To the Emotionally Unavailable Partner, With Love

It’s time to do the thing you’re most afraid of

It’s time. You have spent so much time building your walls and keeping yourself in darkness and isolation. Now, it’s time for you to learn how to become emotionally available to others. Because here’s the truth: You are worthy to be loved, but that knowledge will not help you if you don’t ever let anyone close enough to love you.

You have reasons for being the way you are — good reasons. You did what you could to keep yourself safe. Your mind created protections that served you well. Only, they don’t know now that the danger has passed because your body keeps giving signals that the danger is always present and immediate. You have acclimated to pain and fear. Will you learn to acclimate to love and joy?

The worst thing that can happen is not that someone else will hurt you. The worst thing that could ever happen is not to be loved because you wouldn’t let anyone close enough to try. Your self-protective measures — the ones that once saved you and served you — now hurt you. You think the danger is outside yourself when all along it’s the very thing that once allowed your survival and now guarantees your loneliness.

Your self-protective measures — the ones that once saved you and served you — now hurt you.

Vulnerability is terrifying, and you’ve never once felt safe enough to try it. The memory of the last time you did only serves to shore up your conviction that it’s not worth it. You tried, and you failed, and you don’t tell yourself that perhaps you should try again and keep trying until you let someone fully see you.

You think if they see you and know you, they will loathe and reject you. But that’s not the truth. The truth is that the right person will see you and know you and love you all the same.

But they can’t love you fully if you don’t let them. They’ll try — oh, how they’ll try! But they will fail because it’s hard to hug a barbed wire barrier meant to keep even the best of intentions out. It’s hard to love someone who does little more than push you away while they go back to building their fortress.

Lonely is the path that stretches before you, but it doesn’t have to be the one you take. There are ways to open up — if you dare. It starts with small, hopeful steps down a different path.

First, you find a safe person — someone who will be patient when you try (and, at first, mostly fail). You tell them something you’ve never told anyone else. You let them hold that space. Then, you begin handing them more of yourself every time they affirm your worth and hold space for your pain. You give them little pieces of you, and you trust them to cherish them for the gifts they represent. Your trust. Your courage. Your growth.

You become familiar with emotions. You’re more than happy or sad, and you learn the vast language of feeling. You name your despair and own your rage. You bristle with frustration and put a label on your desires. You learn to find words for each feeling and feelings for each experience, and slowly, you begin to speak them into being because they matter. Because you matter.

You sit down in front of a therapist, and you try. You tell your stories because they matter and let yourself be seen because you do. You challenge yourself outside therapy to share in small ways that feel huge. Every time you do, you get a little better.

You learn to find words for each feeling and feelings for each experience, and slowly, you begin to speak them into being because they matter.

You stop associating love with pain and relationships with endings. You stop telling yourself a story about how other people let you down because you now see that keeping yourself protected from other people lets them down, too. You begin to believe that you are worthy of love, and you let someone good love you.

You learn to take care of your relationships as carefully as you once took care of your fortress. You tend to it. You check on it. You reinforce that it’s as strong as it can be. You take the time and make the space, and you give yourself wholly to joy and love in each moment.

You learn to show up for your partner. You learn to show up for yourself. You learn you’re allowed to do both things and that one doesn’t have to cancel out the other in healthy relationships.

You make mistakes and try again. You get defensive and try again. You let someone down and try again. Whatever you do, you keep trying.

You talk out your fears even though it’s scary. You get clarity even when you’re afraid. You learn that not knowing is far more dangerous than the truth. You stop lying to yourself, and you quit assuming the worst of everyone else.

You teach your nervous system a new normal. You direct your thoughts down new paths. You acclimate to happiness the way you once acclimated to fear and abandonment. You let yourself be safe. You let yourself be loved. You let yourself soften into loving. You practice emotional safety in the same way you once rehearsed every worry underneath the sky.

At first, you get back a minute. One day, there’s an hour that’s wholly yours. A day. A year. You stop living behind the walls of the fortress and enjoy new freedoms. Every breath you take in that vulnerable place is sacred.

You read this on the bad days. You read this when it seems foolish to open up again. You read this when you need to believe that you can love and be loved. You read this when it scares you, when it thrills you, when it brings you to your knees, and — most of all — when you know it’s time.

It’s time now. You’ve spent so much time building your walls. Didn’t you learn from childhood that the best part is knocking them down? You read this when you need to crush your creation. You read this when you’re finally ready to let the light in.