Ep #13: Why You Keep Falling for Emotionally Unavailable People (And How to Break the Cycle)

Ever feel like you always fall for the person who sends mixed signals, keeps you guessing, and never fully commits? You’re not alone. In this episode of The Secure Love Club Podcast, we’re diving deep into why emotionally unavailable people feel so magnetic—and why breaking this cycle feels nearly impossible. I’m sharing my own journey from anxious attachment to security, unpacking the real reasons you keep getting stuck in this pattern (spoiler: it’s not your fault!). We’ll talk about: how childhood experiences shape your attraction to unavailable partners, why the emotional rollercoaster feels like love (but isn’t), he nervous system’s role in keeping you hooked on the chase, and practical steps to break free and start choosing healthy, secure relationships. Let’s break the cycle together. 🎧 Tune in now! And if this episode resonates, send me a DM on Instagram—I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Transcript

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You are listening to the Secure Love Club podcast. I'm your host, Mimi Watt. Hey friends. Welcome back to the Club. I hope you're doing well. I personally am doing really well. I've had a client call this morning. I've been checking in with my clients. I've got another client call coming this afternoon, and I had this urge to just jump on the mic and record a podcast episode on a very juicy topic that is, I know, going to be highly relatable to you. And it's something that I am obviously navigating all the time with my clients, with people who I'm speaking to, and. This is on. Of course you've seen the title. If you ever wonder why you've always been drawn to emotionally unavailable people, even though it never works out, why do you keep going back? So today I wanna talk about why this happens and how to vi. Violently, well, not violently. How to finally break the cycle. I want to lift the metaphorical hood on the car to look at what is the driving force, what is fueling your engine to make you seek out people who can't give you what you want, who can't meet your needs, who aren't emotionally available? I am coming to you as someone who is. Securely attached, former anxiously attached, girly, and I almost have to remind myself of what that felt like because it's been a good couple of years now that I've been in my secure attachment phase. And I was just reflecting before, back on all of my past relationships and the common theme that was thread throughout them, which was it was always such a struggle. It always felt like I had to work so hard or I had to bend over backwards. I had to, people please. I had to minimize my own needs and make myself small to literally get an inch from my partner. It was always like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and I was somehow the problem, even though I was doing all the work in the relationships, I was the problem. And if you are anxiously attached. And you're currently in a toxic relationship or you're dating someone who is avoidant and emotionally unavailable, you will know what I'm talking about. That feeling where you just feel like you're going round and round in circles, you're bashing your head against a wall and it hurts so much, but at the same time. It just feels like you can't get away again. It hurts so good. You know what I mean? It, it's a bit, it's a bit fucked up. It's a bit toxic, but that's why we're here. To unpack as to why this keeps happening, and I see this with my clients who when they come and start working with me, they're in a similar, a similar cycle where they just keep sort of. Giving way more of themselves than they are getting back by the people they're dating. They are ignoring red flags. They are getting a gut instinct that someone is maybe not the best for them and they just sweep it under the rug, like they don't wanna face it because the idea of facing it means that they then have to. See the truth and probably walk away from that connection. And when you are highly anxiously attached, some form of connection, even if it's painful. Is better than none at all. And so we go through these cycles of we experience pain in the relationship and we might threaten to leave or we wanna leave, and then the absence of the connection feels too painful. So then we wanna go back to our partner and smooth things over. I remember a prime example of this was when I was in. Uh, my relationship two relationships ago, I was in a relationship with someone who was highly avoidant, and there's this one memory that just sums up this pattern and this dynamic that I'll never forget, and it was my partner and I had been, uh, we were both at home separately working, so this was during Covid and. He had said to me like, I will message you when I finish work. Um, and we're gonna see each other that night and eight, or like 10 hours go by. And I don't hear anything from him. And it got to something like seven 30 at night and he finally messaged me. And of course I was super pissed off. I was anxious because I didn't know what was going on and he didn't keep me in the loop. And it just started this fucking World War III because of course. He struggled to hold space for my emotions, couldn't give