Insights from the Couch - Real Talk for Women at Midlife

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

• Colette Fehr, Laura Bowman • Season 6 • Episode 76

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In this heartfelt and revealing episode, we dive deep into the patterns, red flags, and emotional toll of loving someone who just can’t meet you emotionally. We’re joined by our brilliant friend Dr. Marni Feuerman—psychotherapist, author of Ghosted and Breadcrumbed, and relationship expert regularly featured in outlets like Psychology Today and SELF. Together, we unpack the signs of emotional unavailability, why so many women get stuck in these painful dynamics, and how to reclaim your power and self-worth in love.

If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in a loop of confusing relationships, holding out hope for someone to change, or caught in the charm of a man who’s all spark and no follow-through, this episode is for you. We explore everything from love bombing and ghosting to deeper therapeutic patterns rooted in childhood attachment. Whether you’re dating, healing from heartbreak, or helping a friend, this conversation offers insight, validation, and practical advice to help you break free and choose healthier love.

 

Episode Highlights:

[0:02] - Welcoming Dr. Marni and introducing her book Ghosted and Breadcrumbed
[2:45] - What defines emotional unavailability and its many forms
[5:00] - Dating dynamics: the seductive yet misleading early connection
[6:27] - Ghosting explained—why it happens and how it impacts the nervous system
[11:37] - Breadcrumbing: what it is and how it keeps you stuck
[14:37] - What healthy dating should look like (hint: it’s consistent)
[18:23] - When emotional inconsistency feels like love (but isn’t)
[22:44] - Why some men are emotionally unavailable: socialization, trauma, and patterns
[27:17] - The dark triad: narcissism, charm, and emotional manipulation
[31:54] - Affairs with married men: why they’re more common than you think and rarely end well
[38:00] - Hard truths about “being the one he’ll finally choose”
[42:37] - How therapy and self-awareness help you break the cycle
[45:25] - The danger of “projects” and choosing from compassion instead of compatibility
[48:53] - Attachment wounds, revising your definition of love, and healing forward
[49:43] - Final encouragement from Dr. Marni and where to find her work

 

Links & Resources

 

Pre-order The Cost of Quiet now! Colette’s new book, The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations that Create Secure, Lasting Love, launches February 3rd. Secure your copy today and get VIP bonuses available only before launch day. https://www.colettejanefehr.com/new-book

🎙️ Love the podcast? Come talk about episodes with us inside The Midlife Chat. It’s a free, private community just for women at midlife who want to keep these conversations going. We’ve created this space for real talk, fresh resources, and honest connection—where you can share ideas and resources, ask questions, and get support from women navigating the same season. Come join us—we’d love to have you!

👉 [Join The Midlife Chat here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/795863256460970/?rdid=QDc8ryzocgFpBrbm#]

Pre-order The Cost of Quiet now! Colette’s new book, The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations that Create Secure, Lasting Love, launches February 3rd. Secure your copy today and get VIP bonuses available only before launch day.

Colette Fehr:

