Ep.76: Mr. Unavailable: Breaking Free From Loving Emotionally Unavailable Men with Dr. Marni Feuerman

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Colette Fehr (01:04):
All right, we're so excited for today we have Dr
Marnie, fireman, our good friendand internationally renowned
psychotherapist who specializesin relationships and is often
consulted by the media, all theoutlets you know, Huff Post,
ask.com Psychology Today, SELFmagazine USA Today. I mean,

(01:27):
she's everywhere, and she knowsher stuff. She has a private
practice in Boca Raton, Florida,but again, is all over the world
for her knowledge and efforts,and we're very excited to have
her today to dig into a topicthat is near and dear to my
heart, how to break free fromloving the emotionally

(01:50):
unavailable man. Now, of course,I just want to give a little
caveat that emotionallyunavailable partners come in all
gender, sexual identification,so on and so forth. But there
are a lot of emotionallyunavailable men out there, and
there's a reason for this, whichI'm going to start by asking

(02:10):
you, Marnie, so we're going tofocus in on that in particular.
But of course, this may apply toyou no matter who you are and
how your partner identifies. Sowith that said, Marnie, welcome.
First of all, thanks for beinghere. So great to be here. Thank
you both. We're excited to haveyou. And of course, you wrote a
whole book on this calledghosted and breadcrumbed, and

(02:33):
tell me the subtitle again.
Yeah, stop falling forunavailable men and get smart
about healthy relationships.
Yes, amen to that. Okay, somaybe you could start by telling
us, what does this look like?
What constitutes, what are someof the hallmarks of an
emotionally unavailable man orpartner? Yeah, so very broadly,

(02:54):
I'm talking about a man who putsup barriers to intimacy.
Sometimes they're intentional,sometimes they're unintentional,
because people are doing thissometimes, and they don't
realize they're doing this. Andthere could be a whole lot of
reasons why, but they arepulling away from emotional

(03:18):
intimacy. They're not movingtowards it. They're not moving
towards that or vulnerability ina romantic relationship. And so
that is, loosely the definitionof unavailability, yeah, and
you, you talk about married menthat are dating out there and
like, the, there's the you'rethe other woman to a married
man. What are all the versionsof the unavailable man? Yeah, I

(03:42):
include that. I don't thinkthere's a whole lot of resources
out there for women who are in arelationship with somebody who
isn't available because they aremarried to somebody else, but it
does happen, and in fact, thatis what sparked the idea for the
book. Because I wrote, I write alot of blogs and articles, as
you know, and one that got a lotof attention, a lot of views, a

(04:06):
lot of shares, was one about howto walk away from a relationship
with a married man, so obviouslygeared towards women. And so I
thought, oh my gosh, like theremust be a need. There must be an
audience out there of people whoare desperate for some
resources, who find themselvesin this situation. And I

(04:28):
learned, certainly, a whole lotabout and we could do almost a
separate show just on that,about what I learned about women
who do become involved, becomethe, what's called the affair
partner. And also, you know alot about some of the men and
about this situation andcircumstance. And so it's quite
sad, because women are often fedinformation, or they're told and

(04:50):
made promises by these men. Andso they are their lives are just
passing them by because they'rewaiting and waiting. And of
course, they feel like they'rein love. They believe it's love,
and they're finding that theirtheir hopes and their dreams are
pretty much crushed at somepoint. So it's not a good
situation. But yes, I do talkextensively about being involved

(05:14):
with a ma, with somebody marriedas well in this book, yeah, and
I want to get into some of thattoo, because I think there's so
much stigma and shame aroundthat that nobody wants to raise
their hand and say, Yeah, that'sme, and I need help with that.
But it does go on quite a bit.

(05:34):
And so there are these differentiterations of how being in an
emotionally unavailablerelationship, or being in a
relationship with someone who isemotionally unavailable, can
look there's the version ofyou're with someone who's
unavailable because they'remarried to someone else, which,
in and of itself, means theycan't possibly be available to

(05:54):
you. And the fact that they'reemotionally unavailable may be a
big part of why they're in thisbifurcated.
Relationship stance, becausesomebody who deals with their
problems constructively anddirectly is usually not seeking
and is available for trueintimacy, is usually not seeking
to maintain multiplerelationships at the same time.

(06:15):
But I want to back up evenfurther for a second into you
know, of course, there's thedating part, and maybe let's
start with that for a minute.
Sure, maybe you can even getinto a lot of people may know,
but ghosted and breadcrumb giveus a definition for that,
because some of this begins indating, and I've got to tell
you, I have a long history ofdating an emotionally

(06:37):
unavailable man, and you know, Inever was looking for it. The
warning signs were not superobvious. A lot of times these
men can show up very, seemingly,very intensely connected at the
beginning, they they feignvulnerability right when it's
when it's not really requiringtrue intimacy. So it feels very

(06:59):
connected. They're in hotpursuit. They're often alpha
males. They're successful,they're charming, they know how
to treat a woman, they say theright things. I never in my life
thought, Oh, let me go find anemotionally unavailable man. I
can't wait to be tortured forthe next three years. So let's
talk about what this can looklike in dating, and then maybe

