One of the hardest relationship experiences is loving someone who seems emotionally unavailable.

You want to talk.

They change the subject. Or just ignore.

You ask how they're feeling.

They tell you they're "fine."

You long for closeness while they seem to keep you at arm's length.

Eventually, it feels like you're carrying the emotional weight of the entire relationship.

As a human experience, dealing with no emotional response from a person who plays an important role in our lives can feel terrifying. It brings uncertainty about the relationship, about our life foundations, about ourselves.

However, there is another side to it. If that's you, what I'm about to say may sound uncomfortable.

Sometimes, while we're focused on our partner's emotional unavailability, we become emotionally unavailable to ourselves.

Read that again.

I'm not saying your partner isn't avoidant.

They may well be. Sometimes in a situational way, sometimes at a large degree.

But notice where your attention goes.

You spend hours wondering:

"What are they thinking?"

"Why don't they see how much this hurts?"

"Why won't they open up?"

"What can I do to make them choose me?"

Your mind becomes completely occupied by a perception of another person's inner world.

Meanwhile, you've stopped listening to your own.

If you're consumed by someone else's emotional unavailability, there may be a way in which you're becoming unavailable to yourself

Beneath all the analysing, there is usually something much simpler.

Fear.

Loneliness.

Sadness.

Grief.

The fear of not being enough.

The fear of being abandoned.

The longing to feel safe.

Those feelings deserve your attention.

But instead of sitting with them, we often try to solve them through someone else.

If they would just reassure me...

If they would just communicate...

If they would finally open up...

Then I'd feel okay.

Without realising it, we've handed someone else responsibility for emotions that first need our own care.

That's another form of emotional unavailability.

Not because we don't have emotions.

But because we're disconnected from our own experience.

We analyse instead of feeling.

We pursue instead of pausing.

We criticise.

We defend.

We people-please.

We try harder.

Anything except sitting quietly with the discomfort already inside us.

It's understandable.

Most of us were never taught how to stay present with difficult emotions.

We're taught to fix them.

Escape them.

Distract ourselves from them.

Or convince someone else to make them disappear.

But healing rarely begins there.

The relationship we have with ourselves shapes every other relationship we have

It begins when we can gently ask ourselves:

"What am I actually feeling right now?"

"What am I needing?"

"How can I offer myself some of the safety I'm asking someone else to provide?"

Paradoxically, something interesting often happens when we become more available to ourselves.

We stop chasing.

We communicate more clearly.

We set healthier boundaries.

We become less afraid of another person's withdrawal because we've stopped withdrawing from ourselves.

Does that guarantee the relationship will work?

No.

Your partner may still choose not to engage emotionally.

But you'll no longer lose yourself trying to pull them closer.

And that's a profound shift.

Because emotional availability isn't only about being open with another person.

It begins with being willing to stay present with yourself.

Only then can you truly be present with someone else.