Maybe He Is Not An Asshole, He Is Just Emotionally Unavailable

Men can be so fun, so exciting, so romantic—and yet so utterly confusing. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in one too many situations where I wished I could just get inside a guy’s head just so I could understand why they do the things they do.

You have met someone, and he is single, educated, employed, handsome, possessed with great taste, dresses well and is a generally good guy and you are falling for or have already fallen for him. You love the same music, watch the same shows, read the same books, eat the same kind of food and your chemistry is off the charts. He seems like a dream come true.

And everything would be perfect if he would just change that one thing that really bothers you. You really like him, sex is amazing, and things seem to be going so well but he isn’t giving you the love and affection that you crave and desire. You’re ready to move forward, and he’s not.

You keep wondering but we are so good together, why isn’t he giving me what I want? These thoughts keep you up at night and create endless anxiety, anger, and frustration. Your heart is filled with emotions that feel so painful that makes you question everything about yourself. He is not ready for a commitment. Despite your best efforts to get him to open up, you always end up hurt that he never reciprocates the affection or love you feel for him.

Your head is spinning, and you keep banging it against the wall thinking, what’s wrong with him? Why can’t he give me what I want? What an asshole! He doesn’t care about my feelings!

The truth is, he is not an asshole, maybe he is just emotionally unavailable.

You aren’t doing anything wrong. It isn’t your fault. You are doing what you should have been doing: being there for him, trusting him, and falling in love.

Unfortunately, you did it with a man who couldn’t reciprocate.

He probably does care about you and likes being with you, but he’s got issues that you are completely unaware of. He is not trying to intentionally hurt your feelings, he is with you because he wanted female attention and companionship, but as he’s likely done in his past relationships when it reached a point where you wanted more than he could give, he began to pull away.

Don’t feel bad for falling for an emotionally unavailable man, you just had the belief that you can change him. You are a nurturer and wanted to fix him. You thought that your love is the magic potion that will save or transform him. You can see all his potential and possibility. You feel that once he sees and experiences how what you value enhances your life, he will want what you want. Your heart is not logical, it just feels what it feels and you are smitten. And often the smitten can be so intoxicating that the sobering smell of the truth is ignored.

If he is emotionally unavailable, there’s nothing you can do to make him change. Sure, you can try to stick around and try to convince him how great of a catch you are, but this rarely works, at the end, you will only find yourself hurt, frustrated and angry.

Eventually, you realize you’ll never get what you want. Listen to me when I say this, you can present yourself to him on a gold platter and a label on your forehead saying, “I am the one for you” or “I am a good woman”, but that won’t do anything. You can be the best cook, do everything for him, fuck his brains out but if he is not emotionally available then nothing you do will work.

Maybe he will be ready one day but that will be his choice. This does not make him an asshole worthy of trash talking about with all your friends. This does not make him someone that is trying to hurt you. This does not make him evil and it doesn’t mean he has no feelings. This is just the fact that he is on his own path, which is not in alignment with what you want. I want you to understand that if a man is emotionally unavailable, it in no way indicates that you are being needy, clingy or that you are not enough. It’s not you, this is entirely on him.

When you start dating an emotionally unavailable man, run the other way from them as fast as you can. The less time you waste on men that can’t give you what you want and who will never open up to you emotionally, puts you on the right path to love.

Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with you and there is nothing you are doing wrong. You are worthy of feeling peace in your relationship. You are worthy of love. You are deserving of a man who shares your values. You deserve to be with a man that can reciprocate the love you give him. You are enough exactly as you are. Stop trying to fix a man, stop trying to make a man see your worth. If he is not changing or evolving in the way you are requesting, that is not your fault.

You have a huge heart with so much love to give that it feels like love can fix anything. But it is not your job to fix anyone else and we must give each other the dignity of our own processes.

Keep in mind that the love we yearn to give someone else is really our own yearning asking us to finally make ourselves worthy of our own love. And the change we desire from someone else is often a reflection of the desire we are craving for our own transformation.