Are emotionally unavailable men narcissists?

What’s the difference between an emotionally unavailable man and a narcissist? A thin line and someone defining it, but there is a line there nonetheless.

Since I published my ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl which focused on the behaviour of emotionally unavailable men, I’ve had several emails requesting that I discuss the subject of narcissism further because many women do believe that they are going out with a narcissist.

So what’s a narcissist?

For me, someone being a narcissist has always represented someone with excessive self-love, who pretty much fancies themselves.

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The Justifying Zone: when a woman needs to justify her emotional or sexual investment

The Justifying Zone is that slippery slope that a lot of women find themselves in, especially after they have sexual contact with a guy. Many of us feel that we need to justify our emotional and sexual investment and this justification is effectively attempting to close the door after the horse has bolted.

The Justifying Zone will always appear when a man fails to live up to the initial promise that he first exhibited or does something inappropriate or that raises a major red flag that could potentially scupper the possibility of the relationship. If for instance, he’s a Mr Unavailable and the ambiguity increases along with all of his other core behaviours, the potential to stay in the zone and cling to it for dear life becomes even bigger.

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Return On Investment in Relationships

Relationships are about give and take. I don’t expect anyone to stand there taking scores because this in itself creates a negative atmosphere for a relationship, however, in healthy relationships there is an overall healthy balance of give and take without having to kill yourselves getting that balance and there is certainly no need for lots of drama to achieve this. Sometimes you’ll need him more and he provides a rock of support and at other times, you’ll need him. Sometimes you’ll both have to struggle together and get through it, but the point is that you’re together, with the foundation of a healthy relationship and the common goal of sticking together.

Relationships that have negative foundations, almost always generate negative equity. You will end up walking away with less than you started because as long as you engage in unhealthy relationships that erode your self esteem, reduce your trust, and keep you further away from relationships, you are losing out.

Return On Investment (ROI) within relationships refers to the ratio of what you’ve gained or lost against what you invested into the relationship. This is not about financial or material gain or loss. This is about The Three E’s: Emotion, Esteem, and Energy. If you’re not generating a return on investment and at the very least breaking even, the balance of negativity is way out of whack and you are effectively throwing The Three E’s at a bad investment that is not going to generate a return.

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Epiphany Relationships

Throughout your dating and relationship history, you’ve ended relationships and felt that whatever had happened had galvanised change, only for you to find yourself in a similar or worse situation all over again. But if you have truly experienced self-defining, life galvanising change as a result of a relationship, you have experienced an Epiphany Relationship.

An Epiphany Relationship is a relationship that caused you to have a sudden clarity and insight into that particular relationship, yourself, your actions, and potentially all of your relationships. There is a defining moment within this relationship where everything changed for you and suddenly you couldn’t escape the truth and it became life changing.

I had had a series of moments in my life where I was glimpsing the truth about myself and relationships, but I was put on the path to change when I woke up after five months of being in a ‘relationship’ with an ambiguous Mr Unavailable and suddenly thought “I can’t do this!” We’d spent the previous evening together, laughing, joking and appearing to be a happy-go-lucky couple. As he got ready to leave my flat the following morning though, it occurred to me that the ambiguity cloud had returned again. He kissed me on the cheek and said “Speak soon” and it occurred to me that I had no idea when I would hear from or see this man who had just spent the night with me. I realised that we were NOT in a relationship and this guy was completely taking the piss!

I lay in my bed and it occurred to me that funny as my dating escapades had been, I had a penchant for emotionally unavailable men and destructive relationships that eroded at my self-esteem and promoted my until then secret and unknown fear of commitment. As I played my dating and relationship showreel through my mind, I cringed at my truth as a parade of dubious relationships where I clearly wasn’t happy went trotting by.

From that moment onwards, life wasn’t the same for me again and to this day I put a lot of effort into sharing my thoughts on emotional unavailability and commitment-phobia because there are a hell of a lot of women out there just like me. I’m lucky that I had my Epiphany Relationship but not everybody gets the trigger.

The key with Epiphany Relationships is that it makes it difficult for you to return back to your old behaviours and patterns because from then on, you’re doing it consciously and that means that the responsibility for your outcome lands squarely with you. These defining moments are difficult to ignore and they can throw out some painful realisations about yourself, but it can be the beginning of a better relationship with yourself, which leads to a better life all round.