All right, we're so excited for today we have Dr Marnie, fireman, our good friend and internationally renowned psychotherapist who specializes in relationships and is often consulted by the media, all the outlets you know, Huff Post, ask.com Psychology Today, SELF magazine USA Today. I mean, she's everywhere, and she knows her 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 topic that is near and dear to my heart, how to break free from loving the emotionally unavailable man. Now, of course, I just want to give a little caveat that emotionally unavailable partners come in all gender, sexual identification, so on and so forth. But there are a lot of emotionally unavailable men out there, and there's a reason for this, which I'm going to start by asking you, Marnie, so we're going to focus in on that in particular. But of course, this may apply to you no matter who you are and how your partner identifies. So with that said, Marnie, welcome. First of all, thanks for being here. So great to be here. Thank you both. We're excited to have you. And of course, you wrote a whole book on this called ghosted and breadcrumbed, and tell me the subtitle again. Yeah, stop falling for unavailable men and get smart about healthy relationships. Yes, amen to that. Okay, so maybe you could start by telling us, what does this look like? What constitutes, what are some of the hallmarks of an emotionally unavailable man or partner? Yeah, so very broadly, I'm talking about a man who puts up barriers to intimacy. Sometimes they're intentional, sometimes they're unintentional, because people are doing this sometimes, and they don't realize they're doing this. And there could be a whole lot of reasons why, but they are pulling away from emotional intimacy. They're not moving towards it. They're not moving towards that or vulnerability in a romantic relationship. And so that is, loosely the definition of unavailability, yeah, and you, you talk about married men that are dating out there and like, the, there's the you're the other woman to a married man. What are all the versions of the unavailable man? Yeah, I include that. I don't think there's a whole lot of resources out there for women who are in a relationship with somebody who isn't available because they are married to somebody else, but it does happen, and in fact, that is what sparked the idea for the book. Because I wrote, I write a lot of blogs and articles, as you know, and one that got a lot of attention, a lot of views, a lot of shares, was one about how to walk away from a relationship with a married man, so obviously geared towards women. And so I thought, oh my gosh, like there must be a need. There must be an audience out there of people who are desperate for some resources, who find themselves in this situation. And I learned, certainly, a whole lot about and we could do almost a separate show just on that, about what I learned about women who do become involved, become the, what's called the affair partner. And also, you know a lot about some of the men and about this situation and circumstance. And so it's quite sad, because women are often fed information, or they're told and made promises by these men. And so they are their lives are just passing them by because they're waiting and waiting. And of course, they feel like they're in love. They believe it's love, and they're finding that their their hopes and their dreams are pretty much crushed at some point. So it's not a good situation. But yes, I do talk extensively about being involved with a ma, with somebody married as well in this book, yeah, and I want to get into some of that too, because I think there's so much stigma and shame around that that nobody wants to raise their hand and say, Yeah, that's me, and I need help with that. But it does go on quite a bit. And so there are these different iterations of how being in an emotionally unavailable relationship, or being in a relationship with someone who is emotionally unavailable, can look there's the version of you're with someone who's unavailable because they're married to someone else, which, in and of itself, means they can't possibly be available to you. And the fact that they're emotionally unavailable may be a big part of why they're in this bifurcated. Relationship stance, because somebody who deals with their problems constructively and directly is usually not seeking and is available for true intimacy, is usually not seeking to maintain multiple relationships at the same time. But I want to back up even further for a second into you know, of course, there's the dating part, and maybe let's start with that for a minute. Sure, maybe you can even get into a lot of people may know, but ghosted and breadcrumb give us a definition for that, because some of this begins in dating, and I've got to tell you, I have a long history of dating an emotionally unavailable man, and you know, I never was looking for it. The warning signs were not super obvious. A lot of times these men can show up very, seemingly, very intensely connected at the beginning, they they feign vulnerability right when it's when it's not really requiring true intimacy. So it feels very connected. They're in hot pursuit. They're often alpha males. They're successful, they're charming, they know how to treat a woman, they say the right things. I never in my life thought, Oh, let me go find an emotionally unavailable man. I can't wait to be tortured for the next three years. So let's talk about what this can look like in dating, and then maybe you can give our listeners a definition for both ghosted and breadcrumb, because those are two hot terms. Yeah,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

so ghost ghosting and being ghosted, we know has been around for quite a while, and is probably the most popular of these dating terms that kind of came out to describe some of these unfortunate dating experiences. And so ghosting is just when someone disappears on you without any explanation and no communication. And some of what I found when I was researching for the book is that it really leaves people feeling just awful. It's, it's the unknown, it's, a lot of confusion, not having something that, even if it's just, hey, I don't see a future, or the chemistry wasn't there for me, something simple that a person can just offer that person they were dating is so, so helpful. So a lot of people are not getting that. They're not even getting anything, even if, after they have a date where they feel like they had a really wonderful time and like you're saying, they might be feeling chemistry and the conversation flowed really well. Ghosting is really a terrible habit, unless, you know, certainly there's caveats to these things, like, if you felt like someone was dangerous and you know there was some risk to you, go ahead and ghost, but I would say 99% of the circumstances just kind of wrap it up and just say something so that the person knows, you know, get some small explanation of what happened, and

