Emotionally Unavailable: What It Means, Signs, & What to Do About It

13 Signs of an Emotionally Unavailable Partner

Several signs may indicate that a partner is emotionally unavailable. They generally avoid commitment, veer away from emotional vulnerability or intimacy, and struggle to communicate effectively about their wants and needs. That said,emotionally unavailable people are different from one another, making them hard to spot at times.

Here are 13 signs that your partner might be emotionally unavailable:

1. They avoid commitment or labels

For an emotionally unavailable partner, commitment (whether to a person or plan) and labels tend to elicit anxiety and fear. They may insist they don’t want to define the relationship, suggest keeping options to see other people open, and avoid making plans, even in the near future.

2. Conversations stay surface level 

Emotionally unavailable people tend to struggle to take conversations to a deeper level and avoid ones that center on the nature of the relationship, preferring to stick to more trivial or lighthearted topics.

3. They struggle to discuss their feelings

Emotionally unavailable people expect closeness, intimacy, and emotional vulnerability to lead to getting hurt, so they often avoid getting emotional entirely. Your efforts to elicit emotions from them may lead them to pull away or redirect conversations back to you.

4. They don’t ask you about your feelings

In redirecting the conversation back to you, an emotionally unavailable partner likely won’t ask specific questions about how you’re feeling. They’re more likely to ask vague questions like, “What are you thinking?” to deflect from themselves vs. something more specific such as, “I sense something’s up — Are you feeling sad?” 

5. They struggle to empathize and respond when you share your feelings

Even though they may redirect the conversation back to you to avoid sharing their own feelings, you can expect that the more feelings you share with an emotionally unavailable partner, the more they will continue to pull away, as truly empathizing requires accessing their own emotional experience or reflecting on how what you said makes them feel.

6. They’re unclear about what they want from you/the relationship

When confronted with a conversation about their feelings toward you or the relationship in general, emotionally unavailable partners may walk on eggshells, send mixed messages (say they want a relationship some days but express hesitation others), stay vague about their intentions, or claim to want a relationship but not match their actions to this statement.

7. They say they can’t trust you

Despite not committing to a relationship with you, the emotionally unavailable partner may still express that they don’t trust you, as being emotionally unavailable often stems from a fear of getting hurt and this is their way of projecting that off of themselves and onto you.

8. They’re inconsistent

Alongside being inconsistent about what they want from you or the relationship, emotionally unavailable partners tend to be inconsistent in general. They may take hours or days to answer texts, regularly claim to be “busy,” or “ghost” altogether.

9. You do all the relationship work

Your partner may be emotionally unavailable if you find that you’re putting a disproportionate amount of effort into the relationship (for example, you’re the only one getting vulnerable or problem-solving issues in the relationship). Putting in less effort is one of the ways emotionally unavailable people protect their emotions and keep a foot out the door.

10. They get defensive

When confronted, an emotionally unavailable partner tends to respond defensively vs. expressing their true emotions. They may deflect or redirect blame to you so that they don’t have to confront whatever it is they’re really feeling.

11. They don’t have a history of serious relationships

While relationship history alone can’t determine whether a partner is emotionally unavailable, not having had a history of any serious, long-term relationships may certainly be a clue as emotionally unavailable people tend to leave relationships before they get serious.

12. They don’t introduce you to people in their lives

If you haven’t met your partner’s friends or family after a few months of dating, this may be a sign that you’re dating an emotionally unavailable person who’s keeping you at arm’s length to avoid building intimacy and vulnerability.

13. They tell you they are emotionally unavailable or aren’t ready for a serious relationship

Some emotionally unavailable people are aware that they are just that. While it’s not always the case, some will outright share (or warn) that they’re emotionally unavailable. If this happens, take their word for it.

6 Signs You Are Emotionally Unavailable

It’s possible for any or all partners in a relationship to be emotionally unavailable. In fact, you may be the one experiencing emotional unavailability if you tend to keep your options open, fear or avoid commitment, are exhausted or anxious by romantic relationships (or the idea of them), or have a history of struggling to trust partners.

Here are six signs you may be emotionally unavailable:

1. You keep your options open

Keeping options open or suggesting an open relationship may indicate your own emotional unavailability if you’re engaging in these behaviors to avoid developing emotional bonds or risk being hurt.

2. Relationships drain you and feel like a job

Emotionally unavailable people tend to have to work harder than their emotionally available peers to have the emotional conversations required of a healthy relationship. Emotionally unavailable people tend to feel more exhausted or burdened by this work than fulfilled.

3. You have relationship anxiety

Emotionally unavailable people tend to worry about their partners, the state of their relationship, and possible outcomes of the relationship, which are all forms of relationship anxiety that may be at the root of the emotional unavailability. These may lead to preemptively ending a relationship to avoid being hurt or staying in a relationship yet withdrawing emotionally.

4. When you’re presented with the option to commit, you back out

While you may initially say yes to a date or claim to wish you were in a serious relationship, when the opportunity finally presents itself emotionally unavailable people tend to backtrack, sometimes blaming the change of heart on not wanting to give up their independence or thinking they can “do better.”

5. You struggle to trust

If you’re emotionally unavailable, you might struggle to trust your partner regardless of whether they’ve actually done anything to suggest they can’t be trusted.

