Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl Quotes

“Mr Unavailable’s inadvertently complicit partner is you, the Fallback Girl, the woman he habitually defaults to or ‘falls back’ on to have his needs met while selling you short in the process. Accommodating his idiosyncrasies and fickle whims, you’re ripe for a relationship with him because you are unavailable yourself (although you may not know it) and are slipping your own commitment issues in through the back door behind his. You get blinded by chemistry, sex, common interests and the promise of what he could be, if only he changed or you turned into The Perfect Woman. Too understanding and making far too many excuses for him, you have some habits and beliefs that are standing in the way of you having a mutually, fulfilling healthy relationship…with an available man. Pursuing or having relationships with Mr Unavailable is symbolic of your need to learn to love yourself more and to set some boundaries and have better standards.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Emotionally unavailable men thrive because they have complicit, commitment resistant, emotionally unavailable women to accommodate their behaviour.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“If you keep putting your bucket down an empty well then yes it is going to feel like very hard work, but it’s highly unproductive and not real work.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“you need to address your own availability because if you were truly available, a relationship with an unavailable man that detracts from you wouldn’t be attractive and you’d have ‘folded’ ages ago. You wouldn’t participate in the emotional dishonesty and avoidance because it would be in conflict with you being emotionally available and emotionally honest.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Emotionally unavailable means not fully emotionally present. It’s struggling or being unable to access emotions healthily and as a result, being emotionally distant due to ‘walls’ which basically act as barriers to true emotional intimacy. Fully experiencing all feelings, whether good, bad, or indifferent, is avoided because they create vulnerability, so feelings are experienced often for a limited time and in bursts as opposed to consistently feeling on an ongoing basis. Emotionally unavailable equates to intimacy issues, which is being afraid of the consequences of getting truly emotionally close to someone such that to lose them would hurt.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Make a list of what you’re waiting for because you know that inaction is often waiting on others or some random cosmic shit to come along and make things easy for you.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“To the cycle of drama. You’re not that sure about him until he starts catering to your fear of abandonment and making you jump through hoops, and after a while, you’re not really going out with him, you’re going out with the high created by Relationship Crack. You’re the Fallback Girl that commits even though you weren’t really that interested until he started messing you around and got your attention.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“women are socially conditioned to believe that they need a man in their life pretty much as soon as they become adults, whereas men are programmed to sow their wild oats and spread their options. Unfortunately while he’s terrified of missing out, his friends all drop off the radar and settle down, and after a while he becomes the odd one out, clinging to his bachelorhood and claiming that he hasn’t met the ‘right’ woman yet and that they’re all ‘psychos’ or ‘too needy’. At some point he’ll likely have a midlife crisis and panic himself into his version of commitment to some poor woman who thinks she’s hit the jackpot.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“The truth is that everyone has some level of fear of commitment and being vulnerable, but he allows it to transcend everything. Unfortunately he has a fear of failure and making mistakes, hence why he maintains a best of both worlds position. He’s thinking “If I’m not in it and minimising the impact on me, how the hell can I be impacting her so much? He doesn’t genuinely believe that anything is his fault - most things are ‘seemingly’ totally out of his control and a byproduct of the interaction and the other person not safeguarding themselves. He may assume that because he’s safeguarding himself that you are and that if you’re not, it’s some sort of ‘fault’ in you. He won’t be accountable as it equates to being vulnerable so if you call him on his behaviour he’ll only turn it around on you or deny it. Being noncommittal means that when he thinks about ‘sticking’ with you, he panics that there may be a better option. When you tell him to “Jog on” he panics that you are his best option, so he uses fear to continue keeping his options open.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“it’s not something you’ve said or done that’s ‘made’ him this way - he was this way before you met him, while you were with him, and will be long after you’re gone until he sees fit to address his reasons for being unavailable. You haven’t misunderstood although you may have applied meaning where there is no meaning at times. You’re not going crazy, you don’t need to change yourself for him (although you do need to address your love habits), and you cannot change him. While it’s upsetting, it’s also empowering because you can stop making his problems, your problems. You, like many a Fallback Girl that has come before you and will no doubt follow, have probably spent far too much time and brain energy trying to ‘figure him out’, which is like rationalising the irrational.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Mr Unavailable blindly assumes that he acts as he does because he’s never met the ‘right’ woman. His ego forgets to remind himself that in his unavailable state, he’s not the right man – for anyone. By playing silly games (even if he doesn’t think he is), he gets to let himself off the hook and continue looking to the future where he thinks that his perfect woman exists. He’s failed to recognise that his resistance in relationships isn’t caused by the women he’s involved with, but by himself.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“You want to commit to those who don’t want to commit and who actively resist commitment.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“You’re not wrong for wanting to love or to be loved, it’s just that, in not giving it to yourself, you’ve made mistakes en route and drawn in inappropriate people. Take comfort in the fact that you know more now than you’ve ever known, and do something with your knowledge. Live the best you that you can be. Stop making excuses for these men. Stop sticking at their side pushing your love on them and hoping they’ll finally give in and love you, and take a chance on you. Love you.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Let me say it for you loud and clear – men aren’t the centre of the universe and a relationship is one aspect of your life but not all of it and, even when you do meet someone, they’re not there to fill up your life for you and give it meaning.