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

right? I think people are just very intimidated by such direct communication. And unfortunately, that's not getting a whole lot better with the generation raised on technology, and a lot is through texting and things like that. So it's just easier to just ghost. So I think a lot can get in the way of just assertive communication for people. So this, of course, goes for both men and women, and I, and I know you're writing so much on this topic, so I'd love to talk more with you about it, but I think there's reasons someone just gets in their own way. It's kind of they're tripping over

Colette Fehr:

themselves. What's uncomfortable to sit and tell someone Yeah, and there's no you're rejecting

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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

Colette Fehr:

that, but you cause far more pain. Now, it's one thing to at the end of a date or a date didn't go well, to just go someone. I mean, that's cruel enough. And in fact, because I was once ghosted by somebody I was actually dating, he met another woman on a plane and never called me again. And because this wasn't my first rodeo with his bullshit, I just was at a point that, even though it was so uncertain, I was like, You know what? I'm just done, whatever the explanation is, I don't give a fuck, and I'm not contacting him ever again,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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

Laura Bowman:

but very often it's like the intimacy is heating up for that person. It's they're getting, having to be accountable and having to lean close into that relationship. Maybe they've made promises that they don't really intend to actually make real, and so in that point, they exit in a really confused. Same way, right? Colette, is that what you're like basically describing,

Colette Fehr:

yeah, and I think for me personally, I didn't take it personally. However. I agree that oftentimes people do, but I will say that what it does to your nervous system to have a connection with someone. In my case, there was a whole relationship that had gone on, and this was like a time we had gotten back together to go from that just on an attachment level in your limbic system, you know, your emotional nervous system, which you guys all know, but for our listeners to go from that to just being left with no closure, no explanation, not even the respect of like goodbye is so awful to do to some so even if you know this is a reflection of this person and their effed 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 repair conversation with this person who took accountability, acknowledged we're friends. My husband knows him, and he has continued this behavior with other women, despite his contrition toward me so and if he's listening, sorry buddy. I love you, but it's really messed up to do that. Yes,

Laura Bowman:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

Yeah, so two different things here, but, well, maybe they're, they're certainly like not introducing you to people in their life as a maybe a form of breadcrumbing, absolutely. But breadcrumb is like stringing somebody along. So you're giving them a little bit, just enough to keep them involved, but you're really not fully engaging, and so you might be doing things like not introducing them to people that are important to you, especially after enough time has gone by where that you know the relationship should develop into that it's almost like they're keeping their options open in case somebody better comes along. And you can kind of feel it. They're not so consistent with going out, or they'll they'll say, hey, I'll call you Friday, and then Friday comes and you don't hear from them. And so those are all bread crumbing type behavior, which, of course, is extremely frustrating,

Colette Fehr:

and I think it's so common in dating. I hear my daughters talking about this and dating. You know that it's so common in the younger generation when they just want to have a bunch of people like on the rotation. And I think some people are quite addicted to the supply of this feeling like there's somebody that when I feel like it, I can say, hey, like, what's up? And somebody will ping me back, and then at a register, right? And then I hear it at midlife, like Bethany Frankel, who, you know, is this famous television personality. I saw a video where she said, dating people in their 50s is like these. People want a pen pal. They want to like text you, but they never want to meet or engage or develop anything they just want something to keep them from boredom and feeling totally alone,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

right, right? And, of course, the people doing that are not emotionally available, of course.

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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 into that, but I think if it's a pattern, right, you're seeing repetitive behavior, a pattern of behavior, some bad sign consistently. That's when you really want to say, Hey, this is not good. This is a red flag. I really need to consider if I if this is what I want, or do I want to actually have a conversation about it, to see what's going on, right? Because,

Laura Bowman:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

I think, slowly and gradually, but you should see pretty consistent behavior. If someone says, I'm calling you on Friday and they don't call you on Friday, that's not consistent, so that their words, their actions, line up and match up. They're not overdoing it and love bombing, but they're also not playing like coy. And, you know, never pursuing so it's probably looking pretty balanced. It's somewhere in the middle. You know, you're taking time to get to know them. They're getting to know you. It just feels like, you know, the, I almost look at it like a, like an inverse triangle, right where it's very narrow at the bottom. But then as time goes on, it's getting wider and wider, and so the depth of the relationship is is getting a little bit deeper as you go along. It's a

Laura Bowman:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

yeah, taking risks and asking you and saying, like, Hey, is it this may feel too soon, so if you won't say, No, it's okay. But look, I'm having this party at my house. Would love to have you there, but my a few of my friends and even my cousin's going to be there. Will you come, you know, so they can introduce it that way, in a very disarming, casual kind of way, where they're not like, it's not overkill in how they're, you know, wanting to include that person in their life,

Colette Fehr:

right? And again, I just want to say that that, first of all, I love the inverse triangle, right? And a lot of people, what I wanted to say again is that with some of these people, what's so tricky about some emotionally unavailable men is that the triangle starts out the other way. There's so much love bombing, there's so much interest, there's so much fire, that you just feel like, oh my gosh, this person is as excited about me as I am about them. And if you feel chemistry for them. It feels great. It just feels reciprocal. But then in time, instead of it deepening, which first of all, it's a flag in and of itself. Of course, most of us now know love bombing, but in time, they actually pull away more rather than deepening the relationship. Yeah, and this is why I think looking for somebody who is consistent is so important because it can be so confusing to to really identify the emotionally unavailable person you know. Do they? I love that you quoted this Marnie in your book, and this is what helped me start to shift out of dating emotionally unavailable people when I was single, you know, after my divorce in my 30s. So not doing this as a kid, not having dated really anyone new since high school, I didn't know what I was doing. So if you were telling me you love me and I'm great, I'm believing you, and a friend finally bought me the now legendary book. He's just not that into you. And I think there's still and you quoted in your book, and I think there's still some truth to this, that one of the things that I learned to sit with is if in my gut, like love, should feel like a gradual building and in my gut, if I'm confused, if I'm up and I'm down, if I don't know when you're gonna call or text, if I'm questioning if you like me, if I'm making excuses, then not only are you just not that into me, you're not emotionally available. And it's time to cut and put my energy elsewhere. Do you agree with that?

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes and furthermore, some of these circumstances are really, you know, innocent. So sometimes somebody is emotionally unavailable because they've got some kind of crisis in their life, or they just learned a family member is ill, or they just switch jobs, or they just don't have bandwidth at that moment, it could be a perfectly good person, but the timing is off, and so that's possible too. So I just want people to know, just because we're saying emotionally unavailable, there are multiple reasons. Some of them are a little more like nefarious, 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 harder. And I think that's a mistake a lot of people make. They think, if I just change myself, twist myself into this pretzel, if I just, you know, look prettier or do whatever, they're kind of lying to themselves about what they need to do when you just have to be honest about the situation and the circumstance, you're getting an accurate read on it, and you're saying, all right, this is what it is. This person's not they're not pursuing me, or they're not really showing interest, or they keep backing off, not not for me.

Laura Bowman:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

Yeah, well, well, that's a good question. And I think there's a lot. Complexity around that depending on the person. This could be a much deeper therapeutic issue, or it could just be a little more of like a surface strategy kind of issue for for somebody. So I think it's about asking the right questions, getting all the information, getting some background and context for the person you know, I want to make sure there's not some things that are perhaps playing out that have happened in their early childhood. So there's some pattern playing out. Maybe they had one parent that was very emotionally unavailable, or an alcoholic, or just traveled for work all the time, and they were just never around, whatever the reason, I want people to connect some dots around that and around their history, or if they've had something happen to them in their life that's been traumatic, or, you know, divorce, or, you know, maybe they had a long term relationship that was also really bad or abusive, and they're just coming out of that. So I want to get a lot of information about the back story and the different circumstances, and then that will help me kind of carve out like, okay, you know, here's where we need to go. Here are some goals that we need to work on that might be a place to start. Yeah,

Colette Fehr:

okay. And so you talked a lot about, you know, family of origin patterns, why women might be drawn to this, looking, being willing to look at your own patterns, you know, not in a shaming way, or not having grace for yourself, just trying to understand why, when this shows up, because we can all find that we're being drawn to somebody who's emotionally unavailable. But the difference is maybe when you discover it, some people say, okay, no thanks, and other people try harder. And you know, that was certainly 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 a lot of the stories in your book about women who grew up in families of divorce. My parents got divorced. I didn't really see secure attachment modeled after a certain age, and I also witnessed a lot of like fighting and chaos. And so there was a lot I related to there. And I think that is why, when people want to go to a therapist, they need to unpack those patterns and try to understand themselves. But can you also help the listener understand why some of these men? I mean, I think there are a couple of reasons, but I'd love to hear what you think is more important, most important. You said it runs the gamut. Why are so many men emotionally unavailable,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

right? Well, in part, they have their their family of origin or attachment history as well, could have been early established patterns in their lives that have contributed to them being less emotionally available. You know, I also think a big piece of it is how men are socialized. We know women are socialized quite differently. So for men, we don't usually help them enough, certainly with articulating and naming their feelings or or honoring their feelings and giving them space to express them. I think men are socialized more to be, you know, achieving and action oriented and goal oriented and productive, and not as much relational, a little more competitive. So those things, I think, contribute, and so they get into an adult, romantic relationship with a woman, and they don't feel like they're up to par enough, or they're not articulating their emotions, or they're not empathic, you know? And I do think in some ways, certainly, this could be what's going on between the couple, you know. I know that I certainly met some women who their expectation is like through the roof with that, and they're not seeing the efforts, and they're not seeing the way the man, perhaps, is communicating, that they are more emotionally available than they're given credit for. But I do think that there's some circumstances where there's a big deficit, there's a big deficit with with the men, for a number of reasons, and I think if you have more than one of these circumstances, like they were raised in a family that just ended up fostering a very avoidant attachment style, and then nobody was there to really talk to them about their feelings and help them understand that type of communication, they've got a few layers of complexity with that.

Laura Bowman:

And do you find that there's, like, a certain, you know, a lot of women maybe fall into this trap every now and again, is like, where they're trying to, like, earn the love from an emotionally available men man, and it becomes very addictive, like just trying to get. To crack the code of this individual becomes like this addictive process in and of itself, and so that when they finally do find somebody who's giving them that triangle we're talking about, where it's unfolding, it feels very like boring.

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

Yeah, that's possible as well. Yes, I there's, there's plenty, I think, of women who are very caught up in that effort that you're describing, that can certainly feel addictive, and that they feel that their love can change them, or that they have the skill set to do something about it. Sometimes I think they're even just feeling sorry for the person you know. So they're saying, like, I will nurse them to health. Basically,

Unknown:

yeah, out of love,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

right,

Colette Fehr:

right, exactly, yeah. And the neuro chemicals that you can feel from the intermittent reinforcement of somebody emotionally unavailable, who is inconsistent, can it just plays with your brain chemistry too, you know? So that's another whole component of it. So yeah, there's the gamut of, you know, the dating when you might be ghosted or breadcrumbed and looking for these early warning signs. And then there's being in a relationship. And Marnie, you and I are both couples therapists, you know, we'll hear some of the same things from women in our office, like, you know, I he doesn't open up to me. I feel so lonely. He's here, but I don't feel like anyone's here. Even when he talks, there's no depth to it. He doesn't I try to share with him my emotions, but he's just totally shut off. And a lot of these men have learned these early tropes, like, you know, I'm a burden to my partner. I shouldn't put things on someone. You know, sharing is bad. Or they'll say, Why would I do that? It doesn't feel better to me. I heard that a lot, right? They'll see me

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

as weak,

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

Yeah, this, of course, is a really, really difficult situation. And the women who usually find themselves in these relationships with men who may have narcissistic or anti social traits are usually the most empathic women, so it's almost like they are. They're drawn to each other like magnets and then drive it crazy. You know, so narcissistic men, we know, you know, I learned a term. It's something so it had something to do with how they often attract people to them before they are they even are known to that person. The term is called Zero acquaintance. It just came to me,

Laura Bowman:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

and this, this is because people who are narcissistic tend to be good looking. They're charming. They have this very like, this, very interesting vibe about them. They draw people to them. They usually are very well groomed, right? So they're often good looking too. And so you could have that spark, or you feel that spark just with that person. And you're drawn to them before you, before they open their mouth, before you know anything about them. And then once that happens, and then once you maybe have a date or two, they have drawn you in even more with their charm. So that could be super troubling, because for the woman, they're feeling that limerence, you know, it's that sort of those feelings of luster infatuation, and they label it love. And that's the other thing I find with that that happens a lot with women, is they're labeling it love when it's really those early feelings and it's not yet love. So that's very problematic.