(07:20):
you can give our listeners adefinition for both ghosted and
breadcrumb, because those aretwo hot terms. Yeah,

Dr. Marni Feurerman (07:29):
so ghost ghosting and being ghosted, we
know has been around for quite awhile, and is probably the most
popular of these dating termsthat kind of came out to
describe some of theseunfortunate dating experiences.
And so ghosting is just whensomeone disappears on you
without any explanation and nocommunication. And some of what

(07:52):
I found when I was researchingfor the book is that it really
leaves people feeling justawful. It's, it's the unknown,
it's, a lot of confusion, nothaving something that, even if
it's just, hey, I don't see afuture, or the chemistry wasn't
there for me, something simplethat a person can just offer

(08:14):
that person they were dating isso, so helpful. So a lot of
people are not getting that.
They're not even gettinganything, even if, after they
have a date where they feel likethey had a really wonderful time
and like you're saying, theymight be feeling chemistry and
the conversation flowed reallywell. Ghosting is really a
terrible habit, unless, youknow, certainly there's caveats

(08:34):
to these things, like, if youfelt like someone was dangerous
and you know there was some riskto you, go ahead and ghost, but
I would say 99% of thecircumstances just kind of wrap
it up and just say something sothat the person knows, you know,
get some small explanation ofwhat happened, and

why do people ghost Marnie, while we're on
this, you explain it in thebook. And I think it's really
important for people tounderstand this, not that
there's ever an excuse,

right? I think people are just very
intimidated by such directcommunication. And
unfortunately, that's notgetting a whole lot better with
the generation raised ontechnology, and a lot is through
texting and things like that. Soit's just easier to just ghost.
So I think a lot can get in theway of just assertive

(09:24):
communication for people. Sothis, of course, goes for both
men and women, and I, and I knowyou're writing so much on this
topic, so I'd love to talk morewith you about it, but I think
there's reasons someone justgets in their own way. It's kind
of they're tripping over

themselves. What's uncomfortable to sit and tell
someone Yeah, and there's noyou're rejecting

somebody, right? And when you know you're
going to do that, people willjust avoid they'll avoid

that, but you cause far more pain. Now, it's
one thing to at the end of adate or a date didn't go well,
to just go someone. I mean,that's cruel enough. And in
fact, because I was once ghostedby somebody I was actually
dating, he met another woman ona plane and never called me

(10:11):
again. And because this wasn'tmy first rodeo with his
bullshit, I just was at a pointthat, even though it was so
uncertain, I was like, You knowwhat? I'm just done, whatever
the explanation is, I don't givea fuck, and I'm not contacting
him ever again,

right? And what I would love for people to
do is just not take itpersonally. They but that is a
lot of what people do. That'sexactly they think it's me that
the and that they weren't worththe conversation. So it does
leave people in a pretty badspot,

Laura Bowman (10:42):
but very often it's like the intimacy is
heating up for that person. It'sthey're getting, having to be
accountable and having to leanclose into that relationship.
Maybe they've made promises thatthey don't really intend to
actually make real, and so inthat point, they exit in a
really confused. Same way,right? Colette, is that what
you're like basicallydescribing,

yeah, and I think for me personally, I didn't take
it personally. However. I agreethat oftentimes people do, but I
will say that what it does toyour nervous system to have a
connection with someone. In mycase, there was a whole
relationship that had gone on,and this was like a time we had
gotten back together to go fromthat just on an attachment level

(11:27):
in your limbic system, you know,your emotional nervous system,
which you guys all know, but forour listeners to go from that to
just being left with no closure,no explanation, not even the
respect of like goodbye is soawful to do to some so even if
you know this is a reflection ofthis person and their effed

(11:49):
upness, their lack of capacity,it's really a bad sign, terrible
thing to do to somebody, right,right, right. And in the years
since I was ghosted, I mean,it's, it's 15 years ago, I
later, much later, had a repairconversation with this person
who took accountability,acknowledged we're friends. My

(12:10):
husband knows him, and he hascontinued this behavior with
other women, despite hiscontrition toward me so and if
he's listening, sorry buddy. Ilove you, but it's really messed
up to do that. Yes,

but there's other terms that you say in your book.
So there's breadcrumb, and thenwhat is the one that you talked
about? And I want to hear thedefinition of breadcrumb, but
also the one where, like, a manjust does not like introduce you
to people in his life.

Yeah, so two different things here, but,
well, maybe they're, they'recertainly like not introducing
you to people in their life as amaybe a form of breadcrumbing,
absolutely. But breadcrumb islike stringing somebody along.
So you're giving them a littlebit, just enough to keep them
involved, but you're really notfully engaging, and so you might

(13:02):
be doing things like notintroducing them to people that
are important to you, especiallyafter enough time has gone by
where that you know therelationship should develop into
that it's almost like they'rekeeping their options open in
case somebody better comesalong. And you can kind of feel
it. They're not so consistentwith going out, or they'll

(13:23):
they'll say, hey, I'll call youFriday, and then Friday comes
and you don't hear from them.
And so those are all breadcrumbing type behavior, which,
of course, is extremelyfrustrating,

and I think it's so common in dating. I hear my
daughters talking about this anddating. You know that it's so
common in the younger generationwhen they just want to have a
bunch of people like on therotation. And I think some
people are quite addicted to thesupply of this feeling like
there's somebody that when Ifeel like it, I can say, hey,
like, what's up? And somebodywill ping me back, and then at a

(14:02):
register, right? And then I hearit at midlife, like Bethany
Frankel, who, you know, is thisfamous television personality. I
saw a video where she said,dating people in their 50s is
like these. People want a penpal. They want to like text you,
but they never want to meet orengage or develop anything they
just want something to keep themfrom boredom and feeling totally

(14:25):
alone,

right, right? And, of course, the
people doing that are notemotionally available, of
course.