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“In Blaming Mode, you might say, “We broke up because I was angry with him for letting me down and not turning up. Maybe if I hadn’t been so upset, we’d still be together.” In Accountability Mode, you’d instead say, “We did break up when I expressed how upset I was about him disappointing me by failing to turn up, however, it was a culmination of repeated poor behaviour. The truth is, if I’m willing to be with someone who hasn’t actually properly left his wife, is inconsistent, disappears, calls me ‘needy’, and continuously devalues me with his behaviour, I’m contributing by setting the status quo and accepting it. I need to look at why I’m willing to accept this behaviour and the first thing I recognise is that I end up in relationships like this because I don’t believe I’m good enough.” That, ladies, is acknowledgement and accountability.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“You’re not responsible for his actions and shouldn’t absorb the blame, but you must be accountable for persisting in the relationship and persisting in your relationship choices. You are the only person responsible for why you’re enabling someone else’s poor behaviour.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“You’ll also find that when you start saying NO, people will be forced to adjust how they behave around you, or get lost. If a person can only be around you if they’re receiving ‘goods’ that originate from taking advantage or even abusing you, they need to step. Don’t train people to expect excessively from you as they come to expect it as the bare basics.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Address how you feel about you and any fears before you date again. Don’t knee-jerk into a new relationship, or settle out of loneliness, or feel like you ‘should’ be dating.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“The Good Girl loves and trusts blindly because she wants to believe the best in every situation and person even when there is evidence that suggests otherwise. The Good Girl has worked out What Good Girls Do, and even though she has been doing it and yielding negative results, she believes that, eventually, The Good Girl ‘wins’, no matter how dangerous a gamble”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“If you keep trying to be the exception to his rule of behaviour or even wider life rules, it’s like peeing into the wind – a waste of time, messy, and bound to backfire.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“There’s a massive difference between trying in an available relationship with an available party and being emotionally available yourself, and trying to iron out your own fears in a limited relationship that reflects your negative or unrealistic beliefs about love, relationships, and yourself.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Emotional Schooling Many men discovered as children that when they didn’t suppress perceived weaknesses such as expressing emotion, displaying vulnerability and sensitivity, and communicating their feelings, it was often penalised. It's no wonder that as adults, they struggle to relate to women who are asking them to share themselves and their inner emotions. It’s incredibly confusing because they are thrust upon the adult world and expected to have access to a whole range of emotions that they’re totally unfamiliar with. If he’s out of touch with himself and his emotions, how can you expect him to know how he feels, and even more importantly, communicate it? It's not that he's sitting on a wealth of information about how he feels – it's not there and even if it was, he wouldn’t know how to access it. Some men just don't feel these feelings. What they attribute to feeling something for someone is comparable to an awkward concern for a pet. In fact, often they can feel more for a pet!”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Fear is an emotional response to a perceived danger - for him that danger is the consequences of commitment and intimacy. The danger isn’t you per se; it’s all the things that you and your expectations, needs, and wants bring to his life. He’s afraid of being absolute in promising himself and the responsibilities and situations that that brings. He’s afraid that if he allows someone in and is emotionally available that, by risking himself, he’ll experience negative consequences.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“I want you to see that his behaviour isn’t about you so that you can stop making yourself responsible for making him into a better man.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Many readers believe their situation is unique and that the strange relationship that they’ve found themselves in is a direct result of something that they’ve said or done. They often think they’ve misunderstood something, that they’re going crazy, that they need to change themselves so that they can ‘win’ his love and commitment, or they wonder what they can do to change him.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“No relationship can have a chance of growing so much as an inch when you’re involved with someone that cannot see past their nose. Being with selfish people is hard work. Let me say it again - he’s just not that special. Selfish only works when you have only yourself to consider. Commitment in mutually fulfilling relationships requires you to be selfless at times.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Someone that’s all about the ‘ME’ doesn’t have room to consider you and as a result can never truly recognise your needs or the impact of their actions (or lack of them) on you.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“He has absolutely no incentive to be any different to what he is because you have already shown that you are prepared to be with him and stay with him when he has nothing or very little to offer. For him to suddenly have a conscience about what he has been doing is expecting a benevolence that I wouldn’t go holding your breath for. From your perspective you’re thinking that love and a relationship are an incentive to change but that’s not how he view things. Knowing that others will be with him if you won’t means he doesn’t really feel there are any major consequences for not changing his ways.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Some Mr Unavailables are selfish in their relationships but can appear giving and generous to others, which no doubt is frustrating for you. You’ll wonder how he can have loving relationships with friends or family or help out the little old lady down the street, but it’s important to remember that thinking about others outside of a romantic, committed relationship context is different. He may not make the same associations about giving and doing to others as he does in a romantic relationship. He may feel that the opportunity to be vulnerable is limited in these other interactions, plus on top of this, a romantic relationship has different expectations and demands and is ideally beyond short-term moments and experiences. This is why he seeks to keep managing down your expectations, so that you only want, need, and expect what he’s prepared to give. If you go beyond this, you’ll experience negative consequences.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl

“Just because it’s all he’s capable of doesn’t mean it’s enough for you, and just because he gives what he’s capable of doesn’t make him great. This is exaggeration of the worst kind and it will set you up for a fall. Ever seen someone settle? It’s because they decide that something is better than nothing, but that something may be very insubstantial. It’s like you’re saying “Wow! Look at how much of a limited contribution is coming from a limited man!”, which is like celebrating the obvious and championing mediocrity.”
― Natalie Lue, Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl