super-busy people who don't have time for a relationship“He’s really busy right now”
“She’s got a really important job”
“They travel a lot”
“They’re just insanely busy”
“He said he hasn’t had five minutes”

You know, I’m not disputing that being busy is a very real experience, but as excuses go for why you’re letting someone off the hook for being emotionally and physically unavailable in your relationship, not making an effort, and keeping you on the fringes of their lives while you wait for your ‘time slot’, it’s actually pretty pathetic.

Not only are they using a lame excuse to manage down your expectations or to even passive aggressively communicate that they want out or that things are casual, but when you use this as an excuse, you’re talking yourself into managing down your own expectations.

You’re a valuable person in your own right deserving of love, care, trust, respect as well as time and effort. How can a relationship progress, experience commitment and intimacy, plus have balance and consistency if someone is pleading off with the modern day equivalent of “Oh sorry, not tonight love, I’ve got a headache”?

– So they’re so busy that they couldn’t find two minutes in their day to pick up the phone?
– They’re so important that you’re not important?
– If they’re travelling a lot, why bother?
– They’re ‘insanely busy’? Doing what? Saving the world? Running a country? Helping the hungry and the poor?- They haven’t had five minutes? Wow. I bet they’ve found 5 minutes to sleep, use the bathroom, hang around on Facebook.

Being super-duper-busy all the time whether it’s them offering it up as an excuse or you’re making the excuse for them, is a rather big hint – it’s telling you that they don’t have time for the relationship and certainly don’t have time to meet your hopes and expectations, so you should be making an exit and moving on to someone and something where you’re more valued and not in their ‘queue’.

You’re like a plane circling above them waiting for relationship traffic control to give you your slot. “Permission to land in the shag lane” and “Permission to land for dinner and an ego stroke”.

When I ‘dated’ – and my goodness I use this term loosely – the guy who gave me my epiphany on unavailable relationships, he was always telling me how busy he was. I used to call him Busy Bee and he would go on and on and on. “Wow… you must be really important at work…” and “How do you cope with such a hectic schedule?” After a while he realised that I was mocking him and would at least muster up some embarrassment when I’d refer to him as Busy Bee. I even asked him if he was working for MI5 or running a country that I was unaware of.

I don’t buy busy. I’m not saying that people don’t have busy lives but using it as an excuse for why you don’t make an effort is bullshit. Behind every excuse is the real reason and the real reason is that aside from considering themselves to be ‘super-important’, they also don’t want to make the effort. Whatever they’re busy at is a crutch and it’s one that they cling on to that prevents them from getting ‘too’ intimate and ‘too’ committed ensuring that they don’t have ‘too many’ responsibilities.

It’s not about you though. I wouldn’t go thinking that your inadequacies are what are causing them to fill up their schedule. It’s not about them making time for the ‘right’ person; it’s about them not only being available but also having the decency and a reined in enough ego to not actually think that it’s acceptable to treat someone in this manner.

They’re just not that special but on top of this, they just don’t know how to come correct and say “You know what? I’m not truly available for the type of relationship you want or deserve.” Instead, they hang around enjoying the fringe benefits of a relationship on their terms and their schedule. Often if you tell them to hop it, they make themselves temporarily available and then gradually ease things back to their comfort zone.

There are many people who work very hard because they’re busy building up a company, studying or on the fast track in their career, but there are also people who act like they’re ‘critical’ and work very long hours because it helps them to avoid their feelings, themselves, and even relationships. Shock horror, but there have been people who have founded companies, built them up, studied, been on the fast track of their career and many other things, who have also found and made the time for a relationship.

And you know, if you’re in this situation, it’s a good time to ask yourself just what you think they’re busy doing and how if you’re already making excuses for their busyness and writing yourself out of the relationship that you deserve, do you expect to actually have a full on relationship with this person that will actually go anywhere?

They’re just not that busy and they’re just not that special that you should be “Oh little old me must wait around patiently because they’re so important and busy”.

It can be very easy to buy into the whole ‘super-busy’ excuse if one or both parents didn’t have time for you, or you got lost in the shuffle of being one of several children, or had a parent who travelled or you had to do ‘visits’. My own Mr Unavailable father was so ‘busy’ that most visitations were spent with us sitting on the side of a cricket pitch and then when we were flown halfway across the world to see him, he was ‘out’ (as in socialising not working…). You can see how easy it was for me to think that not being a priority was normal.

You are deserving of being a priority and don’t let anyone tell you that being low on their todo list is what being a priority in their life looks like. Instead of waiting around for them to be less busy, it’s best that you make time for you and tell them that if they don’t have the time for even the basics right now, they surely don’t have time for a relationship. I know of lots of busy couples being busy together. You know what being a priority looks like – you talking about their busyness or them talking about it while you’re waiting around isn’t what being a priority or even being in a relationship looks or feels like.

Your thoughts?

The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship is now available from my bookshop along with with Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl. You can also check out my ecourses.

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