So if this happens, it's a really good
early warning sign, like, onetime somebody's not consistent,
fine, but if somebody is notconsistent more than one time,
it's a major flag, right?

Yeah, what I always emphasize to people is
these one off things, you know,you I don't know how much you
want people want to put intothat, but I think if it's a
pattern, right, you're seeingrepetitive behavior, a pattern
of behavior, some bad signconsistently. That's when you
really want to say, Hey, this isnot good. This is a red flag. I

(15:10):
really need to consider if I ifthis is what I want, or do I
want to actually have aconversation about it, to see
what's going on, right? Because,

for the record, like, can we just say for the
woman who's listening, who'squestion, who maybe been through
a lot of this? Like, how shouldit go? I know not all
relationships unfold the sameway, but there should be certain
things that are working right.
Like, how are things supposed tounfold?

I think, slowly and gradually, but you
should see pretty consistentbehavior. If someone says, I'm
calling you on Friday and theydon't call you on Friday, that's
not consistent, so that theirwords, their actions, line up
and match up. They're notoverdoing it and love bombing,
but they're also not playinglike coy. And, you know, never

(16:03):
pursuing so it's probablylooking pretty balanced. It's
somewhere in the middle. Youknow, you're taking time to get
to know them. They're getting toknow you. It just feels like,
you know, the, I almost look atit like a, like an inverse
triangle, right where it's verynarrow at the bottom. But then
as time goes on, it's gettingwider and wider, and so the

(16:27):
depth of the relationship is isgetting a little bit deeper as
you go along. It's a

great way to describe it. Marnie, I love
that. And they're pulling youinto their lives, right? They
want you to meet their friends,they want you to meet their
family. They want you to be apart of the things they care
about. That's like a naturalunfolding,

yeah, taking risks and asking you and
saying, like, Hey, is it thismay feel too soon, so if you
won't say, No, it's okay. Butlook, I'm having this party at
my house. Would love to have youthere, but my a few of my
friends and even my cousin'sgoing to be there. Will you
come, you know, so they canintroduce it that way, in a very
disarming, casual kind of way,where they're not like, it's not

(17:09):
overkill in how they're, youknow, wanting to include that
person in their life,

right? And again, I just want to say that that,
first of all, I love the inversetriangle, right? And a lot of
people, what I wanted to sayagain is that with some of these
people, what's so tricky aboutsome emotionally unavailable men
is that the triangle starts outthe other way. There's so much
love bombing, there's so muchinterest, there's so much fire,

(17:36):
that you just feel like, oh mygosh, this person is as excited
about me as I am about them. Andif you feel chemistry for them.
It feels great. It just feelsreciprocal. But then in time,
instead of it deepening, whichfirst of all, it's a flag in and
of itself. Of course, most of usnow know love bombing, but in
time, they actually pull awaymore rather than deepening the

(17:58):
relationship. Yeah, and this iswhy I think looking for somebody
who is consistent is soimportant because it can be so
confusing to to really identifythe emotionally unavailable
person you know. Do they? I lovethat you quoted this Marnie in

(18:18):
your book, and this is whathelped me start to shift out of
dating emotionally unavailablepeople when I was single, you
know, after my divorce in my30s. So not doing this as a kid,
not having dated really anyonenew since high school, I didn't
know what I was doing. So if youwere telling me you love me and
I'm great, I'm believing you,and a friend finally bought me

(18:43):
the now legendary book. He'sjust not that into you. And I
think there's still and youquoted in your book, and I think
there's still some truth tothis, that one of the things
that I learned to sit with is ifin my gut, like love, should
feel like a gradual building andin my gut, if I'm confused, if

(19:06):
I'm up and I'm down, if I don'tknow when you're gonna call or
text, if I'm questioning if youlike me, if I'm making excuses,
then not only are you just notthat into me, you're not
emotionally available. And it'stime to cut and put my energy
elsewhere. Do you agree withthat?

Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes and
furthermore, some of thesecircumstances are really, you
know, innocent. So sometimessomebody is emotionally
unavailable because they've gotsome kind of crisis in their
life, or they just learned afamily member is ill, or they
just switch jobs, or they justdon't have bandwidth at that
moment, it could be a perfectlygood person, but the timing is

(19:47):
off, and so that's possible too.
So I just want people to know,just because we're saying
emotionally unavailable, thereare multiple reasons. Some of
them are a little more likenefarious, you know, and some
are pretty innocent. And it run,it runs the range, but people,
you've got to respond, right?
You've got to respond to like,what you're getting, not trying

(20:08):
harder. And I think that's amistake a lot of people make.
They think, if I just changemyself, twist myself into this
pretzel, if I just, you know,look prettier or do whatever,
they're kind of lying tothemselves about what they need
to do when you just have to behonest about the situation and
the circumstance, you're gettingan accurate read on it, and

(20:29):
you're saying, all right, thisis what it is. This person's not
they're not pursuing me, orthey're not really showing
interest, or they keep backingoff, not not for me.

So how do you help women with this? Like, I mean,
when you have a woman coming toyou and, like, describing these
situations, but he did this, buthe didn't do that. And, you
know, I don't know how to readit, like, how do you help a
woman begin to, like, sort ofconfront the truth of an
emotionally unavailable guy?

Yeah, well, well, that's a good question.
And I think there's a lot.
Complexity around that dependingon the person. This could be a
much deeper therapeutic issue,or it could just be a little
more of like a surface strategykind of issue for for somebody.
So I think it's about asking theright questions, getting all the
information, getting somebackground and context for the

(21:20):
person you know, I want to makesure there's not some things
that are perhaps playing outthat have happened in their
early childhood. So there's somepattern playing out. Maybe they
had one parent that was veryemotionally unavailable, or an
alcoholic, or just traveled forwork all the time, and they were

(21:41):
just never around, whatever thereason, I want people to connect
some dots around that and aroundtheir history, or if they've had
something happen to them intheir life that's been
traumatic, or, you know,divorce, or, you know, maybe
they had a long termrelationship that was also
really bad or abusive, andthey're just coming out of that.

(22:03):
So I want to get a lot ofinformation about the back story
and the different circumstances,and then that will help me kind
of carve out like, okay, youknow, here's where we need to
go. Here are some goals that weneed to work on that might be a
place to start. Yeah,

okay. And so you talked a lot about, you know,
family of origin patterns, whywomen might be drawn to this,
looking, being willing to lookat your own patterns, you know,
not in a shaming way, or nothaving grace for yourself, just
trying to understand why, whenthis shows up, because we can
all find that we're being drawnto somebody who's emotionally

(22:44):
unavailable. But the differenceis maybe when you discover it,
some people say, okay, nothanks, and other people try
harder. And you know, that wascertainly me, when I was young,
I would just like, Okay, well,what do I have to do to get your
attention? And I related to alot of the stories in your book
about women who grew up infamilies of divorce. My parents

(23:04):
got divorced. I didn't reallysee secure attachment modeled
after a certain age, and I alsowitnessed a lot of like fighting
and chaos. And so there was alot I related to there. And I
think that is why, when peoplewant to go to a therapist, they
need to unpack those patternsand try to understand
themselves. But can you alsohelp the listener understand why

(23:30):
some of these men? I mean, Ithink there are a couple of
reasons, but I'd love to hearwhat you think is more
important, most important. Yousaid it runs the gamut. Why are
so many men emotionallyunavailable,

right?
Well, in part, they have theirtheir family of origin or
attachment history as well,could have been early
established patterns in theirlives that have contributed to
them being less emotionallyavailable. You know, I also
think a big piece of it is howmen are socialized. We know
women are socialized quitedifferently. So for men, we

(24:07):
don't usually help them enough,certainly with articulating and
naming their feelings or orhonoring their feelings and
giving them space to expressthem. I think men are socialized
more to be, you know, achievingand action oriented and goal
oriented and productive, and notas much relational, a little

(24:32):
more competitive. So thosethings, I think, contribute, and
so they get into an adult,romantic relationship with a
woman, and they don't feel likethey're up to par enough, or
they're not articulating theiremotions, or they're not
empathic, you know? And I dothink in some ways, certainly,
this could be what's going onbetween the couple, you know. I

(24:54):
know that I certainly met somewomen who their expectation is
like through the roof with that,and they're not seeing the
efforts, and they're not seeingthe way the man, perhaps, is
communicating, that they aremore emotionally available than
they're given credit for. But Ido think that there's some
circumstances where there's abig deficit, there's a big

(25:16):
deficit with with the men, for anumber of reasons, and I think
if you have more than one ofthese circumstances, like they
were raised in a family thatjust ended up fostering a very
avoidant attachment style, andthen nobody was there to really
talk to them about theirfeelings and help them
understand that type ofcommunication, they've got a few

(25:39):
layers of complexity with that.

And do you find that there's, like, a certain,
you know, a lot of women maybefall into this trap every now
and again, is like, wherethey're trying to, like, earn
the love from an emotionallyavailable men man, and it
becomes very addictive, likejust trying to get. To crack the
code of this individual becomeslike this addictive process in

(26:05):
and of itself, and so that whenthey finally do find somebody
who's giving them that trianglewe're talking about, where it's
unfolding, it feels very likeboring.

Yeah, that's possible as well. Yes, I
there's, there's plenty, Ithink, of women who are very
caught up in that effort thatyou're describing, that can
certainly feel addictive, andthat they feel that their love
can change them, or that theyhave the skill set to do
something about it. Sometimes Ithink they're even just feeling

(26:38):
sorry for the person you know.
So they're saying, like, I willnurse them to health. Basically,

Unknown (26:47):
yeah, out of love,

right,

right, exactly, yeah. And the neuro chemicals
that you can feel from theintermittent reinforcement of
somebody emotionallyunavailable, who is
inconsistent, can it just playswith your brain chemistry too,
you know? So that's anotherwhole component of it. So yeah,
there's the gamut of, you know,the dating when you might be

(27:10):
ghosted or breadcrumbed andlooking for these early warning
signs. And then there's being ina relationship. And Marnie, you
and I are both couplestherapists, you know, we'll hear
some of the same things fromwomen in our office, like, you
know, I he doesn't open up tome. I feel so lonely. He's here,
but I don't feel like anyone'shere. Even when he talks,

(27:33):
there's no depth to it. Hedoesn't I try to share with him
my emotions, but he's justtotally shut off. And a lot of
these men have learned theseearly tropes, like, you know,
I'm a burden to my partner. Ishouldn't put things on someone.
You know, sharing is bad. Orthey'll say, Why would I do
that? It doesn't feel better tome. I heard that a lot, right?

(27:58):
They'll see me

as weak,

right? Or I feel weak exactly so that societal
conditioning you describe isbig, and then what about the
more toxic variants on the morenarcissistic, maybe dark triad,
manipulative end of thespectrum?

Yeah, this, of course, is a really, really
difficult situation. And thewomen who usually find
themselves in theserelationships with men who may
have narcissistic or anti socialtraits are usually the most
empathic women, so it's almostlike they are. They're drawn to
each other like magnets and thendrive it crazy. You know, so

(28:41):
narcissistic men, we know, youknow, I learned a term. It's
something so it had something todo with how they often attract
people to them before they arethey even are known to that
person. The term is called Zeroacquaintance. It just came to
me,

zero. I never heard of explain this. This was
a fascinating term,

and this, this is because people who are
narcissistic tend to be goodlooking. They're charming. They
have this very like, this, veryinteresting vibe about them.
They draw people to them. Theyusually are very well groomed,
right? So they're often goodlooking too. And so you could
have that spark, or you feelthat spark just with that

(29:28):
person. And you're drawn to thembefore you, before they open
their mouth, before you knowanything about them. And then
once that happens, and then onceyou maybe have a date or two,
they have drawn you in even morewith their charm. So that could
be super troubling, because forthe woman, they're feeling that

(29:49):
limerence, you know, it's thatsort of those feelings of luster
infatuation, and they label itlove. And that's the other thing
I find with that that happens alot with women, is they're
labeling it love when it'sreally those early feelings and
it's not yet love. So that'svery problematic.

So it's limerence, it's not love, right,

right? It's limerence, exactly. It's not
quite love, but, but in theirheads, they're saying it is,
which is a problem for them,that's the way they're labeling
it.

Yes, and these rotten bastards with their good
looks and well put togetheroutfits and their charisma, it
is, I love this zero

Dr. Marni Feurerm (30:35):
acquaintance.

Was it like, no. I mean, are these men like in the
mirror, going, like, I'm gonnahave people attracted to me
without even having to open mymouth. I'm just gonna be a force
field.

I think they get used to it happening,
and they do like it. But again,once, once, the where they, you
know, the rubber meets the road,and they have to start showing
maybe. Need something more thanthat, or the depth that is
involved in a relationship, it'scompletely lacking. They can't
do it. And worse than that,sometimes, because they feel

(31:12):
they actually at their core,fear a lot, feel a lot of shame
and inferiority, they're goingto do everything to bring the
woman down, and so they're goingto slowly start stripping the
woman away of her, you know,self esteem. So it's a really
bad circumstance. So a woman whohas, you know, maybe a stronger

(31:32):
sense of self esteem andconfidence, and they do feel
good about themselves, and theyhave more of a secure attachment
style, they will often be ableto, at that point, say, you're
not for me and walk away. Yeah,but a lot of women don't do
that. They they're it's likethey're in the the clutches of

(31:53):
that situation, and it's reallyhard for them to get out of the

frog and boiling water. So and can we go to
before we talk a little bit moreabout getting out of these
situations. Can we talk for aminute again about the woman
involved with the married manthat we mentioned at the
beginning? And can you describebecause I think that can happen
to more people. It's kind oflike even with infidelity, you

(32:19):
know, 80 something percent ofpeople say they're completely
morally opposed to infidelity,and we know from Shirley glasses
work, you know, not justfriends, that a lot of times
people are not setting out forthese situations to unfold
again. I'm not excusing it. Itis not the right choice. There
are other ways to deal with yourproblems that are not only, you

(32:41):
know, morally superior, butcause you less grief. But this
does happen. So what's going onthere? And you have some very,
very straightforward advice towomen who find themselves in
these circumstances,

yes. So you're correct in that a lot of
times, when the woman meets thisparticular man who's married,
they don't know that they'remarried, and the guy is lying,
so they say that they aren't, orthey say that they're separated,
or they they really give a lotof stories, but it's completely

