Why Do I Keep Attracting Emotionally Unavailable Connections?

Hello and welcome beautiful souls!

I wanted to come to you with a topic that has piqued my interest, as I am noticing more and more souls wanting to connect more intimately on an emotional level. Yet there is so much fear and shame around connecting with our own emotions. There are many souls incarnate that came here to heal this specific wound so that they can expand their consciousness and end karmic cycles of betrayal, abuse and neglect. This is something I have a lot of experience with and thought I would share what I have learned over the course of the last three years of healing my own wounding.

First off, how do you even know what it means to attract a connection that is emotionally unavailable? Suprisingly, most of us are completely unaware that the people we are attracting are emotionally unavailable. We may just call them jerks, dicks, assholes, players, whores, bitches, cheaters, liars and so on.

One of the most common traits in a person who is emotionally unavailable is; the archetpye of “The Player”, this is like the “bad boy”, the one who is generally charming and likes to use sex as sport. They may come off as mysterious and intriguing. Or this could show up as "The Avoidant”, the person who has “commitment issues”, they may be all over you one day and the next they may be distant, angry, cold and withdrawn, generally they have one foot in and one foot out. It could also show up as “The Narcissist”, the “emotional vampire”, they are full of confidence, but only when they’re putting you down or have the “power” in the dynamic, they tend to make grand gestures at first, but then over time they “suck you dry”, they tend to gaslight and can often deny your emotional experience; ie; name calling and verbal abuse.

Does this kind of behavior sound familiar to you? Are you stuck in an endless loop of attracting this type of behavior in your relationships? If so, you’re certainly not alone, unfortunately this kind of behavior in relationships is fairly common. And I will tell you why… We attract the kind of “love” we think we deserve. It’s not by chance that you’re experiencing these unhealthy relationship patterns. It all stems from the relationship you had with your Caregivers. It stems from the relationship you witnessed between your own parents.

via @the.holistic.psychologist on iG <3

We attract the “love” that feels the most like “home”. Even if we felt unsafe and unstable in our homes. The first reason we may attract “The Player” is because we may have witnessed or experienced some sort of inconsistency or betrayal from one of our Caregivers. We may have seen and heard our parents fight and argue over infidelity. We may have been exposed to a parent that was single and “slept around”. Either way, the reason we attract “The Player” unconsciously, is to heal our wounds of betrayal. This can teach us how to heal our Self Worth and finally learn how to respect ourselves.

How can you recognize your own tendency to attract this kind of person and realize that it stems from an unresolved childhood wound of your own? Can you practice more Self Love and Self Care? Self Betrayal stems from a wound of chronic Self Neglect. To me; “The Player” reflects to us our own need for Self Reliance. When we start to show up for ourselves, when we can treat ourselves with more love and respect, that’s when we will stop attracting these kinds of connections, the ones where you get played, roped in and then feel like a fool for trusting the other person, but when in fact, if you had been trusting your Self, you would have never been drawn to someone of that behavior in the first place. So in short, to heal the wound of attracting “The Player”, you have to learn how to TRUST YOURSELF.

You may not like to hear this, but I am all for honesty here and if we’re not honest with ourselves, about how we feel, how can we ever be honest with how we feel about another? We can’t, so here is my slice for you; Have you looked at your own pattern of being emotionally unavailable? This is what really got me when I started to look into my own patterns and why I was attracting emotionally unavailable men. The answer that I received is not what I wanted to hear… “it’s because you’re emotionally unavailable, Ashley.” Aha a light buld appeared and I had to get really fucking honest with myself.

I had been taught by my Caregivers how to neglect my emotions. This was a big breakthrough for me, because it reunited me with my Intuition, to my heart and back to my emotional intelligence. So while we tend to think that we’re attracting emotionally unavailable connections into our lives by happenstance, we actually come to recognize that it is only a reflection of our current emotional state. This is essentialy the way we learn to take responsibility for our own emotions.

We want someone else to show up for us so badly that we neglect ourselves to the point of burnout, depletion and resentment. We’re so desperately waiting for someone else to fill the void that our Caregivers created that we unconsciously send out a signal to bring us this “love” we think will make us feel better, all the while we are feeling empty, abandoned and alone, even while in partnership.

I am here to remind you that you are not alone, beloveds. I too experienced emotional neglect as a child. When I had “big” emotions, like sadness or anger I was often sent to my room, to deal with it on my own. I was "too much", "too sensitive" but it was in those moments that my nervous system needed closeness and connection, but instead I was often punished, verbally abused and abandoned. This left me seeking this same kind of dynamic in my adult relationships. Which is unhealthy and extremely toxic to the mind, body and soul. It left me feeling isolated and insecure.

I wanted deep, passionate and reciprocal love, but my conditioning from childhood was keeping me in these Self Sabotaging patterns that kept me attracting “love” that hurt me and that abandoned me because this is how I was taught to relate with my Caregiver and it is how I saw my Caregivers relate to one another.

When we attract “The Avoidant” or the one with “commitment issues”, it generally stems from the dynamic I was just talking about above. Where you attract “love” that is there for you when you’re in a “good” mood, but as soon as you feel a “big” emotion you seem to lose the love and connection of your partner. So, you create a "false Self" in order to please others, all the while feeling dissapointed and alone. This is just a pattern showing up to be healed through your own Self Awareness and Self Acceptance. We have to go from hiding our emotions in order to "stay safe" to acknowledging our emotions and tending to them with love and respect, just like we would want our partner to do.

When we attract a partner from this energetic state we are probably going to see this behavior show up later on in the connection. With “The Avoidant”, things may work out very beautifully in the beginning, you enjoy spending lots of time together, you’re receiving those “good morning, beautiful” text messages, you’re going out on dates, you’re having a lovely time and you’re starting to really fall for this person. Then BAM just like that they get “cold feet”, they distance themselves, say they need a “break” and for you it may seem like this behavior comes out of nowhere, you’re baffled and this starts to trigger your “abandonment” wound. You start to get anxious, you start to have fears that they’re seeing someone else, that they’re going to leave you, and all of a sudden you're questioning your Self, you question your value or if it’s something you did…

Sound a little too close to home? Once again, you’re not alone. What I call this is the Avoidant-Anxious dynamic or it could also be known as “The Runner and The Chaser”, this is a dynamic created from childhood when one or both of your Caregivers were emotionally unavailable. You may have had a mom or dad that was distant and withdrawn, so you attract a partner that acts the same, beauce that is how your parents loved you. That is how you learned to receive love from the first relationship you ever had.

This dynamic will keep your head spinning if you allow it to. It will keep you in cycles of unworthiness and codependency. It often comes with a feeling of inadequacy and anxiety, you may want to obsessively text this person or check in on them. They may want more privacy and alone time than you do, but this is showing you where you need to CONNECT with your Self, instead of reaching “outward” toward another to make you feel “secure”, you have to provide that security for your Self. That way, when they pull away, you let them and you still feel whole and supported.

Via @themindgeek on IG <3 I love her work! :)

We often attract this type of Avoidant behavior in a partner because unconsciously we have deep fears of intimacy. {in to me you see}. When we didn’t receive that closeness and connection from our Caregivers, we will unconsciously believe that we are unworthy of receiving; closeness, connection and affection from our partners. And most of the time unknowingly we will sabotage any sort of closeness with either “running away”, starting an argument or giving the silent treatment. Pretty much anything to keep us from actually getting closer to one another.

Look at it from this perspective; when you meet someone and you notice their tendency to pull away or push away, it stems from their own childhood wound. Practice detachment and don’t take their behavior personally, it most likely has nothing to do with you and everything to do with their own conditioning. Maybe they were emotionally neglected and they don’t know how to show up for themselves in an intimate way. So they don’t know how to do this for you. This could make them feel scared or not “good enough”. They may feel distant and withdrawn from their own heart because they were taught to abandon it and fear feeling and expressing their emotions will get them punished or neglected. So, they think they’re “doing you a favor” by leaving or by pushing you away. This helps them stay in control of their emotions. Essentially they tend to reject themselves before they can feel the pain of rejection from another and that's why they tend to avoid. When you stop clinging to them, chasing them, needing them to be there for you in order to feel Loved, then ironically, that is when they feel safe to "return", to let you in.

“The Avoidant” comes into our lives to teach us how to truly commit to ourselves, how to supply our own emotional security. They are honestly a gift to help us align with our authenticity, to reconnect with our emotions and provide a safe and stable connection to our soul. If you want to break the cycle of attracting the one with “commitment issues”, then get to know your Self more intimately. COMMIT TO YOUR SELF.

Now, as you begin to recognize these relationship patterns in another, use them as a mirror to see your own wounds and conditioning more clearly. When we can stop the blame game and see our partner as a child, we can begin to unconditionally love them. This doesn’t save them or fix them, all it does is free you, it expands you and your heart feels more open and you feel full, not because your supply of love is coming from them and how they treat you, but it’s coming from a place within you that can never be depleted. This allows for you to be less reactive to their conditioning and it makes you more forgiving when they react from their own wounds. You can be such a powerful leader in your relationships when you commit to your own healing, when you commit to your own responsibility to emotionally regulate.

This brings me to why we would attract “The Narcissist”, the one that can manipulate and abuse our emotional Self. We tend to attract this kind of behavior when we’re also vibrating in this same energy. I know, you probably don’t want to hear that the reason you’re attracting a “narcissist” is because you’re one… It’s a big bruise to the ego, I know. But when we can acknowledge this behavior within ourselves, noticing how we tend to want to control our relationships, we want to be dominating and dictating how our partner acts and behaves just so it satisfies our own emotional state and Ego Self, that’s when we can begin to heal this inherited relationship dynamic and free ourselves from the sticky web of entrapment.