me, um, basic emotional validation or support. And any time I would communicate that I felt let down or upset, he would basically in internalize that as he's not good enough and. He's disappointed me again. He's let me down again and with avoidance that is quite common. And so they basically just shut down. They deflect, they gaslight, and they make you the problem because they're too uncomfortable in their own emotions, so therefore they can't support you in yours anyway. So we started this massive fight, and then the next day I went over to his house to talk about it, to see him. And the argument just continued, right, because I wasn't feeling seen, heard, or understood. And he had his defenses and his walls up so high that he couldn't even hear what I was saying. So it was just, you know, two heads butting against each other. And I remember I reached this point where I reached this tipping point and. Resorted to your classic protest behavior where I said, you know what, whatever I, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm done. I'm so fucking done. And I stormed out of the apartment, slammed the door, raced down the stairs, get into my car, and like take off down the street. And I start driving around the block. And at first I'm just enraged, like, I'm so angry. I'm like. Fuck this guy. Fuck him. I don't want this relationship and I don't deserve to be treated like this. And then I get, I'm not even kidding you. About two minutes down the road and I pull in, I pull the car in, like pull over to the side of the road and I pick up my phone and I'm looking at it, thinking surely he's gonna call. He's gonna call, he's gonna call, he's gonna chase me, he's gonna tell me to come back. And this is what I was hoping for, right? Because when we, uh, use protest behavior, it's basically that we are trying to, we, we are craving attention. We're craving love, but we don't have the ability to properly communicate that, or we're with someone who can't hear it or understand it, um, how we need them to. So we. Use behavior that is similar to how a child would act when they have a tantrum, right? So you're giving the cold shoulder, you're storming out of the room, um, you're saying you're fine when you're not. And it's all emotional manipulation. It's all designed to get the your core need. To be met, which was obviously love approval, validation, acceptance. Anyways, so I'm sitting there staring at my phone, waiting, waiting and he doesn't call. And then I start to panic and I go, fuck, what have I done? Like I don't wanna lose him. Oh my God, what am I gonna do? And so I end up driving back to his apartment. Tail between my legs and I walk up and I knock on the front door and just, oh, like I just cringe thinking back to this because it's such a difficult position to be in when you feel this way and you feel so controlled by your emotions. Anyway, so I knock on the door and. After a few minutes, he finally answers, and it wasn't even, he wasn't even like, oh, I'm so glad you're back. I'm so sorry. He just opened it with this stern cold look on his face. Like, yeah, of course you've come back. And so we walk inside and then of course I start apologizing. I start trying to smooth things over even when he's the one who was being irrational in the first place and wasn't meeting my emotional needs. And so I'm trying to smooth everything over and then. I earn his forgiveness and then things feel okay again. And then he's like, okay, well do you wanna stay over tonight? And I'm like, yes. And of course, my anxiously attached self is all excited and, you know, so happy that we've, we've rekindled the connection and everything's okay and everything's safe. This is the pattern that was going on again and again and again in varying different forms in this relationship as well as every other relationship I'd been in, and you can probably relate to some degree. Whether it looks like you slamming the door and leaving the apartment, or not replying to their texts for three days because they didn't reply to you for, you know, 12 hours and you're trying to one-up them, whatever it is, it's this absolute emotional rollercoaster. This up and down ride, it's so tumultuous and it just leaves you so exhausted and so drained. So this is where you're at, and if you can relate. This podcast is for you. So we're gonna go into the deeper why. So I really wanna explain why this keeps happening, how this is keeping you stuck and exhausted in dating and then. Some next steps, some things you can look at, some stuff you can do to help break this cycle. Alright, my friends, let's dive in. Let's kick off with why someone who is anxiously attached is always drawn to someone who is avoidantly attached and vice versa. Why does someone who's avoidant, who views emotional intimacy as a threat. Why do they seek someone out who they know on some level is going to need a lot of emotional reassurance? The reason this happens is because on a subconscious level, you are both trying to prove your idea of love to be true. So if you have an anxious attachment style in your childhood, you probably experienced on some level, whether it was through Big T trauma or little T trauma, you experienced your parents or your caregivers not being emotionally available to you. It