(33:16):
not true, and with with thesesituations, you could have a
tremendous amount of chemistry,and then the guy is
breadcrumbing and whatever,doing whatever it takes, maybe
to just keep stringing youalong. And when you try to pull
away, they just up the ante tokeep keep you in but they then

(33:37):
will start to lie a lot. Sothat's also what I found. They
will just say, Well, I'm justwaiting for my kid to be in high
school, or graduate high school,or I'm just waiting for this. Or
my wife has a terminal illnessand she's going to die any
minute now, like they're sayingall sorts of things,

or my wife's terrible she doesn't understand
me, right? That will

describe horrible situations exactly at
home, and it also preys on yoursympathy. And again, women can
be very sympathetic andempathetic, and so they're just
kept, they're just kept in thatcircumstance. And the truth is,
from again, there's not atremendous amount of research,
but from what I read, thecircumstances of the person

(34:22):
actually leaving their spousefor the affair partner is
extremely low, something likeless than 5% it's extremely,
extremely low. And then if theydo leave, the chances of that
relationship working out is alsoextremely low. So you're looking
at maybe like a 1% chance, andyou're letting your life just

(34:46):
fly by, and you're then notputting yourself in the path of
maybe men who are available. Sothe circumstance is just awful.
So in general, my advice is,unless you have, like,
irrefutable proof that that guyis leaving the wife for you

(35:08):
leave. Just assume he isn'tgoing to. Assume it's never

going to happen.
Get out. It's it's the road tomisery.

It to your point.
Colette about the bifurcatedstrategy, like some men live
their whole lives in abifurcated strategy, like even
what you were talking about inthe book about how a lot of
people love these like longdistance relationships scenario,
which is just another way oflike gaging intimacy. So it's
like we see each other in aweekend. It seems to be heading
somewhere, but it's like headingnowhere,

and there's a lot of passion when they are
waking up and seeing each other,and because it's secretive, that
adds to the whole passion of itall too,

right? No one's farting next to you every night
in bed. Yeah, right, right offthe floor

and that, yeah, exactly. Sorry, husband,
they're showing you the bestversion of themselves, right?
Right, so do I can do I like,understand it intellectually,
how a woman could get caught upwith a man like this. I totally
can understand it. They aregiving you the best version of
themselves in those moments, butyou, but it's not reality. It

(36:18):
does also have an addictivequality to

it as well. Yep.
And I want to add one thing tothe married man, thing that I've
seen a lot in my office too, toadd to your rare occasions,
right? It's extremely rare thatthis man will ever leave his
wife, no matter what he tellsyou, A, B, if he does. It's
extremely rare. Like the studiesI saw, were that less than 3% of
those relationships work out,and then when they do ice, and

(36:45):
I'm sure you see this too,Marnie, I see these couples in
my office, and there is almostlike a fundamental underlying
mistrust. Because, you know, ifyou I'll say to people, if
you've ridden a horse and oneday you fall off the horse, your
brain is never going to forgetthat you can fall off a horse.
Maybe you choose to keep riding,but your brain always notes.

(37:06):
Their brains always know whatcan happen. Their template is
people can cheat under certaincircumstances, so you're already
disadvantaging the relationshipto be very insecurely attached.
And I see couples reallystruggle with that. So I loved
seeing in the book that youradvice is so straightforward. I
think it's so helpful that,again, not condoning it, but

(37:29):
let's normalize that thishappens a lot more than anyone
wants to admit. And if you findyourself in that situation,
we're not saying it's easy, butreally you got to get yourself
out, because it's not going toend well, not to mention what
could happen to your reputation,or all of those other things if
these affairs usually getdiscovered eventually,

right, right? And also it, the other
complications, I think, that endup happening is, if you do end
up with this person, theirfamily isn't going to just
expect you, right? That guy'skids isn't just gonna be like,
Yeah, another mom, I'm so happy.
Partner, no fairy tale ending.

(38:10):
Yes, it's really rough.

That's another great point that you then are
gonna struggle with the familydynamics.

You know, something else that I see too is
like women who are with thislike, really charismatic guy
who's, like, very intermittent,and they, they're like, you know
how, like, monkeys grab, theycapture monkeys by, like, having
them grab a hold of a banana andthey won't let it go, and then
the monkey just stays there.
Like, that's like, the womanthey believe. They say to me all
the time, but he's gonna, he'sgonna change for someone. He's

(38:39):
gonna marry the next woman thatcomes along. And, like, they
believe that, like, he'll changefor the right person. I've been
done all this work with thisguy, and then he's gonna, like,
the whole idea of the marriedman, like I've put all this time
in, and he's gonna marry thenext woman that comes along, and
it keeps them there. It's justsad. Yeah,

it is. It's very sad. And believe it or not,
there's also been circumstances.
In fact, I have a vignette inthe in the book, where somebody
was in a affair with a with amarried man for a while, single
woman with it with a marriedman, and he did end up divorcing
his wife, but then he dumpedher, so she was obviously

(39:25):
serving some other purpose, butthat isn't who he ended up with
or who he wanted, and that, tome, is so, I mean,
heartbreaking. So, so, yes, I'mpretty straightforward in the
book, like just, she'll do it.