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

acquaintance.

Laura Bowman:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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 than that, or the depth that is involved in a relationship, it's completely lacking. They can't do it. And worse than that, sometimes, because they feel they actually at their core, fear a lot, feel a lot of shame and inferiority, they're going to do everything to bring the woman down, and so they're going to slowly start stripping the woman away of her, you know, self esteem. So it's a really bad circumstance. So a woman who has, you know, maybe a stronger sense of self esteem and confidence, and they do feel good about themselves, and they have more of a secure attachment style, they will often be able to, 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 like they're in the the clutches of that situation, and it's really hard for them to get out of the

Colette Fehr:

frog and boiling water. So and can we go to before we talk a little bit more about getting out of these situations. Can we talk for a minute again about the woman involved with the married man that we mentioned at the beginning? And can you describe because I think that can happen to more people. It's kind of like even with infidelity, you know, 80 something percent of people say they're completely morally opposed to infidelity, and we know from Shirley glasses work, you know, not just friends, that a lot of times people are not setting out for these situations to unfold again. I'm not excusing it. It is not the right choice. There are other ways to deal with your problems that are not only, you know, morally superior, but cause you less grief. But this does happen. So what's going on there? And you have some very, very straightforward advice to women who find themselves in these circumstances,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

yes. So you're correct in that a lot of times, when the woman meets this particular man who's married, they don't know that they're married, and the guy is lying, so they say that they aren't, or they say that they're separated, or they they really give a lot of stories, but it's completely not true, and with with these situations, 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 you along. And when you try to pull away, they just up the ante to keep keep you in but they then will start to lie a lot. So that's also what I found. They will just say, Well, I'm just waiting 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 illness and she's going to die any minute now, like they're saying all sorts of things,

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

describe horrible situations exactly at home, and it also preys on your sympathy. And again, women can be very sympathetic and empathetic, and so they're just kept, they're just kept in that circumstance. And the truth is, from again, there's not a tremendous amount of research, but from what I read, the circumstances of the person actually leaving their spouse for the affair partner is extremely low, something like less than 5% it's extremely, extremely low. And then if they do leave, the chances of that relationship working out is also extremely low. So you're looking at maybe like a 1% chance, and you're letting your life just fly by, and you're then not putting yourself in the path of maybe men who are available. So the circumstance is just awful. So in general, my advice is, unless you have, like, irrefutable proof that that guy is leaving the wife for you leave. Just assume he isn't going to. Assume it's never

Colette Fehr:

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

Laura Bowman:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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 it all too,

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

and that, yeah, exactly. Sorry, husband, they're showing you the best version of themselves, right? Right, so do I can do I like, understand it intellectually, how a woman could get caught up with a man like this. I totally can understand it. They are giving you the best version of themselves in those moments, but you, but it's not reality. It does also have an addictive quality to

Colette Fehr:

it as well. Yep. And I want to add one thing to the married man, thing that I've seen a lot in my office too, to add to your rare occasions, right? It's extremely rare that this man will ever leave his wife, no matter what he tells you, A, B, if he does. It's extremely rare. Like the studies I saw, were that less than 3% of those relationships work out, and then when they do ice, and I'm sure you see this too, Marnie, I see these couples in my office, and there is almost like a fundamental underlying mistrust. Because, you know, if you I'll say to people, if you've ridden a horse and one day you fall off the horse, your brain is never going to forget that you can fall off a horse. Maybe you choose to keep riding, but your brain always notes. Their brains always know what can happen. Their template is people can cheat under certain circumstances, so you're already disadvantaging the relationship to be very insecurely attached. And I see couples really struggle with that. So I loved seeing in the book that your advice is so straightforward. I think it's so helpful that, again, not condoning it, but let's normalize that this happens a lot more than anyone wants to admit. And if you find yourself in that situation, we're not saying it's easy, but really you got to get yourself out, because it's not going to end well, not to mention what could happen to your reputation, or all of those other things if these affairs usually get discovered eventually,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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

Colette Fehr:

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

Laura Bowman:

You know, something else that I see too is like women who are with this like, really charismatic guy who's, like, very intermittent, and they, they're like, you know how, like, monkeys grab, they capture monkeys by, like, having them grab a hold of a banana and they won't let it go, and then the monkey just stays there. Like, that's like, the woman they believe. They say to me all the time, but he's gonna, he's gonna change for someone. He's gonna marry the next woman that comes along. And, like, they believe that, like, he'll change for the right person. I've been done all this work with this guy, and then he's gonna, like, the whole idea of the married man, like I've put all this time in, and he's gonna marry the next woman that comes along, and it keeps them there. It's just sad. Yeah,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

it is. It's very sad. And believe it or not, there's also been circumstances. In fact, I have a vignette in the in the book, where somebody was in a affair with a with a married man for a while, single woman with it with a married man, and he did end up divorcing his wife, but then he dumped her, so she was obviously serving some other purpose, but that isn't who he ended up with or who he wanted, and that, to me, is so, I mean, heartbreaking. So, so, yes, I'm pretty straightforward in the book, like just, she'll do it.

Colette Fehr:

Just so glad that you give that advice, because I think it's really important and really, you know, unless a man who's emotionally unavailable is willing to put in a lot of time and effort to doing his own work, most likely, even though you think to leur your point about the banana, like he's going to do this for some woman, despite what you may see in the future on his highlight reel, he's most likely repeating the same pattern with the next woman of seeming fantastic at the beginning and then being totally disconnected and unavailable. And so he's probably going to go on to make somebody else unhappy. And in the long run, you'll realize whatever ghosting, breadcrumbing, whatever drove you finally out, did you a big favor,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

right? Absolutely no. I think you've got to reframe that, and you've got to focus on the future and not what just might have happened to you with that person. 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 had were real. But regardless of the feelings, what is so much more important are all of the other things that. To make a healthy relationship, like being consistent and being present, creating emotional safety, being reliable, responsible. The problem that I, you know, see and hear as I'm sure you both do, is sometimes those words are not synonymous with love and romance. You know, they almost sound like you said, either boring or you're just not feeling some kind of energy or something that you need to feel. And I think that really worries me about about people, you know, worries me being that the divorce rate is still pretty high. It's still like 50% so I really want people to pay attention to what goes on early and while they're dating. And dating is that phase that is supposed to be for you to really get to know somebody and get to know if they are right for you, and that they are checking the boxes that you have in your mind, usually around that right around, are they caring? Are they are they safe? Are they consistent? Are they reliable? Are they responsible? They accountable? Like all of those things are what I would rather people think about. And do you share? Do you have a shared value system, or your core values in alignment? That's so much more important.

Colette Fehr:

Does this relationship meet my needs? Does this work for me? Not so much. Oh, my God. Do you like me? Do you like me? Do you like me? I mean, I can have a lot of compassion for myself for being drawn to this in my younger years, and I like to think that I've done the work to evolve out of it, but I've also been in a relationship now for 13 years with somebody who is not does not fit these things at all. But you know, who knows if I were out there dating again, it can be 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're choosing a life partner and to some degree, Healthy Love is boring, but boring is actually safe, and the pathway to emotional intimacy and really having a true partner in life, which in the long run, isn't boring at all. It's just not chaos. And that's very, very different. So you have this great acronym in the book to get smart, and obviously you guys go get the book, because we can't explain all of this in the short time we have, but give a little sense of what you're encouraging people to do in this process and how you help people in therapy. You know, Laura already asked you about the beginning, but what does that look like? Yeah,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

so I want people to think about goals in relationally too, not just goals for work or a hobby, right? Think about what you want and how you want to feel with somebody, and that if that person doesn't make you feel that way, and you know in your gut that something is off, that you've gotta really pay attention to it. And so that's about like getting smart, tuning into that, maybe doing some therapeutic work. Again, if you find that it's a pattern that you keep picking the same type, or you seem to have bad luck with, with every you know, every relationship, it may be worth getting an outside pair of eyes to kind of help you become aware of the signs, the patterns, what's going on, connecting those dots, maybe around, you know, some of the early established patterns in your family. I think that's, like, really important. And also developing more self awareness, and we can do that in therapy. And then sometimes we can get feedback from other people, like think about people in your trusted circle. Might be a friend, it may not be a family member, but maybe a friend that you really trust, and you think has their themselves together, and they've chosen a healthy partner, maybe ask them for feedback. I think having some of these, being brave enough to have some of these conversations, I think is going to be really, really critical. So I think you can learn a lot about you know what not to do and the type of person to avoid. But I also have a chapter in the book that's titled, maybe it's you, you know, because not again, not to shame anybody, but I think you may need some insights about your yourself and how you are putting yourself in some of these circumstances, possibly over and over, and I think that's going to be really important. So it's who you choose, but also about about you and yourself, and what version of you are you bringing into these circumstances?

