“Why Do I Attach To An Unavailable Person?”

By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
July 27, 2015

Are you addicted to trying to get love from unavailable, unloving people?

Have you found yourself repeatedly ‘falling in love’ with an unavailable person? Have you wondered why you keep doing this?

This is the question Wanda asked:

“What about our wounded self causes us to attach so fiercely to an unloving/unavailable person?”

There are two primary causes:

1. If you were raised by an unavailable parent, then your wounded self might believe that if only you could find a way to have control over getting love from an unavailable person, THEN you would finally feel safe and loved. The wounded self might believe that only the love that comes from an unavailable person means anything.

   When love is not freely given by parents, then the child learns ways to try to have control over getting approval. Not only do they confuse this approval with real love, they believe they can earn love by doing things right. They don’t understand that love is always a free gift and cannot be earned or controlled.

   You cannot make an unloving person be loving. If you keep picking unloving, unavailable people under the illusion that you can control getting love, you will never find a loving relationship. When you are addicted to getting love, you can become fiercely attached to an unloving, unavailable person, trying desperately to do things ‘right’ in order to feel like you have control over getting love.

1. The second cause is that YOU may also be unavailable. If you were truly available for a loving relationship, then you would likely attract a loving, available person. It’s quite possible that you are not being loving to yourself. Since we attract at our common level of self-abandonment or self-love, you will keep attracting an unloving person as long as you are unavailable due to abandoning yourself.

   In addition, as long as having control over getting love is more important to you than loving yourself and sharing your love with a partner, you will be stuck attracting unloving, unavailable people. As long as you believe that ONLY love from someone else is what will fill you and make you happy, you will continue to abandon yourself in various ways.

As long as you are not loving yourself, you will not likely be tuned in to people who are loving themselves. Many people have learned to say the right things, such as, “I want a permanent relationship,” or “I want to get married and have a family,” or “Open communication is very important to me.” But once in the relationship, they shut down, get angry, or it becomes apparent that they are self-absorbed and narcissistic.

The way out of continuing to attract unavailable and unloving people is to diligently practice Inner Bonding and learn to stay present in your body, be open to learning, learn from your feelings, learn to connect with your personal source of love and truth, and take loving action for yourself. Until you learn to fill yourself with love, you have no love to share and you will continue to believe that you need to have control over getting love from someone else.

As you learn to love yourself, you become far more tuned into the energy of real love. You can more readily FEEL when someone is coming from their heart, or when their words are hollow. There is an energy that emanates from people who are open and loving, and a very different energy that emanates from people who are closed, unloving and unavailable. You will be able to discern this energy when you are open and loving to yourself and others, and emotionally available, but not when you are abandoning yourself.

The more loving you are to yourself, the clearer your connection is with your spiritual Guidance, and your Guidance is infallible in discerning who is open and loving and who isn’t.

You will stop attracting and attaching to unloving, unavailable people when you practice Inner Bonding enough that you are consistently being loving to yourself.

Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her new 30-Day at-home Course: “Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships.” To begin learning how to love and connect with yourself so that you can connect with your partner and others, take advantage of our Free Help, and take our 12-Week home study eCourses, “The Intimate Relationship Toolbox” and“Dr. Margaret’s Permanent Weight Loss Course” – the first two weeks are free!