Just so glad that you give that advice, because I
think it's really important andreally, you know, unless a man
who's emotionally unavailable iswilling to put in a lot of time
and effort to doing his ownwork, most likely, even though
you think to leur your pointabout the banana, like he's
going to do this for some woman,despite what you may see in the

(40:05):
future on his highlight reel,he's most likely repeating the
same pattern with the next womanof seeming fantastic at the
beginning and then being totallydisconnected and unavailable.
And so he's probably going to goon to make somebody else
unhappy. And in the long run,you'll realize whatever
ghosting, breadcrumbing,whatever drove you finally out,

(40:27):
did you a big favor,

right?
Absolutely no. I think you'vegot to reframe that, and you've
got to focus on the future andnot what just might have
happened to you with thatperson. And you know, there's,
there's a lot it just, I think,in the mindset shift that, hey,
that person was not for you,they weren't right for you. And
yes, those feelings that you hadwere real. But regardless of the

(40:52):
feelings, what is so much moreimportant are all of the other
things that. To make a healthyrelationship, like being
consistent and being present,creating emotional safety, being
reliable, responsible. Theproblem that I, you know, see
and hear as I'm sure you bothdo, is sometimes those words are

(41:15):
not synonymous with love andromance. You know, they almost
sound like you said, eitherboring or you're just not
feeling some kind of energy orsomething that you need to feel.
And I think that really worriesme about about people, you know,
worries me being that thedivorce rate is still pretty
high. It's still like 50% so Ireally want people to pay

(41:38):
attention to what goes on earlyand while they're dating. And
dating is that phase that issupposed to be for you to really
get to know somebody and get toknow if they are right for you,
and that they are checking theboxes that you have in your
mind, usually around that rightaround, are they caring? Are

(42:00):
they are they safe? Are theyconsistent? Are they reliable?
Are they responsible? Theyaccountable? Like all of those
things are what I would ratherpeople think about. And do you
share? Do you have a sharedvalue system, or your core
values in alignment? That's somuch more important.

Does this relationship meet my needs? Does
this work for me? Not so much.
Oh, my God. Do you like me? Doyou like me? Do you like me? I
mean, I can have a lot ofcompassion for myself for being
drawn to this in my youngeryears, and I like to think that
I've done the work to evolve outof it, but I've also been in a
relationship now for 13 yearswith somebody who is not does
not fit these things at all. Butyou know, who knows if I were

(42:43):
out there dating again, it canbe very slippery and tricky. I
think the key is that ideally,what you're saying, let's pay
attention to these early signs,not just the fireworks and
chemistry, because we'rechoosing a life partner and to
some degree, Healthy Love isboring, but boring is actually
safe, and the pathway toemotional intimacy and really

(43:06):
having a true partner in life,which in the long run, isn't
boring at all. It's just notchaos. And that's very, very
different. So you have thisgreat acronym in the book to get
smart, and obviously you guys goget the book, because we can't
explain all of this in the shorttime we have, but give a little

(43:26):
sense of what you're encouragingpeople to do in this process and
how you help people in therapy.
You know, Laura already askedyou about the beginning, but
what does that look like? Yeah,

so I want people to think about goals in
relationally too, not just goalsfor work or a hobby, right?
Think about what you want andhow you want to feel with
somebody, and that if thatperson doesn't make you feel
that way, and you know in yourgut that something is off, that

(43:58):
you've gotta really payattention to it. And so that's
about like getting smart, tuninginto that, maybe doing some
therapeutic work. Again, if youfind that it's a pattern that
you keep picking the same type,or you seem to have bad luck
with, with every you know, everyrelationship, it may be worth
getting an outside pair of eyesto kind of help you become aware

(44:21):
of the signs, the patterns,what's going on, connecting
those dots, maybe around, youknow, some of the early
established patterns in yourfamily. I think that's, like,
really important. And alsodeveloping more self awareness,
and we can do that in therapy.
And then sometimes we can getfeedback from other people, like
think about people in yourtrusted circle. Might be a

(44:43):
friend, it may not be a familymember, but maybe a friend that
you really trust, and you thinkhas their themselves together,
and they've chosen a healthypartner, maybe ask them for
feedback. I think having some ofthese, being brave enough to
have some of theseconversations, I think is going
to be really, really critical.

(45:05):
So I think you can learn a lotabout you know what not to do
and the type of person to avoid.
But I also have a chapter in thebook that's titled, maybe it's
you, you know, because notagain, not to shame anybody, but
I think you may need someinsights about your yourself and
how you are putting yourself insome of these circumstances,

(45:27):
possibly over and over, and Ithink that's going to be really
important. So it's who youchoose, but also about about you
and yourself, and what versionof you are you bringing into
these circumstances?

Yes, you know. And I see the women that they like,
because we're all going tointerface, if you're out there
long enough, you're going to,especially at this phase of
life, there's a lot of these menfloating around, right? It's
about the women that look at itand they feel it in their
bodies, and they're like, Thisdoesn't feel right. Like this is
not compatible with my nervoussystem. I can't do this. And.

