psychotherapy

The Attraction of Emotional Unavailability

by Julie Githiri

“Why do I keep choosing emotionally unavailable people?”

As a Psychotherapist, it’s one of the questions I’m asked most often and if I truly had the definitive answer, it would probably be worth a million pounds.

The assumption behind the question is that emotional unavailability belongs to the other person. That they are the problem to be solved, the pattern to be broken, the trait to be avoided next time.

But what if the question is incomplete?

What if, in choosing someone emotionally unavailable, we are also revealing something about our own emotional availability?

Emotionally unavailable people are often deeply attractive. They keep us guessing. That pursuer-retreater dance can be incredibly seductive.

Not because they are unavailable, but because they awaken something within us that feels strangely familiar. They can appear charismatic, independent, exciting, unpredictable, and emotionally intense in fleeting moments. We experience the thrill of connection, followed by the ache of distance.

Sometimes we mistake inconsistency for chemistry.

Sometimes we mistake longing for love.

Sometimes we spend so much energy trying to be chosen that we never stop to ask whether the relationship itself is meeting our emotional needs.

Perhaps the pursuit feels safer than the possibility of being fully loved.

Now let me introduce a slight curveball…

What if you are emotionally unavailable too?

Not in the obvious way.

Emotional unavailability can be surprisingly subtle.

It can look like choosing people who cannot fully commit.

It can look like always having one foot outside the relationship.

It can look like needing certainty before allowing yourself to be truly vulnerable.

It can look like intellectualising your emotions instead of simply feeling them.

It can look like protecting yourself so well that no one ever truly gets close enough to hurt you.

We should also consider that not everyone who longs for love is emotionally available to receive it.

Emotional unavailability is rarely about not caring.

More often, it is protection.

It may be the remnants of childhood experiences where closeness felt unsafe. It may follow betrayal, grief, loss, divorce, or repeated relational disappointment. Sometimes it reflects a fear of dependence. Sometimes it is the quiet belief that if you never give someone all of yourself, they can never be in a position to completely break you.

We all develop ways of protecting our hearts.

Some of those protections eventually become prisons.

Maybe emotionally unavailable people are not difficult to love.

Maybe they are frightened of what love asks of them.

The greatest challenge, then, is not simply finding someone who is emotionally available.

It is becoming emotionally available ourselves.

To risk being known.

To tolerate uncertainty.

To remain present when intimacy feels uncomfortable.

To accept that love cannot exist without vulnerability.

Perhaps the question was never, “Why do I keep choosing emotionally unavailable people?”

Perhaps the real question is, “Can I become curious enough to understand that my patterns are not about assigning blame, but about discovering where they began and finding the courage to choose differently?”

Warmly

Jules

The Boy Behind the Man

by Julie Githiri

Reclaiming the Emotional Lives of Men

In the clinical space, I have the opportunity to work with both couples and individuals. Perhaps surprisingly, or maybe not, the individual work tends to be largely with men. Men do seek out therapy. They also crave a safe space to express their inner thoughts.

The presenting issues vary widely. They may arrive with questions around identity, imposter syndrome, self-worth, or sexual intimacy. The scope of engagement is rich. Yet across my work whether in the UK, Kenya, Japan, Sweden, or Sierra Leone, the underlying thread is strikingly consistent.

At the root of it all is a desire to be wanted, to be loved, to be emotionally held and understood.

When we think about the boy child and his introduction to the world, it is often marked by expectation. There is an assumption of strength, a quiet but firm narrative that he must grow into a man who provides, partners, procreates, and protects. Across cultures, the messaging is remarkably similar:

“You can do it.”
“You must do it.”

But what happens to the inner child in all of this?

What happens to the soft-spoken boy who longs to be reassured, to be held, to be told he is enough? What happens to the boy who cries when he is emotionally hurt, who struggles to articulate what he truly feels, who does not quite know how to share his inner world?

As he grows, that boy becomes a man navigating the demands of life the pressure to succeed, to provide, to ensure that his family does not lack. While we might assume that men can turn to their peers for emotional support, the reality is often more complex. Vulnerability within male spaces can feel risky. It can carry the threat of inadequacy, or even ridicule.

So much is left unsaid.

What is often communicated instead is a desire for respect and appreciation. On the surface, this can seem like a simple request. But within relationships, it can quickly become a point of tension.

“Why should I?”
“He hasn’t earned it.”

And yet, when we look more closely at what causes relationships to fracture, we often find something less visible, but deeply impactful.

Ego.

It is one of the most consistent contributors to the breakdown of connection the quiet force that chokes what was once held, openly and tenderly, by the heart.

To be in the clinical space with a man who has spent much of his life battling to feel heard, learning the language to express his fears, interrogating his familial relationships, and exploring both maternal and paternal bonds, is to witness something deeply human.

It is to sit with a man who is, often for the first time, grieving a version of himself the one who adapted, who shaped himself in order to be accepted by society.

You might ask, what is the point of all this? Why dismantle one’s emotional self, especially when these shifts so often occur in midlife?

And the question I would offer in return is: why wouldn’t you?

Why wouldn’t you choose to expand your emotional wellbeing? To reconnect with the little boy who simply wanted to be loved and reassured, who was whole and enough before the weight of expectation was placed upon him?

Why not allow yourself the possibility of deep, heartfelt relationships ones that ignite something within you? The capacity to feel, to connect, to experience desire, to be fully alive and responsive to life itself.

To integrate this version of yourself is to offer your relationships something real, an authentic presence, grounded in vulnerability rather than performance.

It is not an easy ask.

But you are the man who can ask himself, “Am I worth it?”

And the answer, whether you have heard it before or not, remains the same:

Yes. You are.
You always were.

Warmly Jules