The great thing about Epiphany Relationship’s is that from something that could be perceived as negative can come a great deal of positivity. I may not give a monkeys about the Mr Unavailable that gave me my epiphany but thanks to his inability to connect, I’ve been set free from the constraints that I had put myself in and I am most definitely far happier now…without him!
My new eBook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more

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Boomerang Relationships & The Yo-Yo Girl

If you’ve ever had a ‘relationship’ that can’t seem to end with a guy that keeps turning up like a bad penny, it’s because you’re in a ‘boomerang relationship’. No matter how many times you get ‘chucked away’, you keep returning. Generally he’s the one to end it, although sometimes you do because you get sick and tired of the ambiguity, and then you try to get on with your own life. This is when he’ll play it one of two ways:

He’ll bring out the friend card and ‘keep in touch’ with you via phone, text, email etc, so that you never really get to wash him out of your hair, and his ego ensures that he is keeping one foot in your life and making his presence felt…whilst he gets on with his own life. It means he also gets to keep tabs on whether you’re moving on. Of course, at the first sign of you moving on, he ups the contact or even turns up on your doorstep to rekindle things.

The other route is to ‘play dead’ for a while by having no contact with you. You go through the heartbreaking, emotionally wrenching process of trying to let go and at some point you reach a level of acceptance that it is over. Then out of the blue (they seem to have an in-built homing device that ensures that they choose you at just the right time), he makes contact with you, and suddenly you’re thinking ‘What if?’ and all of your progress goes out the window. The contact may continue and again, you may end up rekindling things.

Whatever it is that he chooses to do, you end up being suckered into being The Yo-Yo Girl, that woman that keeps returning to the scene of the crime and seems to have a trail of unfinished business in her life, or ‘boomerang relationships’. You’ll know you’re her if:

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Does Emotionally Unavailable Equal He’s Just Not That Into You?

Over at answerology, a reader asks “Do you think that emotionally unavailable really just equals he/she is just not that into you?” Truth be told, the answer isn’t a clear-cut ‘no’, but when you are faced with a Mr Unavailable’s behaviour, they act the way they do regardless of who you are. It’s not about you, it’s about him. The trouble with wanting an emotionally unavailable man is that it can cater to something within you which allows you to be drawn to someone who is emotionally ambivalent, which in turn makes you think that you need to work harder to win him over. He’s just not that into his emotions. He’s just not that into relationships. You could lay the world and yourself at his frigging feet and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. He’s self absorbed, narcissistic and focused on the short term fringe benefits of being with you. He gets the sexual, the social, and the emotional benefits, with little or no concern for the impact on you in the short, medium, and long term.

If you persist in trying to be with an emotionally unavailable man, in spite of his behaviour, on some level it sends a message that you’re not happy either. Because the bulk of women that are attracted to and become involved with emotionally unavailable men are actually emotionally unavailable themselves and commitment-phobe’s (whether they know it or not), by sticking around, he realises that something can’t be right with you either. Deep inside he knows that you shouldn’t want him as he has nothing to offer but crumbs. But this is actually a very minor part of it…

Ultimately, emotionally unavailable doesn’t equal he (or she) is just not that into you. People can either tell you that they’re emotionally unavailable, not ready for a relationship, or not interested or they can show you, because actions speak louder than words. It all comes down to whether you want to hear the words/heed the signs. Human nature can have us putting ourselves at the centre of the reason when in actual fact, true emotional unavailability occurs independently of whoever they engage with. It was there before you became involved with them, it’ll be there when you become involved with them, and until they resolve their issue, it’ll still be there long after you’ve had the sense to make a run for it.
My new eBook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more

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Take The Focus Off Him and Put It Back To YOU

I always say that you are the only recurring character in your sitcom called life which means that when you find yourself in same scene different guy; instead of berating yourself for ’stumbling’ across yet another guy that treats you badly and doesn’t appreciate you for what you are, you should be taking a very close look at yourself. It is easy to get sucked into a Blame Men mentality. Lord knows they do enough irritating and shitty things to keep this blog ticking over forever more, but real change, real progress, real relationships, real happiness and real love can only come about through changes to your own behaviour and attitudes.

This is hard to hear for a lot of women but it’s a fact. We have absolutely no control over men’s behaviour or anyone’s for that matter, because if we did, we’d have a very different life. The only person who we have any true accountability and responsibility for, plus the ability to change, is ourselves. We cannot expect the white knight to ride in on his horse and rescue us from shit relationship choices so that we can automatically feel right within ourselves and live happily ever after. Even when the white knight comes blazing in on his big horse, a lot of us don’t even know good men or good love when we see it as we are programmed to think that it comes in a package of drama and insecurity.

If you find yourself repeatedly frustrated at your relationship choices, it’s no accident - you made them. These men don’t just find you accidentally - there is something in your behaviour and attitude which accommodates them.

It’s not just about when we are in the relationship, it’s about when you are single, it’s in the approach and it’s about the tone you set.

