TLDR: Your dating ‘strategy’ with emotionally unavailable men is not and never will work for you because it’s the strategy you developed as a child in order to deal with your emotionally unavailable parents. Heal that and you fix your dating issue. I help people do this, see below for ways to work with me.
When I say ‘dating strategy’ I don’t mean the method you use to find a date, such as ‘in the wild’ or a dating app.
What I mean is your energy strategy.
All Too Common Pattern
Tell me if this is you:
You find a date you’re really attracted to. You connect, things seem great on the surface, at least for the first few weeks.
You’re super attracted to him (maybe even thinking you might be in love).
Then you start to notice he treats you as an afterthought.
He’s not that responsive to texts.
He doesn’t check in with you or let you know he’s thinking about you (especially when he’s traveling).
You start to reserve your weekends for time with him, but he often doesn’t let you know until last minute that he wants to see you. Or you find you have to always be the one to make the plans.
Your (Energetic) Response
Your response to this is to show him you can play it cool and not be that ‘needy woman’. You may even act like you’re unavailable. (But you know you probably won’t say ‘no’ if he asks)
Which means you have to raise the gates to the castle and stay safely inside. Because the only way you can be ok with this is to retreat a bit and stay safe behind your thick castle walls.
You’ll just wait here until you feel him reach out for you and only then will you feel safe enough to come out.
Unfortunately, your energetic retreat into your castle of stone only serves to prolong your own suffering.
Essentially, you’ve just chosen to mirror him by becoming emotionally unavailable yourself.
How It Prolongs Your Suffering
This prolongs your own suffering because that is EXACTLY what this guy wants of you, to not get too close.
Don’t get me wrong, he may really like you. BUT he doesn’t want true intimacy from you.
He just wants the perks of a steady girlfriend without the accountability.
Don’t Be Fooled
Now, some guys will take on a bit of accountability and commitment because they dislike having to start over all the time just as much as you do.
So it may look like he wants a fully committed relationship. But make no mistake, they aren’t here to truly support and build something special with you. You’re just a time filler.
And you can feel that.
You’re Not Alone
One thing I see over and over again is that the smart, strong, independent women will energetically do this. Including myself.
Because this is how they survived their childhood.
They had emotionally unavailable parents (dad especially) and they learned how to be emotionally safe by retreating into themselves and building a giant wall to keep others at a manageable distance.
You’re Dating Pattern Is NO Coincidence
Ladies it’s no coincidence if your father was emotionally unavailable and didn’t always support you the way you wanted, that you now date men who are also emotionally unavailable.
Dad is the template for how you will grow to expect to be treated by other men.
It’s a universal principle that LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE.
Like Attracts Like
You had to learn how to protect yourself as a child from parents who didn’t always reach out to you with love (especially when you needed it). Therefore causing you to build those castle walls brick by brick.
You eventually learned how to take care of yourself and stop relying on others.
In essence, you were taught that you could not rely on other people to meet your needs, especially needs of love and support.
So guess what?
Now your expectations of men are that very thing, aren’t they? That you cannot rely on them.
You can’t rely on them for love.
You can’t rely on them for support.
You can’t rely on them to even fucking text you!
And as soon as you sense this, you go back into your castle and pull up the drawbridge. Just as you did when you were a little girl.
An Unfortunate Cycle
It is a very unfortunate cycle.
The very thing you do to protect yourself is what is energetically attracting these emotionally unavailable men.
But you CAN break this pattern.
Breaking The Pattern
How?
First off, you need to have awareness that this is even happening.
Hopefully this article has helped you with that.
Second, you’ll need to be able to tolerate the discomfort of taking a different course of action.
The discomfort you feel is really around your expectations and what you’ll allow.
You expect men to not give love easily to where you have to fight or wait for it.
You also feel uncomfortable when you are given love and support without first having to work or wait for it.
So…..to break this pattern…
You must actually EXPECT love and support right away.
AND you must ALLOW yourself to be supported and loved.
What Does That Look Like?
In the above example of the typical behavior of an emotionally unavailable man, this would look like you and him having an honest conversation about what YOU want and need (and being ok with him walking away if he can’t fulfill that).
It looks like you making other weekend plans (or at least stop turning down other plans because you’re waiting on him).
It looks like you energetically keeping the gates of your castle open (and maybe even stepping outside of it for a bit) because you know that to attract someone who is emotionally available, that you have to be available too.
Sound Like a Tall Order?
Not gonna lie, it can be quite difficult to do those things alone.
It’s much easier with support. (There’s that word again)
If you want a great mate to do life with, your first step is to learn how to let go of doing it all yourself and open up to being supported.
This is the kind of stuff I help my clients do.
There are two things you can do now:
1. If you’re interested in knowing more check out my private coaching container here. Fill out the application and I’ll be in touch to schedule a quick call to answer all of your questions and see if we’re a good fit to work together. Dating Alchemy
2. Check out this FREE workshop I did called Stop Dating Jerks & Emotionally Unavailable Men (by Healing Your Father Wound). Link here: Stop Dating Jerks & Emotionally Unavailable Men