was probably quite inconsistent. It was unpredictable. So maybe it was, when I say Big T trauma, it could have been that. There was a mental, emotional or physical abuse in the household, or your parents went through a really, uh, difficult divorce, right? Things that are very big and significant and traumatic or little t trauma could have been things like, you might look back at your childhood and think, well, my childhood was fine, that my parents were really loving. We had a happy household, so I don't understand how I could have trauma and how I could have formed my anxious attachment style, but. It can be formed in so many ways. Like for example, let's say you have two parents who loved each other. They loved you, they're together, but they were really work driven and they were always busy with work stuff, always on calls. Um, didn't really have much time for you. Or maybe it's when every time you were upset. Uh, your parents, the way that they dealt with that was by just trying to shut down your emotion and say, come on, no time for tears. Like, pick yourself up. Let's go. And just to sort of bypass your emotion because maybe they didn't know how to deal with it or they didn't have the time or the energy, whatever it might be. Or it could just be that you were always spoken over the top of by your parents, um, or, yeah. Little things like this, right? All of these things can. Contribute to the development of an insecure attachment style of your anxious attachment style. Therefore, what happens when you grow up and you go into your romantic relationships, your nervous system? The way that it has become wired through your childhood for that unpredictability, that inconsistency, always being on edge, being hypervigilant, it is going to subconsciously drive you to seek out people who will recreate that emotional experience. And the same goes for those who are avoidant. So an avoidant. Attachment style would've been formed from if your parents were emotionally unavailable, and your way of learning how to deal with your emotions was just to like, you could only rely on yourself, and maybe because of that, you just shut your emotions down. You suppressed them, you shoved them down in your body because you didn't know how to deal with them. So you just tried to numb out and distract yourself as much as possible. Maybe it was that you were, as an avoidant, you were forced to take on responsibility. Responsibilities from a really young age, which you then internalized to mean that you can't rely on other people for support. Right? Or maybe your parents were intrusive and they disregarded your boundaries, which made you associate closeness with a loss of autonomy, right? Like your independence is not respected, your boundaries are not respected. Therefore, as you grow up, you just keep everyone at arm's length because you don't want to experience that again. And so as an adult. You then subconsciously seek out people who will recreate that emotional dynamic that you had as a child. So this often looks like, um, anxious people who need a lot of emotional support, who need a lot of validation, who will. Uh, often maybe cross your boundaries who will come really far into your personal space because the more you pull away, the more they're gonna lean into you. And you then get to say, see, I knew it. I just can't be in relationships with people because they come too close. They cross my boundaries. I lose my independence, so therefore I need to shut it down. Therefore, they get to be right. So. This comes into the second point about why we keep attracting emotionally unavailable people is we are confusing familiarity for love. What is familiar doesn't necessarily mean it is right or it is love. Now, when we have these two types of people, these two insecure attachment styles, there's often a lot of intensity in the beginning of the relationship. There's a lot of. Chemistry, and this is where people get tripped up. This is where we go wrong, is we go looking for the chemistry because we think those intense highs that spark those really strong butterflies in our stomach, we think that that is what love should be. And I mean, I could go down a whole rabbit hole as to why that is, but. To put it simply, chemistry does not mean that this person is compatible with you. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to be a healthy choice for you. When you feel chemistry, what is actually going on is you have an unmet need or an emotional wound that is being activated by this person, right? Often on a subconscious level. And so it creates this sense of mystery. This sense of intrigue and we think, Ooh, ooh. Like, I feel like I'm getting, you know, a little breadcrumb of this emotional need. I feel like I'm getting some of what I want, but they're really, you know, they're really teasing it out. I, I really feel like I'm gonna have to work hard to get it. I'm gonna have to win them over. I'm gonna have to go through this emotional chase. And the temptation to wanna win them over is what keeps you going back for more and for more and for more. Now on a chemical level, what's going on is there's an extremely addictive cycle of your adrenaline and cortisol levels. So when someone is not meeting your emotional needs, they are um, they're