Lachlan Brown
She’s sweet to you one day, then the next she’s cold.
Often, she doesn’t seem to be putting as much effort into the relationship as you, but she’s still enjoying herself.
Cruel? Heartless? Not so fast. She may instead actually be emotionally unavailable.
Emotional unavailability can be difficult to pinpoint exactly.
Most of the time, you might simply feel like something’s up between the two of you but you can’t put your finger on it.
It’s important to recognize it early to protect the both of you from pain and heartbreak.
To help you clear things up, here are 17 traits that are common to emotionally unavailable women.
1. She Doesn’t Want To Commit To Anything
So you’ve been going out together for a few months already.
The status of your relationship is still up in the air, however.
You aren’t sure if she’s your partner or if she still isn’t ready for a relationship.
When you try to set plans to go out, she might answer yes today, but no tomorrow.
When you’re out in public, it might not even seem like you’re as close as you thought. What gives?
Emotionally unavailable people tend to avoid commitments, from dates to labels.
They might still need to process feelings from a past relationship, or they themselves are still unsure of what they want.
2. She Doesn’t Open Up To You
Relationships are more than just getting physically intimate.
Being able to connect with one another emotionally is just as important.
This is why it might’ve been bothering you when you try to ask her how she’s feeling, she brushes you off.
You might notice that something’s clearly bothering her. When you ask what’s wrong, she’ll tell you that everything is fine (when it might not actually be).
You want to get to know her more, and at a deeper level, but she just keeps shutting you down. But she doesn’t seem to hate you or ignore you either.
This might mean that there’s something that’s on her mind that you may need to discuss with her about.
3. The Effort In The Relationship Feels Lopsided
When you think about your current “relationship” together, you realize that you’re always the one making the effort.
You’re always the first to text them; you’re the one that plans all the dates and activities for you.
While she may treat you to something every once in a while, you’ve treated her to things far more.
You feel like you’re carrying the relationship and putting all the effort in.
While it’s true that relationships shouldn’t be measured and tracked, it’s still important to realize that it’s also a two person job.
Emotionally unavailable people tend to view relationships as more of a casual thing, rather than something serious and for the long term.
4. She Shows Mixed Signals
One day, you’re playfully chatting. Then the next day, her responses are cold, and she seems distant.
You become confused and you’re unsure what’s going on.
This inconsistency is common in those that are emotionally unavailable.
Although time spent together is great fun, emotionally unavailable people tend to want to avoid anything getting too intimate and, well, “relationship-y.”
So she backs away at the slightest hint that you’re getting too close.
5. She Needs Your Constant Attention
When you’re out at a party and she’s at home, she always wants you to keep in touch with her. Maybe she constantly wants to call you.
When you’re out together and she sees you looking around, she might become jealous and start interrogating you about who you were looking at – when in reality, you weren’t really looking at anything.
Healthy relationships are built on mutual trust in partners.
That means that when you’re apart, you don’t worry about whether they might find someone more attractive or more enjoyable to be around than you.
When she’s looking for constant attention from you, that may be a red flag that she might not be ready for anything serious just yet.
6. She Needs To Have The Last Word
When you suggest places to eat, she rejects all of your options – except for the one that you know she wanted to go to all along.
Although it might feel like you’re doing all the work in the relationship, if she doesn’t agree with it, then it’s a no-go. Things always seem to have to go her way.
Although give and take is important in any relationship, it can become toxic when only one person is making the decisions.
When you find her domineering or walking all over you, you’ll need to talk to her about it. Healthy relationships are supposed to be two-way streets.
Always wanting to take control of every aspect of the relationship – even how you act – is a common trait among the emotionally unavailable.
7. She Has Impossibly High Standards
We’ve all seen the movies and fairytales of the two characters coming together and living happily ever after. She knows it too – and uses that as something of a template for your relationship.
She always wants everything to be perfect: perfect date, perfect talks, perfect photos. If one small detail is incorrect, she may break down or throw a fit.
She can’t accept minor flaws, and that’s the problem.
Her standards are impossibly high, so they’re often exhausting to meet.
8. She Gets Angry Often And At Small Things
Maybe you forgot to get you a snack on your way back to her, or that you misspelled her name somewhere online.
These things may be minor mistakes that others can laugh about – but not her.
With her steep standards, she’s strict about keeping everything in your “relationship” perfect.
Even light and playful teases might tick her off and cause her to get unnecessarily angry towards you.
You often feel stressed about the relationship because you have to tiptoe around so many topics and phrases.
9. Conversations Are Often One-Sided
When you’re in a conversation together, it always seems like you’re the only one talking.
While you might consider her a good listener, she rarely shares her own opinions and ideas.
She nods and makes good eye contact, but when you ask for her opinion, she might shrug or give few-word answers.
She might just reflect your emotions back at you without giving much input.
She doesn’t seem to make the effort to ask you questions to understand you more either.
While you ask her about her life and what she wants to do, she doesn’t bother asking those of you too.
It might seem odd to you at first, but take a step back and ask yourself (and her) if she really is interested in what you have to say. If she isn’t, that might be a problem.
10. You Never Get To Discuss Your Relationship
At some point in the months that you’ve been seeing each other, you wanted to sit down and discuss the relationship.
“So what are we?” is the question that you so desperately want to ask – and the question she avoids answering.
She might just brush it off or say, “Isn’t it enough that we’re enjoying ourselves?”
Maybe in the short term, sure.
But you may be looking for a serious relationship here.
Emotionally unavailable people avoid planning for the future. They often look for fun without commitment.
11. She Doesn’t Want To Meet People Close To You
Meeting friends and family is a milestone in any relationship – which is why she would rather not do it.
Getting introduced as “the girlfriend” is up there in the things she wants to avoid.
So she avoids having to get to know your parents or your closest friends because she’s unsure whether she’ll even be long enough to spend time with them.
12. She Often Blames Others For Her Problems
When something bad happens to her, she’s quick to blame others.
She always looks for faults in others but never in herself.
You’ve started to notice this habit of hers and realize that she seldom, if ever, takes responsibility for her own actions.
The emotionally unavailable tend to pass the blame to others, never admitting when they’re the ones that messed up.
That might mean that she isn’t emotionally available enough to be in a serious relationship, which requires responsibility and accountability.
13. Communication Is Difficult And Unclear
The biggest problem that arises from being with someone who is emotionally unavailable is that open communication often suffers.
They aren’t clear with what they want out of the relationship, or how they feel.
This sets up false expectations and breeds misunderstanding between the two.
When you try to talk to her, it doesn’t feel like you’ve gotten any closer over the past few months of going out together.
You find that you’ve gotten into too many arguments about small things, all because of a case of miscommunication.
When you realize that she’s emotionally unavailable, it’s important to be patient with her. Try to understand her.
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