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How To Spot Emotionally Unavailable Men

Also useful for spotting the physically and spiritually unavailable men!
He has a girlfriend

He’s married
He’s recently separated
He has a long distance relationship

He’s very reliant on text messages, IM’ing and email for the majority of his contact

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Knowing When To Bail Out - Red Flags

Whilst that thing we refer to as dating is for having fun and getting to know each other, it is also the key period where you are looking out for the red flags that will later catch you with your pants down and infuriate the hell out of you. People have a nasty habit of wearing rose tinted glasses when they date someone and witness various red flags which they fail to acknowledge and act upon. If we want to have more successful relationships and minimise some of the pain we suffer in pursuit of love, we must learn to be more aware and pay attention to the red flags that ALWAYS get raised in those first few dates.

I say always because even though we all make a massive effort when we first meet someone, we can’t help but slip into our natural selves within the first few dates, plus we can’t control situations and life, which means we get put to the test and inadvertently reveal our true selves.

What is a ‘red flag’?
This is something that the party does which flags a potential problem either then or further down the line. Often ‘red flags’ are a character trait, for example aggression, and at other times it’s a fundamental core difference in values or something that is extremely important to you, that you really shouldn’t ignore. Red flags can and often will deal a fatal blow to the relationship. Ignoring these gives the person a lifeline to expand upon these red flags and the damage that can be dealt with this lifeline may have long lasting
repercussions.
The key with a red flag is that whatever it is, it’s something that alerts you to other potential issues or that normally you would be wary or not accepting of. They are normally things that you don’t want to compromise on.
We ignore red flags because:

- We’ve already slept with them and are already in the justifying zone, that place we go to where we keep finding reasons to stay with the person to justify sleeping with them.
- We want a relationship more than we want the right person.
- We’re insecure.
- We’re blinded by lust and desire.
- We have ‘I can change him’ syndrome.
In your mind as part of the natural process of life and certainly because you want to have a decent mate to have a relationship with, there should be certain predefined things that you know that you will not accept, regardless of how fabulous he is, or that will cause you to pause things and question the problem to clear up the red flag. Our inability to ask the right questions or even ask any questions at all is the very thing that is coming back to bite us further down when the person is acting out these behaviours and we feel bewildered.
Red flags:

Anger and aggression
– If he has trouble keeping it in check, he’s irrational, violent, and a bit too handy with his fists, be careful that you don’t end up being a human punchbag or being emotionally abused.

Emotionally unavailable
– Something that a lot of women are all too familiar with on this site. These are men that are extremely self absorbed and are incapable of sharing anything of themselves emotionally.

Dodgy attitude towards sex
– Pay attention to guys who don’t know what to do with themselves if they don’t get their ‘medicine’. Some of these will never be satisfied. Also unhealthy attitudes in the bedroom do spill over into other areas of your life and will leave you feeling very insecure.

Irresponsible
– Is he incapable of doing much for himself because he’s a mummy’s boy? Is he irresponsible with life in general – bills, rent, job and borrows money off you? Is he reckless?

Addicted to something
– If you meet someone and they are addicted to something and not aware of it and doing something about it, this will impact on your life greatly if you continue on.

The Controller
– Run like the wind from a man that wants to control you. It won’t let up and the longer you’re with them, the more entrenched he becomes in your life, is the worse he will become. Watch your self esteem walk out the door.

They play victim
– Be careful of anybody that refuses to take any responsibility for their life and blames it on others. You will eventually become one of those ‘others’. People who play the victim and refuse to see their own part to play in things make dubious partners.

Not over the ex
– Not over the ex, not ready for you. Plain and simple.

Problems with past/childhood
– Unfortunately things happen in life and it can be difficult getting over things and dealing with them. Some things have a very lasting effect on people and can impact hugely on future relationships. They of course can be overcome, but failure to acknowledge these issues in the first place and openly deal with them will cause big problems.

Nasty and spiteful
– I am always wary of people who don’t have a good thing to say about anyone and begrudge people their success and revel in their failures. I don’t think it’s the fabric of a good strong character and it’s something to keep an eye on. Mean spirited people don’t stop being so in a relationship and may attack your self esteem by latching on to what they think are flaws in you.

Now how much of a blow these red flags deal to your relationship is down to you. You must decide on what is and isn’t acceptable and stick to it, and of course follow your gut. One of the things that allows people with some of these red flags to ‘prosper’ and to continue as normal is acceptance of the behaviour as is, with rarely any questions asked. If you have someone with any of the above, raise the issue with them, or if it’s serious enough, bail out and don’t look back.
My new eBook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more

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