being vague, they're inconsistent, you dunno what's going on. Basically, when there's a lack of emotional safety and security. You are experiencing high amounts of cortisol, so you're stress hormone, and adrenaline. Then because you've been given some sign of potential, some bit of attention, you are convinced that if you just work hard enough, you will win them over. You will win their approval. They will choose you, and you will be good enough. And when you finally do get a moment of that from this person, your brain is flooded with dopamine and Oh buck. Yeah. Does that feel good? It is the absolute love drug. You are getting that dopamine, you are getting that oxytocin, and it creates this highly addictive cycle. Because what's gonna happen is you get some of that dopamine things are good for a while, and then oh, nope, things are too good. Things are too stable. We need to fuck it up a little bit. Either you. Or the avoidant person is going to do something to create drama, to create a crack in this relationship, because that's what you're used to. The cycle must repeat itself. We have to go back to our state of stress of fighting, of not knowing what's going on because that's what our nervous system has become wired for. And even if you understand this on a conscious level, the. Need to overcome this urge, this drive that you feel in your body is really difficult. It's honestly like the same as. A drug addiction withdrawal because your body has gotten so used to this cycle of chemicals, this cycle of hormones, and to break out of that and to get your nervous system to a place where things where, where you feel okay in a relationship dynamic or a situation that is safe and stable and familiar. It is not gonna like that at first. It's not gonna feel good, and this is why you keep seeking out the same types of people, right, the same person with a different face, because your nervous system is wired for chaos and it wants to repeat the pattern. The other reason that we keep repeating this cycle is nervous system dysregulation. When you are triggered or acti activated by someone who is avoidant, so they start to withdraw, they start to go cold. You can't really read them. They give you little bits of hope, but they don't back it up with action. When this happens, you will go into a, you will have a, um, survival mechanism, which will be either fight, flight, freeze, or fa. So you're gonna have a stock standard way that you typically. Behave to cope with the dysregulation. So if you go into fight, it means you will. You will wanna pick a fight with this person. You wanna go to battle and prove yourself right and prove them wrong. If you go into flight, you are likely to just run away and storm outta the conversation because it feels too difficult for you to confront. If you go into freeze, your body is just gonna shut down. Your mouth and your brain become disconnected and you just feel extremely stuck and you don't know what to do or how to get outta the situation, or you go into a foreign response, which is basically when you just dip into people pleasing, and this is what I did like where you'll just apologize to make things. Okay, you wanna smooth things over. You'll do anything you can to restore the connection with this person in a, an episode. A couple of episodes back, I spoke about your window of tolerance, which is basically your baseline for how much stress you can handle. I. Before you become dysregulated. So how much stress you can handle before you go into a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. And when we are constantly going into these patterns, these kinds of relationships, typically our window of tolerance is very small. So it means because our nervous system has been wired for this volatile up and down pattern of behavior, we are sort of chronically dysregulated and we. We dunno how to properly handle our emotions, which is why as an anxiously attached person, you'll constantly resort to seeking out your partner or this person to soothe you, to make you feel better. And the way you do that is through one of those survival, uh, mechanisms is through one of those. Nervous system responses of the fight for flight, freeze, or fawn. So let's just say right here, if you have ever felt bad about yourself for the fact that you are stuck in these cycles and these patterns, you have permission to be little kinder to yourself because we are dealing with. Chemistry, like hormone chemistry. We're, we're dealing with nervous system dysregulation. You're dealing with deeply ingrained uh, patterns. Familiarity that goes way back to before you can probably even remember. So it's not just that you are weak or you don't have enough willpower. You are, you know, the odds are not in your favor, let's just say, but. There is hope and you can come out of this. The first thing is just to realize what is actually going on here, and for you to have the awareness so that you can understand why you feel stuck, why you feel exhausted in dating, and why you look around at other people who are in healthy, secure relationships and you think, how do they have it so good? Why is it that they can, you know, they don't have fights all the time. They're not having screaming matches in the house. They're not in tears