Laura Bowman:

Yes, you know. And I see the women that they like, because we're all going to interface, if you're out there long enough, you're going to, especially at this phase of life, there's a lot of these men floating around, right? It's about the women that look at it and they feel it in their bodies, and they're like, This doesn't feel right. Like this is not compatible with my nervous system. I can't do this. And. And they like, catch and release, and they release quickly, right? Like, back to my banana metaphor, yeah, you know. But it's like, can you get good at owning like, what fits for you and like, this doesn't work for me, yeah? Rather than trying to retrofit this man into something that's gonna work, take

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

Yes, yes, you don't want a project. That was definitely my problem a lot as well. So I can totally relate to that. And the thing I also find, I mean, we're in helping professions. If you're in a helping profession, believe it or not, you're more likely to get involved with somebody who is a project or needs help, or needs to evolve in some way, and you're going to step in and do it, or you're going to re parent them the way they should have been parented. Yeah, however it

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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

Colette Fehr:

Yeah, so really, having that self awareness, looking at your patterns, like you said, Laura, like catch and release, we're all gonna, this is gonna, if you're out there dating, this is gonna float by, and you may find yourself tingling with this dynamic more often than you'd like in the dating world, but can you identify it and feel how not good it feels in your nervous system and trust yourself, honor that that's where you have to really choose yourself. We've all made these mistakes, even if it's years ago. I know you're both married a really long time. I just want to throw a shout out too, for how hard it is when you know, when you're like what used to happen to me years ago, when I was dating, I would know. But because we all have parts of self, parts of me would know, other parts of me would be getting a lot of cookies from these dynamics that were very addictive. So I would resolve to be 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 is make people chase you, which makes me cringe. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a degree of mystery or pursuit, but playing games to manipulate somebody so they come after you when you're only the prize you're going to get in the long run is a lifetime of loneliness and emotional frustration, not a game I want to sign up for anymore,

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

right? Right? I think people have to distinguish between, like, what their feelings are about, and sometimes it's just attachment, system activation, yes, right inside right is saying, this is familiar, and it got paired with love. If a parent, like, let's say a woman's father will say, for ease of just an example, was an alcoholic and was very emotionally unavailable. And you know that circumstance you might get into in dating feels the same, it feels comfortable, and so that got like paired together or conflated with love, right? Your definition of love might be, someone doesn't pay a lot of attention to you. Someone is absent. Somebody drinks or however it is, you've got to revise your definition. You've got to revise that. And a lot of times I'm just saying to people something like, just because you feel it doesn't make it so or doesn't make it right for you. You know we need, like, the National part of the brain to talk to that emotional side to see what is, what is really going on here. And let's make a good, deliberate decision that is healthy for you and doesn't just feel like home, because it's what happened there,

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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 not going to say that they're easy, but luckily, I think we have better science, we have better therapeutic methods, we have there's a lot available to people now that I wasn't available long ago, and we know a lot more, and there's a lot more hard research about it. So know that you can make changes. You don't have to be doomed to just repeat the these cycles over and over again.

Colette Fehr:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

So the book is called ghosted and breadcrumb stop falling. Unavailable men and get smart about healthy relationships. And it's available everywhere books are sold, and of course, Amazon, and it's available on audio if you aren't into reading it. And I have two websites. One is Doctor Marnie online.com, that's all one word. And I have a checklist, if anybody wants to get. It's a free download to help you determine if you are in a relationship with an unavailable partner. So it's easy to find right on that website. And then my psychotherapy website is the talking solution.com.

Colette Fehr:

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

Laura Bowman:

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

Dr. Marni Feurerman:

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

Colette Fehr:

Likewise, Marnie, thank you. You.