More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I admitted that being involved with these men meant that I couldn’t possibly have been that happy within myself, others joined me in liberating themselves from the pretence.
I used to wonder why I was the girl that these guys thought would be ideal for a pseudo-relationship.
Why did I keep apologising for being me? Why did I always have to change myself in order for things to ‘work’? There were so many questions.
Terrified of the prospect of a life on steroids, I started kinesiology, a type of complimentary therapy that works with your muscles and the meridian system used in acupuncture to redress imbalances and underlying causes to health issues that may be linked to allergies, emotional issues, physical issues, etc., and found myself inadvertently having to confront many things that I’d buried.
Sometimes I wept with grief over the emotions and memories that I pulled out and inspected at that time, but as I laid things to rest and began to understand my own contribution towards my relationships, I felt a sense of relief because I no longer felt that my future and the possibility of happiness in a relationship was going to be down to ‘luck’. I had to make my own.
I acknowledged that when a woman feels happier about herself and her life without the man in her life, there doesn’t seem any point in being with him.
because unavailability is what you’ve been around all your life, and when you truly do believe that this man, an emotionally unavailable man with a limited if not outright defunct capacity for a mutually fulfilling healthy relationship, is the key to your happiness.
Surely someone who isn't available won't take such a keen interest in your life, cry when you tell them to beat it, give you amazing sex, share many of your interests, and seem so right on?
Wrong.
We’d also like to think that there’s no way in hell that they’d cheat on their wives or girlfriends and refuse to get lost if they weren’...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
What about when we’ve been together for a gazillion years and stuck with them through thick and thin and we’ve given them more time because they insist that it is us that they want to be with and ultimately want to settle down and marry?
He’s the man that doesn’t commit - to you, to action, to his emotions - and as a result he’s a limited man, with a limited capacity for commitment, creating limited relationships.
Temporary unavailability
To be considered ‘temporary’ the period of emotional unavailability should not last more than two years and typically should involve only 1-2 relationships, or a number of flings. The marker of someone that’s been temporarily unavailable but has become available again: they will declare themselves ready to be
in a relationship, mean it, and become involved with an available party, plus they don’t tend to internalise other people’s actions.
Unless you were already involved with them in an emotionally available capacity within a healthy relationship, you as the ‘new’ person or the one looking to have your needs met or share a relationship, are wasting your time trying to get them to feel more than they’re capable of or want to at this time.
