Relationships with emotionally unavailable partners can make it seem like a never-ending struggle to win your partner’s love, making you feel isolated, rejected, ignored, and emotionally drained. How to cope with this? 

The capability to maintain emotional attachments in relationships is referred to as emotional availability. Relationships are difficult for emotionally unavailable people since the emotional connection is essentially necessary for a healthy relationship to exist. Many emotionally unavailable people have a talent for elevating your mood and inspiring optimism about the course of your relationship.

So a partner who is emotionally unavailable frequently distances themselves from intense feelings, as they have trouble recognizing, describing, and expressing their emotions. 

Here are the coping methods.

Signs of emotionally unavailable partners

It can be challenging to identify emotional unavailability. For example, many emotionally distant individuals have a talent for elevating your mood and inspiring optimism about the course of your relationship. However, if, after a positive beginning, you never establish a closer connection, they might not be able to sustain much more than a passing interest currently.

Here are signs of emotionally unavailable partners:

• Struggle with asking for help, exposing vulnerabilities, and committing to relationships 
• Trouble recognizing or naming feelings
• Not being aware of attachment-related cues
• Repression of emotions instead of expressing them
• Not placing much value on forming deep relationships with others
• Placement of high value on personal space and independence
• Adaptation of a passive communication style and a conflict-avoidant attitude

You’ll keep putting effort into the relationship in the hopes of one day becoming closer unless they put in some effort themselves. They’ll continue to withhold reciprocation as you exert yourself emotionally until you can no longer do so.

How to cope with emotionally unavailable partners? 

1- Understand the root causes 

Different sorts of emotional unavailability exist. Therefore it’s critical to understand what motivates your partner’s behavior. Temporary emotional inaccessibility can also occur owing to a change in priorities. In this case, the person cannot offer their partner and their feelings the time and attention they deserve. Examples include a loved one’s passing, employment commitments, or recovering from an injury.

2- Concentrate on your own emotions.

To deal with someone’s emotional unavailability, you should use “I” statements and communicate how it’s impacting you, like providing specific reasons for your belief that they are emotionally unavailable so they won’t be surprised. You can help your partner understand how their emotional absence impacts them if they’re open to it and appear attentive after you’ve expressed your feelings.

3- Don’t try to control your partner’s emotions

You are not in control of your partner’s emotional states. It’s up to each of you. Because it is not your duty to control your partner’s emotional well-being and happiness, as far as expressing those emotions, so don’t try to fix it if your partner shuts down because they are sad. Something will shift when you take a step back and leave this burden. 

4- Allow your partner to take the initiative

You must provide room for them to move forward.  Be honest with your partner about what you want from the relationship and how you want them to support you. After that, you need to quit spending so much energy and give them room to turn up to you. It can’t be an obligation to perform a conversation, and if it is, this indicates you have been struggling for too long.