Why Women Stay In Relationships With Emotionally Unavailable Men

How Girls Are Initiated Into Dysfunction

In my work as a dating, relationship and intimacy coach, it’s often sobering to see how much the love that was absent in our childhood (and how we learned to cope with that absent love), drives our relationships in the adult years.
I often teach women to understand where men are coming from and the possible struggles and wounds they’ve faced, but I also teach men to have more insight into the struggles women grow up with.
You may have asked yourself at one time or another why many women find themselves attached to “absent love” by going after men who don’t show up for them and are emotionally unavailable.
The “not quite” divorced man.
The emotionally shut down man.
The man who uses them as a diversion while out looking for something better.
To be able to separate their attachment (or attraction) to an emotionally unavailable man many women need to figure out the subconscious relationship dynamics at play.
If a woman had an emotionally distant or absent father for example, it frequently leads to her establishing a pattern of relating to absent love.
After all, the love she learned in childhood was absent, and this is what she knows — that to get love somehow feels absent.
This leads many women to be the pursuer in relationships with men and to chase love, over-function and over-give to a guy, because they always have to earn that absent love their inner little girl was chasing….. instead of allowing love to come to them.
In a dysfunctional way of protecting themselves, only then do these women feel in love and feel intense desire or attraction.

What Does Absent Love Look Like?

It often looks like an emotionally unavailable man.
When these little girls have absent human fathers to learn to relate to, they create fantasy fathers in their mind, grabbing pieces here and there from movies, books or neighborhood fathers and projecting their idealized father.
So when a real man comes along, they are unable to see the man, they only see Mr. Right, Prince Charming, Rescuing Knight in Shining Armour.
They can’t see the human behind the man which forces the emotionally unavailable man further into his shell, his fear of being known is triggered, because who can live up to that projection?
Women with patterns of attaching to absent love need to work through this pattern so they can come out of their projected fantasy and come into relationship with a real, quality, man who is available for a deep and loving relationship.

How Women Can Change

The incredible thing is that in my practice I often see women turn this around and a relationship that was previously stalled begins to move forward.
For example, I was recently working with a client who was dating a man she had diagnosed on her own as emotionally unavailable.
She had come to me wanting my help in getting over him but as I heard the details of their interactions and how their dating relationship had panned out over a series of months, it was clear this pattern was at work.
As we worked through and unearthed her wounding around her absent father she realized that she had been showing up as emotionally unavailable for him.

She had been trying so hard to “get him” to love her and give her certainty through a commitment, that she kept projecting on to him expectations instead of deepening their connection.
This had him on the fence, feeling unsafe to move forward, chronically showing up for a few days before pulling away once again, feeling attraction for her but not quite stepping up to commit.
As soon as we began separating her actual feelings for him from her projected absentee father issues, her vibe shifted. She began showing up relaxed, present, deeply connected and willing to let go of control instead of needy, clingy and suspicious.
Her expectations loosened up and her self-esteem went up. Her vibrancy and kindness also showed up in a big way.
As she became emotionally safe, available and with dropped expectations, he started feeling more attraction toward her and wanting to spend more time with her. They have since begun a committed relationship and are doing great together.

The women I work with often come to realize that showing up in this way has kept them in a pattern of absent love and learn that the first step they need to take is to work through this so they can become available to the love they really want.
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Giordana Toccaceli is an International Dating, Relationship and Intimacy Expert having worked with thousands of women and men around the world to become their most attractive and magnetic selves and attract incredible partners into their lives in record time.
Giordana has worked with a wide range of clients from Top CEOs, Billionaires, successful entrepreneurs, professional athletes, actors, models and every day men and women. She is a regular contributor to Univision TV’s morning show “Despierta Austin” and the Founder of Woman’s Allure and the Co-Founder of Embody Love Project.
Book a free Discovery Session today and find out what’s holding your back from feeling deep freedom, vibrant health, and alignment in your life. Access your free gift today: Get Giordana’s Heal Your Heart” 10 Minute Meditation.
 

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