Spotting Micro Behaviors Of An Emotionally Unavailable Person
The trick is knowing whether the cause is situational or complex
It’s not hard to spot someone who is emotionally unavailable, especially if you’re in a relationship with them. Sure, more subtle behaviors may initially fly under our radar, but obvious red flags of emotional unavailability are hard to ignore. The most common red flags can include: communication being inconsistent or superficial, picking and choosing what they will answer or talk about, preferring casual relationships, or cancelling plans at the last minute.
Many emotionally unavailable people come off as mysterious or exciting because their evasiveness is taken as a challenge by a partner who wants to “win” them over and crack their tough outer shell. This can prove addictive and lead to a pattern of “chasing” and “running” and an inevitable push-pull that ensues.
A hard truth is that getting hooked on an emotionally unavailable partner says just as much about you as it does them; as long as there is a pattern of “chasing” unavailable people, it keeps you in denial of your own emotional unavailability.
Situational vs. Complex
There are two main types of emotional unavailability — situational and complex. Situational unavailability is just that; situational. It is temporary and can be the result of a recent breakup, having been cheated on, a “discard” or “ghosting”, someone who makes things rather than relationships a priority, or a person with a history of attracting narcissistic types.
When emotional unavailability is situational, it’s based on something environmental that has happened to a person which has caused them to tap the brakes regarding relationships, vulnerability, or emotional intimacy.
Complex emotional unavailability typically stems from early childhood trauma, attachment trauma, or histories of severe and prolonged abuse. Children who don’t receive consistent love or affection, who have histories of extensive surgeries or illnesses, or those who grow up in punitive environments including abuse or poverty are at risk of developing attachment trauma.
These patterns often reflect a rupture in parent/child bonding that was not repaired, but perpetuated and set the stage for the child developing an insecure attachment style — and with it, the potential for emotional unavailability.
The most common complex issue that is correlated with emotional unavailability refers to “narcissists”, or more specifically, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Brutal parenting styles may include severe punishment, or inconsistent boundaries where a child is parentified.
Other parental factors that may influence later development of NPD include a caregiver who tries to be the child’s friend at the expense of not providing safety or consistency, a parent/caregiver who coddles or provides excessive adoration to a child without setting limits or boundaries, or negligent parenting where the parent is more concerned about themselves than caring for their children’s basic needs.
When emotional unavailability is complex, it’s based on early conditioning or a product of both heredity and environmental factors in play that have caused a pattern of learned “survival adaptations” that negatively affect their intimate relationships.
There are ways to decipher between emotional unavailability from childhood trauma versus emotional unavailability seen in NPD. A person who has developed NPD as a result of complex factors will often include these key behavior patterns:
- Low empathy
- Grandiosity and excessive self importance
- Need for constant admiration, external validation and attention
- Excessive sense of entitlement
Unpacking Complex Emotional Unavailability in Action
The following are common complex patterns seen in emotionally unavailable partners. However, understanding the function, or the cause of the pattern is important in choosing to support the person or in choosing to cut ties for your own emotional health.
Lovebombing vs. People-Pleasing. Lovebombing is a red flag of narcissism and excessively flattering a partner. It is shorter-lived, based on superficial investment, fleeting, and taps into our blind-spots and vulnerabilities (i.e. focusing on what we consider shortcomings or things we struggle in loving about ourselves). Flattery and lovebombing are complex in that idealization is how those with pathological narcissism engage in relationships based on their own early trauma or maladaptive upbringing.
With lovebombing, a person may bore easily and move on quickly to another person. Because lovebombing is based on emotional unavailability, the hook is in the rush of the lovebombing itself, not long-term commitment.
However, it can also be a red flag of a people-pleaser who is seeking similar investment and validation in return. People-pleasers are “fawners” and often struggle with co-dependence (Walker, 2014); they are the flip-side of those with pathological narcissism. People-pleasing is a red flag of the “Fawn” trauma response type, and often originates as a result of childhood trauma, thus it is also complex in nature.
