. This is a path 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 experience. All of us, wherever we are in our lives, have experienced emotional unavailability within ourselves. We have all protected ourselves from painful feelings. We have all felt guilt or shame. And, as human beings, we also share in the hope for healing. We are all capable of transformation.
We hope you enjoyed reading about this new course offering. Sometimes we all wish we could wave a magic wand and make everybody's pain go away. In real life, however, we must do the work. This course is beautifully presented over 10 lessons, slowly unpacking the work for the student. Until next time.
Be well.
DailyOM