We attract “The Narcissist” because we are disconnected from our own emotions. Because somewhere within our own Self we feel “trapped” or like a “victim” to our feelings. We are numb and we can’t feel unless we are hurting someone else or making them feel worse than we do. This stems from psychological abuse that was formed in childhood that takes a massive toll on our self esteem. I want to clarify here that there are many varying degrees of narcissism. Not everyone who is a narcissist is a sociopath or a psychopath. There are many Caregivers that use narcissistic traits to “parent” their children. For example we may bargain with our children by telling them if they behave in a certain way we will reward them with “xyz”. We may tell them to “stop crying or you’re going to be sent to your room”, we may say to them that they can’t play until all their food is gone or until they stop doing “xyz”.

These are all forms of manipulation. Some of us are taught at a very young age to cry to get what we want, so we can easily manipulate our emotions in order to have our needs met. You can see this play out with children that are throwing tantrums, instead of calming them down and being a safe place for them to express themselves emotionally they are controlled through acts of punishment.

We can see this same exact dynamic play out in adulthood. Our partner may throw a “tantrum” by starting a fight or creating drama in order to feel anything at all, because they are unable to produce their own feelings of love, support and stability. Instead of “punishing” them or abandoning them, we have to practice being a safe place for them to land. (I am not condoning any acts of harm, if you feel in danger in your own home, then please take action and leave). On the other hand, they “act out” because this is how they learned to get their needs met by their caregivers. This is why so many of us end up in relationships that mimic one of our parents. Because we’re unconsciously trying to heal this pattern and start attracting healthy, unconditional Love. But here's the thing; we cannot love another unconditionally, if we're not loving our Self and all our different emotions unconditionally, right?

When we come in contact with a potential partner that is showing signs of narcissistic behavior, such as wanting to control who you can talk to, limits your interactions with friends or family, puts you down, is physically, verbally and emotionally abusive then what we have to delicately look at within ourselves is; where are we unconsciously behaving in these ways towards our Self? Maybe we are constantly putting ourselves down, restricting ourselves and our expression, maybe we are talking to ourselves really harshly, maybe we are manipulating our own emotions by repressing them or denying them to ourselves.

A lot of us tend to gaslight ourselves, because of our own conditioning. Instead of acknowledging this behavior within ourselves we will attract a connection that will mirror this to us. Instead of healing it within ourselves we unconsciously project our undesirable or "unacceptable" traits onto someone else, in order to relieve our Ego of its own unhealthy patterns and behaviors. Because our Ego will never want to “change”, but it will always demand that someone else “change” in order to satisfy itself and cling to its own understanding.

“The Narcissist” will have you denying your own emotional state, they may have you questioning your own feelings, beliefs and even behavior. You can begin to heal this type of dynamic with another by placing “hard” boundaries, meaning if they violate your boundary you have placed, you have to uphold your end of the “contract” and “walk away”. The Narcissist is generally attracted to those who are highly sensitive, they like the “damsel in distress”, they want to be recognized and worshiped for their acts of “providing for you”, this is what feeds their Ego Self and makes you feel “worthless’. Because unconsciously this is how “The Narcissist” feels and in order to cope with that feeling they experienced in early childhood they had to shut their emotions down. The insecurity they were experiencing was too threatening to their Ego and they learned how ro “protect” themselves by abandoning their empathy.

This is why they like to get a “rise” out of people, they like to play mind games and they may be extremely seductive. You have to practice seeing beyond the mask they wear and you have to read between the lines. They can play many different roles and can be anyone you need them to be. They can be insidious and are really good liars. They believe their own lies they tell themselves so they have no problem telling you a lie in order to get what they want. They can be sly and tricksters. They can get offended easily and tend to be hyper defensive.

Attracting “the Narcissist” is actually great for healing your Intuition, it teaches you how to stand up for yourself, how to trust your feelings over what you may be seeing and hearing. It allows for you to become empowered and see beyond your own mask that you wear to “protect” your Self from being seen. Instead of seeing them as “bad” or “horrible”, see them as someone who was probably severely manipulated by their own Caregivers. Meet them with love and compassion and watch as the partnership dissolves or starts to evolve. To heal the cycle of attracting “The Narcissist” start to practice setting boundaries and connect with your emotions.

You have to begin to see their conditioning in order to see them as “good” and “worthy”. The truth is; we’re all born good and worthy, but we’re also born to people who are wounded, who are unconscious and our conditioning can make us see ourselves as broken, flawed and in need of rescuing. These are all illusions appearing as “truth” to help you remember who you truly are. You are the Light of God. You are already perfect.

When we can begin to see ourselves in this l i g h t, we truly shift our vibration and we begin to align and attract connections that are emotionally expansive, that allow for us to truly be seen and heard for who we are. When we heal our fears of intimacy and betrayal and neglect we start to Love ourselves in a new way. We start to see our value and we begin to love others in a new way, one that allows for them to also feel seen, heard and accepted.

When you become emotionally available, when you finally get honest with your Self about what you feel, when you explore your emotional depths intimately, that's when you’ll attract another who can do the same for you. But remember, Lovelies; it all starts and ends with YOU. You are the key. You are the master. Become aware of your own emotional unavailability and BE THERE FOR YOURSELF becuase you are mother fucking WORTH IT!

Thank you for reading!

Love and blessings, Ashley <3