(46:01):
And they like, catch andrelease, and they release
quickly, right? Like, back to mybanana metaphor, yeah, you know.
But it's like, can you get goodat owning like, what fits for
you and like, this doesn't workfor me, yeah? Rather than trying
to retrofit this man intosomething that's gonna work,

(46:21):
take

that product.
Project, because I guaranteeit's not going to be fun.

Yes, yes, you don't want a project. That
was definitely my problem a lotas well. So I can totally relate
to that. And the thing I alsofind, I mean, we're in helping
professions. If you're in ahelping profession, believe it
or not, you're more likely toget involved with somebody who
is a project or needs help, orneeds to evolve in some way, and

(46:49):
you're going to step in and doit, or you're going to re parent
them the way they should havebeen parented. Yeah, however it

is, where you make excuses for their deficient
childhood, and, yes, exactly,all

dangerous circumstances, and I say just
very, very careful.

Yeah, so really, having that self awareness,
looking at your patterns, likeyou said, Laura, like catch and
release, we're all gonna, thisis gonna, if you're out there
dating, this is gonna float by,and you may find yourself
tingling with this dynamic moreoften than you'd like in the
dating world, but can youidentify it and feel how not
good it feels in your nervoussystem and trust yourself, honor

(47:28):
that that's where you have toreally choose yourself. We've
all made these mistakes, even ifit's years ago. I know you're
both married a really long time.
I just want to throw a shout outtoo, for how hard it is when you
know, when you're like what usedto happen to me years ago, when
I was dating, I would know. Butbecause we all have parts of
self, parts of me would know,other parts of me would be

(47:52):
getting a lot of cookies fromthese dynamics that were very
addictive. So I would resolve tobe done. And then something
would happen where this person,you know, the push pull dynamic,
you withdraw some of these guys,then start to pursue and in
fact, a lot of dating advice ismake people chase you, which

(48:12):
makes me cringe. I'm not sayingthere shouldn't be a degree of
mystery or pursuit, but playinggames to manipulate somebody so
they come after you when you'reonly the prize you're going to
get in the long run is alifetime of loneliness and
emotional frustration, not agame I want to sign up for
anymore,

right?
Right? I think people have todistinguish between, like, what
their feelings are about, andsometimes it's just attachment,
system activation, yes, rightinside right is saying, this is
familiar, and it got paired withlove. If a parent, like, let's
say a woman's father will say,for ease of just an example, was

(48:56):
an alcoholic and was veryemotionally unavailable. And you
know that circumstance you mightget into in dating feels the
same, it feels comfortable, andso that got like paired together
or conflated with love, right?

(49:16):
Your definition of love mightbe, someone doesn't pay a lot of
attention to you. Someone isabsent. Somebody drinks or
however it is, you've got torevise your definition. You've
got to revise that. And a lot oftimes I'm just saying to people
something like, just because youfeel it doesn't make it so or
doesn't make it right for you.
You know we need, like, theNational part of the brain to

(49:39):
talk to that emotional side tosee what is, what is really
going on here. And let's make agood, deliberate decision that
is healthy for you and doesn'tjust feel like home, because
it's what happened there,

right from your wisest, most adult self, not
from an emotional part, not froma young part inside that just is
drawn to what's familiar,because we're all going to have
that, but we can outgrow ourfamily of origin patterns by
being self aware and workingabsolutely

yes, I mean, and that's what I also
impart in the book, that there,there is absolutely hope for for
you, if you're listening,there's a lot of hope, and you
can make These changes. I'm notgoing to say that they're easy,
but luckily, I think we havebetter science, we have better
therapeutic methods, we havethere's a lot available to
people now that I wasn'tavailable long ago, and we know

(50:34):
a lot more, and there's a lotmore hard research about it. So
know that you can make changes.
You don't have to be doomed tojust repeat the these cycles
over and over again.

That's such great advice to end on. Thank you so
much, Marnie. And can you telleveryone the name of your book
again, and then how to find youand and all that good stuff.
Sure.

So the book is called ghosted and breadcrumb
stop falling. Unavailable menand get smart about healthy
relationships. And it'savailable everywhere books are
sold, and of course, Amazon, andit's available on audio if you
aren't into reading it. And Ihave two websites. One is Doctor
Marnie online.com, that's allone word. And I have a

(51:20):
checklist, if anybody wants toget. It's a free download to
help you determine if you are ina relationship with an
unavailable partner. So it'seasy to find right on that
website. And then mypsychotherapy website is the
talking solution.com.

Great, and we'll put links to everything in our
show notes.

This has just been really helpful. I know I have
several clients that reallystruggle with this, and I think
it's just something that womencan like really begin to heal
themselves and get into much,much better relationships that
they deserve. So this is a hugeresource. So thank you for being
here.

Thank you.
I love talking about this topic,and it was so nice talking with
the both of you about it, Ireally appreciate it.

Likewise, Marnie, thank you. You.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Burden

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep.76: Mr. Unavailable: Breaking Free From Loving Emotionally Unavailable Men with Dr. Marni Feuerman

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Burden

All Episodes

Ep.76: Mr. Unavailable: Breaking Free From Loving Emotionally Unavailable Men with Dr. Marni Feuerman

Stuff You Should Know