at work. They're not so exhausted from their relationship that they're just sleeping all day. Why do they get to have that? Okay? Having this awareness of the reason as to why you keep going into these patterns is going to help you. Because once we are aware of what's going wrong, that's when we can begin to change it, and we must learn how to break this pattern because. Here's what happens when you keep chasing emotionally unavailable people. You will mistake intensity for love, when really it's just your nervous system freaking out. You'll spend weeks or months in limbo trying to decode their mixed signals. You will lose yourself in dating constantly, overanalyzing, every text, every delay, every little change in their energy. You feel like you have to earn their love by proving that you're patient cool or low maintenance. You burn out emotionally from chasing people who never fully choose you. Dating like this isn't just frustrating, it's exhausting. And if you don't shift this pattern, it's not just that dating suffers. You start to question if you are the problem. Your self-worth starts to feel dependent on whether someone texts you back. You waste years in dead end relationships or situation chip. That leave you more anxious than before. Okay, so this has been your cycle or your reality for a little while. I want you to hear this. You are not too much. You are not unlucky in love, and you are definitely not destined to always fall for people who don't fully choose you. What's happening is that your nervous system has become wired to mistake. Unpredictability for passion. You've been taught through past experiences that love is something you have to earn, but real healthy love. It doesn't feel like a guessing game. It feels safe. It feels clear. It feels easy, and that might feel so out of reach for you right now. You might be thinking that's impossible and it will never happen to you. But my friend, I can tell you, I have literally been where you are. I have been in your shoes stuck in this cycle for over a decade, and I have come out the other side. And been in a beautiful, healthy, secure relationship where it really does feel this way, it does feel safe. It feels predictable. There's no guessing games. You don't have to prove yourself or prove your worth. The love is readily available. Your emotional needs are met without you even having to ask a lot of the time, and your nervous system is just going to feel so soothed and at ease. And I know that right now the idea of walking away from these emotionally unavailable people might feel scary on some weird level because if you let go of that chase, then what? Who's left? Like if you don't chase, everything will just fall away and no one will actually rise to meet you. But I promise you, once you learn how to shift this pattern, a whole new world opens up for you. In dating a world where you don't overthink every text. A world where you don't have to storm out of rooms, drive around the block, and come back just to earn love. You get a world where you feel calm, grounded, and deeply worthy of love just as you are in terms of how do you break free from these patterns? How do you move forward? There's a few things that you can do. Number one is getting clear on your patterns. So sitting down and reflecting on your relationship, pat on your relationship history and identifying what are the patterns I've been falling into. What are the types of people I've been attracting? What keeps happening? Every relationship? What are the qualities of these people? How do I show up in these relationships? Right? So getting clear, getting really aware of what your patterns are, what's been going on. The next piece is self-regulation. As I've spoken about in a couple episodes before, I think it was episode number 10, I spoke to you a little bit about. Starting to use your breath, ways that you can calm your nervous system, ways that you can expand your window of tolerance, because the greater you expand that window of tolerance, the easier it's going to be to stay calm and clear and make conscious, rational decisions that are in the best interest of your secure self when you are triggered and activated. In terms of your next step, your next small baby step, here's what I want you to do. The next time you find yourself anxiously waiting for someone's attention, pause and ask yourself, am I feeling drawn to them because they're actually good for me, or just because they're inconsistent and my nervous system is craving the high. Noticing this without judgment is the very first step to shifting your. Patterns. So stay conscious, stay curious, and if this resonated with you, I would love to hear your thoughts. Send me a D on Instagram and tell me if this is something you've struggled with or if this is something you are currently navigating. I would love to connect with you and have a conversation and help you to start breaking free from your anxious dating patterns. Alright, my friends, have a beautiful week and I'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. If you enjoyed today's episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Share this episode with your friends and come find me on social so we can hang out between episodes. All the links are below in the show notes.