writing

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 Myth of Closure

by Julie Githiri

We have come to believe that closure is an essential part of the end of a relationship. That without it, we are left with unanswered questions, limited understanding, and a missed opportunity to reflect, learn, and grow. We tell ourselves that if only we could have one final conversation, one honest explanation, one moment of mutual understanding, then perhaps our hearts could finally rest.

But is that really true?

Must closure come from another person, or is it something we create for ourselves?

Throughout our lives, most of us will experience the ending of several significant relationships. Some endings will be our choice; others will be thrust upon us without warning or consent. Whether we are the one who leaves or the one left behind, every ending carries some degree of loss. It asks us to grieve not only the person but also the future we imagined with them.

Perhaps the real question isn’t whether closure exists, but how we find peace when it doesn’t.

Can healing still occur without the conversation we long for? Can understanding emerge without an explanation? Can forgiveness exist without an apology?

Is the person who ends a relationship always the villain, or simply the one who recognised that something had changed? Can two people arrive at the same conclusion together, or are truly mutual endings far rarer than we would like to believe?

And how do we know when we have recovered? Is there a timeline for healing, or is it something quieter? Perhaps recovery isn’t the absence of sadness but the moment when thoughts of them no longer occupy every corner of your day. When their name no longer tightens your chest. When you can remember the relationship without wishing to rewrite its ending.

Maybe closure has been misunderstood all along.

Perhaps it isn’t a conversation. Perhaps it isn’t an apology, an explanation, or even a final goodbye.

Perhaps closure is the quiet moment when the heart finally realises it has survived.

When it discovers that it can breathe again.

Warmly

Jules

The Question Beneath the Question

by Julie Githiri

I was recently sitting with a dear friend, discussing the existence of big love, great love.

He spoke about it with such passion that I could almost feel it myself. The memory of it left his heart fluttering, his skin tingling, goosebumps rising on his arms. His breath became deeper, more deliberate, as though the very act of remembering brought him back into its presence.

Listening to him describe an experience that seemed to transcend all rational thought, I found myself wondering whether this is the love we are all searching for. The kind of love where oxytocin checks in and logic quietly leaves the chat. The kind that rearranges your inner landscape without permission.

But is that what makes a love great?

Is it the intensity of feeling? The all-consuming desire? The inability to think clearly in the presence of another?

Or is it something altogether different?

Perhaps great love is not simply about being known, but about being felt. Not only in the physical sense, but emotionally. A meeting of minds, hearts, histories and hopes. A place where two people recognise something familiar in one another and choose to stay curious about what they find.

For centuries we have attempted to define love. The Greeks gave us Eros, the passionate and erotic; Agape, the selfless and unconditional; Ludus, the playful and flirtatious; Pragma, the enduring love that grows through commitment and shared experience.

Yet perhaps, like life itself, love refuses to remain fixed.

Love evolves.

The intoxicating rush of Eros may soften into the steady reassurance of Pragma. Playfulness may deepen into devotion. Desire may ebb and flow, whilst intimacy grows roots beneath it. The love we experience at twenty is rarely the same love we seek at fifty.

And perhaps that is the question worth asking.

Is great love the one that takes our breath away?

Or is it the one that teaches us how to breathe more deeply?

When someone enters my consulting room, more often than not, this is the question hiding beneath the question.

Not “How do I fix my relationship?” or “Why did they leave?” or even “Do they love me?”

The question is simpler, and infinitely more complex:

Am I loved?

If our eyes are the windows to the soul, and the soul is the keeper of the heart, then surely the health of that heart matters. Not simply the organ beating faithfully within our chest, but the emotional heart, the one that longs, grieves, hopes, and connects.

Surely a heart that feels at peace, seen, and secure stands a better chance of flourishing?

It sounds like simple mathematics.

Yet human beings have never been particularly rational when it comes to love.

Interestingly, this same question follows me beyond the consulting room. Whether professionally or socially, conversations about love seem to emerge with remarkable ease. Friends, strangers, clients all circling the same curiosity. I appear to have a knack for creating spaces where such conversations unfold.

And perhaps that is because love sits at the centre of so much of what it means to be human.

Across centuries and cultures, we have been captivated by it.

Romeo and Juliet became the enduring symbol of passionate, tragic devotion. Emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in memory of Mumtaz Mahal, creating one of the world’s greatest monuments to love and loss. Even our sacred texts are filled with stories of longing, desire, betrayal, sacrifice, and devotion. Samson and Delilah remind us that love can both strengthen and deceive.

Songs have been written about it.
Poems have worshipped it.
Artists have painted it.
Writers have chased it across generations.

Love has inspired wars, reconciliations, migrations, and revolutions of the heart.

In many ways, love may well be the greatest currency on the planet.

Not because it can be bought or sold, but because nearly every human decision is influenced by our pursuit of it, our experience of it, or our recovery from its absence.

Which brings me back to the original question.

Is love what makes the world go round?

Or is it the hope of being loved that keeps us moving?

Warmly 

Jules