I don’t understand why he got so emotional on our last meeting and told me he cares and then one week later act totally cold again.

If he has developed any feelings for you, it’s likely he’s hot/cold because of cognitive dissonance… he’s at war with himself. Part of him likes you and wants to see where things can go and another part… the part that doesn’t want to get hurt again… makes his defense mechanism kick in and he starts talking himself out of wanting to be with someone again. That’s why he can be hot/cold (especially in a week’s time because he’s had all that time for negative thoughts) and why people with those fears really do need to move at a snails pace with someone who understands that… because it takes a while to build trust that that person isn’t going to hurt them. Meanwhile, if you date someone like this, you run the risk of the defense mechanism winning, the relationship doesn’t go anywhere, and then you feel like you were led on again.

Dear Yarina:

“I don’t know if he’s always been like that- distant at the beginning”- no human is distant from the beginning because we are very much social animals by nature, craving human interactions. We become distant and closed because we get hurt early on, as children, but other people.

I noticed early on, Yarina, that you are an angry woman. I don’t think at this point that it is a good idea that you date this man because your anger persists and is very strong. You take this man’s shy and reserved behavior personally, as if .. he is your father who was distant from you.

Do you remember being angry at your father for rejecting your love for him?

anita

Dear Yarina:

“I think I am more anxious than angry”- fear does precede anger: right before anger, there is fear.

What happens for all of us is that we keep re-living our childhood, if our childhood was difficult, until and if we work hard and long to heal from it, best we can.

If this guy was all attentive, romantic and so forth, you’d still get anxious and maybe angry, because it is not about the man, really, it is about the childhood you keep re-living. I know this about you because I operate this way and so do all humans.

Did you ever attend psychotherapy?

* Notice the title of your thread: “Emotionally unavailable man” and we got to the heart of the matter: an emotionally unavailable parent.

anita

Dear Yarina:

I hope you do have the opportunity to attend quality psychotherapy in the future (not all therapy is of high quality).

As you posted the above, you were feeling good about this man, you were not angry at him. Pay attention, when you feel angry at him again (and you will), don’t express it to him by accusing him of anything, blaming him, trying to hurt him somehow. Control your behavior and calm down some other way (time out, exercise, a hot bath, etc.) Remember what you wrote here: “We are both closed off and maybe we just needed some time to open up”.

– the two of you need more time to open up and better communication. My therapist gave me this handout about good communication. It had the acronym EAR: Empathy, Assertiveness, Respect, as the three hallmarks of good and loving communication between people.

Post again anytime.

anita