6. You worry about losing your independence in a relationship

Some people worry that getting too close to a partner emotionally means losing independence that they value or have worked hard to achieve. Emotional unavailability may look like fearing a loss of independence (e.g.,, changing your lifestyle or considering someone else’s schedule).

What Causes Emotional Unavailability?

While there is no one explanation for emotional unavailability, it can be caused by a number (or combination) of factors. These include attachment styles developed in childhood, history in relationships, trauma, mental health conditions, and one’s circumstances and priorities. Emotional unavailability can be a mix of deliberate behavior and subconscious behavior.

Attachment

Often, people who are emotionally unavailable as adults struggled to get their emotional needs met as children. Some did not receive enough validation, emotional modeling, or security from their caregivers, which may have made it challenging to form secure attachment and potentially even develop an attachment disorder in adulthood.¹

Without guidance from their caregivers on how to experience emotions safely, they learn to shut them down in order to protect themselves.

Trauma

A child’s experience of trauma is highly predictive of their attachment in future relationships.⁴ Exposure to trauma (such as neglect or abuse) at a young age makes it more difficult to trust that others will acknowledge and respect emotions and boundaries, often leading to the development of emotional unavailability as an adult as a form of protection from further trauma or hurt.

Fear From Past Relationships

Emotional unavailability may also develop due to experience in past relationships. Often, those who have experienced infidelity or gaslighting are fearful or hypervigilant in future relationships, causing them to protect their emotions so they don’t get hurt again.

Emotional unavailability can develop following the dissolution of a healthy relationship, as well: breakup grief is a powerful experience that may contribute to your not being ready to be vulnerable or intimate with someone else.

Life Circumstances

Sometimes, circumstances such as a new or demanding job, loss in the family, or a medical or mental health diagnosis may make it challenging to be emotionally available. In these cases, emotional unavailability isn’t necessarily due to a lack of trust or fear of intimacy, but the prioritization of other areas of life that require more emotional attention, energy, and effort.

What to Do If Your Partner Is Emotionally Unavailable

If you think your partner is emotionally unavailable, there are several things you can do to help them feel safe emotionally and take care of your own emotional needs as well. First, bring your concerns up with them, describing their behaviors factually and reflecting how they make you feel.

Consider asking them if there’s anything they need from you or that you could do to support them in being more emotionally available. Further, it’s important to practice validating your partner (e.g., by saying “I can see how anxious you are to be vulnerable with me.”), and don’t forget to self-validate, too, as this is likely something you’re not getting from your partner at this point.

Ultimately, it may be important to evaluate (and continuously re-evaluate) whether the relationship can truly meet your needs, which may lead you to take a break from your partner or even break up for good.

How to Not Be Emotionally Unavailable

While it may feel daunting to turn emotional unavailability into emotional availability, it’s absolutely possible to do just that. Doing so involves implementing mindfulness of your emotions, exploring root causes, practicing emotional vulnerability, and, when needed, taking relationships slow.

Here are five ways to be more emotionally available:

1. Get mindful of your emotional experience: Noticing what you’re feeling, allowing emotions to show up, and accepting their presence without judgment are important steps in becoming emotionally available. If needed, look up feelings-related words online or do some personal exploration around what certain emotions feel like for you.
2. Identify the causes of emotional unavailability: While it’s not always possible to know the exact causes of emotional unavailability, it’s helpful if you can identify them, as this allows for self-validation, processing, and reflection, which can make you more emotionally available down the line.
3. Practice opening up: Once you’re able to identify what you’re feeling, try sharing this with others to demonstrate to yourself that opening up isn’t necessarily dangerous. You can practice this gradually—start by sharing wanted or positive emotions and work up to the heavier, less desirable ones. Or perhaps share with a trusted family member before moving on to sharing with your partner.
4. Talk to trusted people about emotions: Having conversations with trusted people about emotions may also help increase emotional availability, as it makes talking about emotions more comfortable. This may also allow you to hear how others express their emotions so you have a template going forward.
5. Take it slow: Finally, taking relationships slowly is often the better alternative to abandoning them completely for people who are emotionally unavailable and have the urge to withdraw. Going slowly allows for the gradual learning that emotional vulnerability and intimacy are safe and can continue to be practiced.

How Therapy Can Help

If you’re concerned that you or your partner may be emotionally unavailable, struggle with emotional vulnerability or intimacy, or feel distressed about the effects in your relationship, you may benefit from seeing a therapist. Couples therapy can be helpful for couples who are willing and ready to look at and change these patterns together, whereas individual therapy is a valuable resource you can engage with alone.

Individual therapy may be indicated if you or your partner isn’t willing or ready to participate in couples therapy, or if you need support identifying potential causes of emotional unavailability in a private, safe environment. Most forms of therapy involve some sort of built-in attachment work, as the act of speaking with a reliable figure (a therapist) inherently requires emotional vulnerability.

Because of the potential causes listed above, many people feel safer when they are emotionally unavailable. As a start, it could help to objectively weigh the pros and cons of maintaining this shield, even by talking through with a therapist about whether it would be beneficial to change.

If you are interested in pursuing therapy, consider finding a therapist online. Check out a reliable therapist directory.

Final Thoughts

Being emotionally unavailable can impact your relationships, but with hard work and compassion (for your partner and yourself), there are ways to overcome this tendency and build a happy and fulfilling relationship where emotions are free to be explored.