So, how do you decipher if it’s lovebombing or people-pleasing? The simplest way is to slow things down, and watch their behavior.
If lovebombing is their goal, it will momentarily increase in intensity. They may find new ways of trying to flatter you and will eventually bore and move on. If a need to please you is the goal, there are often deeper wounds based on feeling invalidated in childhood and a need to please others as a way of tapping into their own unmet needs for acceptance.
Those with histories of people-pleasing both fear emotional connection and have a deep unmet need to feel valued, heard and seen; it’s not based on tapping into a person’s vulnerabilities as seen with lovebombing,
Perfectionism. Perfectionism can go one of two complex ways. On one side of the spectrum, perfectionism is based on narcissistic expectations of imperfection with those in their lives as an excuse to quickly cut ties and move on. The expectation of “perfection” lasts only as long as lovebombing, and then imperfections are continuously scanned as a reason to leave.
Imperfections trigger their own sense of being flawed, their own early trauma, and as an excuse to immediately move on if a flaw is seen. If a flaw is not noticed, one is created, or exaggerated as a way of maintaining emotional disconnection and unavailability as “validation” of reason to leave.
On the flip-side, when perfectionism is based on attachment trauma, it often crops up as part and parcel of the “flight” trauma response. Those with histories of being a “flight” type are driven by an unconscious belief that if they “run” faster, perform better, or compulsively achieve more, they will feel “perfect” and worthy of love. This becomes cyclic; the faster they run, the more they try to achieve; and the more they try to achieve, the more they continue grasping at perfectionism and continue running.
If perfectionism is based on a trauma response (rather than pathological narcissism), it is often accompanied by a compulsive need to be “doing” — overachieving, workaholism, and compulsively busying themselves. These keep a “flight type” busy and distracted from having to engage in emotional vulnerability; doing things outweigh engaging in relationships as “safer”.
Need To Control. Both pathological narcissism and those with complex trauma can display a need for control in their relationships. To understand the function — or cause — look at the micro behavior patterns.
Those with histories of “discards” and “ghosting” are synonymous with pathological narcissism and a need to control. While most won’t be as forthcoming in confessing whether they have a history of discarding partners, there are still clues that can point towards red flags of this pattern as a fear of emotional availability.
For example, partners who are not easily manipulated, are not naive, or who are difficult to control are at risk of being “discarded” which severs the chance for emotional availability (and accountability for their behavior). Those who are high in pathological narcissism are threatened by authentic emotional connection and may control a relationship by modifying their availability, limiting communication to text messages, or simply discarding one partner for something that is easy.
Narcissistic adaptations are typically inflexible, one-sided, and lack compromise and authentic communication. Chances are, if a partner was “discarded” it ties into inflexibility, a lack of compromise, limited empathy, and the partner was no longer able to be controlled.
On the flip-side, many with histories of complex trauma also have issues with control in their lives. Unlike those with pathological narcissism, a person who struggles with a need for control often have histories of profound trauma, having been bullied, or other powerlessness. As a result, they may now control for everything in their life as a way of establishing a sense of power over themselves and their choices.
For example, they may become panicked or flee an uncomfortable or unfamiliar situation because the fear of the unknown may trigger past trauma. Equally common is emotional unavailability as self-protective; it may be hard to get to know them or they may appear to have wall up when talking about themselves. This is done as a way of protecting them from further traumatization, but also negatively impacts emotional availability.
Most people show red flags of emotional unavailability early on in relationships. Learning the differences between situational and complex emotional unavailability can help you in unpacking a person’s intentions, core wounds, and whether they may make a healthy partner. Not all complex emotional unavailability should be seen as a relationship “death sentence”. Some partners simply require space, time, and self-awareness into their own unhealed trauma in order to be more emotionally available for themselves, and those in their life.