Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Bryn C. Collins, M.A., L.P., is licensed psychologist specializing in relationships, post-traumatic stress disorder, families in crisis, and adult survivors of abuse. She has a Ph.D in philosophy.

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Emotional UNAVAILABILITY

McGraw-Hill

Contents

Chapter One

I don't think I know anyone who has escaped having a relationship with someone emotionally unavailable at some point in their life. There's no particular time in life when the unhealthy relationship happens—some people have one in their teens, others in their senior years.

Some unlucky people I know have never had a relationship that wasn't emotionally unavailable! These sad folks can't seem to figure out how they keep getting into bad relationships. They don't realize it's a process of choice—and of education.

There's an old rule of thumb that people choose to be with partners who remind them of the parent with whom they had the most unresolved issues. As it turns out, that's usually true. It also leads a person to choose essentially the same type of relationship again and again. The partner might come in different packages, but the contents are emotionally similar. Part of the education process is to be able to recognize the type of emotionally unavailable person you've chosen in the past. That gives you a guidepost to figuring out what it is about that type that feels so familiar and entices you again and again.

Let's take a look at some of the personality types who are emotionally unavailable. This is not an all-inclusive list, but it includes the major representatives. Recognize that all behavior falls along a range from pretty OK to extreme. These personality types fall along the same range: mild to unacceptable. Acceptable of course varies from person to person.

It's also worth noting that people can change. They do it all the time. Almost nothing is cast in stone. In each of these personality types save two there is potential to grow and change. It takes work and sometimes therapy, and it depends on where within the range the person is as to how much change he or she can make, but it can happen if the person believes it's important enough.

And the two who can't? Read on.

Romeo/Romiette: Great Balcony, No Stamina

Ah, romance: Barry White is playing in the background, lights are low, the scent of roses fills the air.

Week One: "Baby, you are without a doubt the most gorgeous and wonderful woman I've ever met. I can't even look at you without wanting to sweep you into my arms."

You meet Romeo/Romiette and find yourself swept away. Sweet phone calls, endearing cards, flowers, special and thoughtful treats. When you're together, you are the center of attention.

Week Two: "I can't imagine how I survived without you."

You can't help it—suddenly you know you are it. Every love song was written for the two of you. Every romantic movie is about you. Romance novelists must have been hiding in your kitchen drawers, writing everything the two of you say and do into their books.

Week Three: "I can't stop thinking about you. You're making me get in trouble at work because I don't concentrate. I just want to spend time with you."

You begin to make plans. Words like our and we pepper your conversation. The distant echo of wedding bells rings in your ears. Your friends are sick of hearing about your perfect relationship.

Week Four: "Sorry I'm not here to take your call right now. Leave a number and I'll get back to you."

Week Five: "Sorry I'm not here to take your call right now. Leave a number and I'll get back to you."

Week Six: "Sorry I'm not here to take your call right now. Leave a number and I'll get back to you."

Suddenly, it's gone. Without so much as a by-your-leave or a go-to-hell, everything stops. There's no fight. There's no discussion. There's been no accident (you know because you've checked with every hospital emergency room in the state) and no funeral. Romeo/Romiette simply disappears.

You ruminate. You make up wild scenarios involving global amnesia or a terrorist kidnapping. You find yourself gracelessly leaping for the phone whenever it rings. You agonize about what it is you did to make this happen, and you leave desperate, unattractive, and unanswered messages at the phone numbers where you had reached Romeo/Romiette instantly only days before. Then you get sad. Eventually you might even get mad.

What you probably don't get is answers, even if you happen to run into Romeo/Romiette. What you will get then is a warm, superficial greeting and evasive answers to the questions you ask.

Before you completely trash-talk yourself, let's dissect this alleged relationship for a minute. When it first begins, the intensity of the connection is what hooks you. It feels deep and sincere, but that's in part because Romeo/Romiette is focused on you, and for most of us that's an unusual experience and the effect is heady.

Because the focus is on you, you don't find out much about Romeo/Romiette. Any questions of a personal or feelings nature get turned aside or converted into questions about you. This evasion serves Romeo/Romiette well because he or she has a wealth of information about what you want and what you like and what you believe; Romeo/Romiette uses that to further engage you in the relationship. In return, Romeo/Romiette gets adoration, romance, and fulfillment—not to mention the thrill of the chase and the rush of the conquest—very sparkly stuff!

What doesn't interest this type of person is the dull patina of reality. As soon as any hint of repetition or familiarity appears—as soon as you push to know something about how Romeo/Romiette feels about something—alarms begin to peal and Romeo/Romiette begins to look for a new conquest. Remember those wedding bells you heard? That was the alarm going off.

Romeo/Romiette has made no emotional investment in the relationship. The connection you felt is with yourself because Romeo/Romiette focused his or her attention—and your own—on you.

It's one-sided but doesn't feel that way because most of us are so grateful and flattered to be the center of someone's total attention that we don't see it—sometimes not until years afterward!

Gratitude and flattery are not acceptable substitutes for love and real emotional connection. That's what causes the pain of this kind of abandonment. Essentially, it's as if you're being abandoned by yourself. Meanwhile, Romeo/Romiette remains emotionally distant, emotionally unavailable, throughout the course of this relationship, so when it ends, he or she has no pain and no sense of abandonment. Instead, Romeo/Romiette's drawn to the thrill of the chase with someone new.

Why would someone do this? Although it seems really mean and manipulative, it comes from a place that's sad and empty. People like Romeo/Romiette are so numbed and at arm's length from themselves that it's impossible for them to connect on any real level with another human.

While you're emptying that box of Kleenex and downing that quart of triple fudge cookie dough ice cream, it's important to remind yourself that this isn't about you. You have been treated like a precious object that, once acquired, is no longer desirable.

Being objectified, treated like an object, is one of the hallmarks of abusive relationships. It's not OK and it's not nice and you didn't deserve it. Healing comes from being able to let yourself off the hook and from identifying the lesson you learned or the unfinished...