Why Am I Drawn to Emotionally Unavailable People?

“At the beginning everything goes wonderfully, but after a while the other person pulls away.”

“People who genuinely want me don't feel attractive to me.” • “I notice that I keep choosing similar people in my relationships.”

It is possible, from time to time, to notice that similar patterns repeat in romantic relationships. Even when partners change, the uncertainty a person feels, the fear of abandonment, the intense need for closeness or the other person's emotional distance can feel surprisingly familiar.

So why do some people find themselves, again and again, in relationships that are emotionally hard to reach?

What Does It Mean to Be Emotionally Unavailable?

“Emotionally unavailable” is not a clinical diagnosis.

In everyday use, this phrase may be used to describe people who struggle to form closeness, avoid sharing their feelings, constantly create uncertainty about the future of the relationship, or do not respond consistently to the other person's emotional needs.

However, someone behaving in a distant way does not, on its own, mean that they are “avoidantly attached” or that they have a psychological problem. The ways in which people form relationships can be shaped by many factors, such as personality traits, past experiences, the dynamics of the current relationship and life circumstances.

Why Do I Keep Having Similar Relationships?

Here one of the important questions of the psychodynamic approach arises:

Throughout childhood and later life experiences, people develop expectations about how close relationships work:

• How is closeness shown?
• When I need someone, will I find a response?
• What do I have to do in order to be loved?
• When someone comes close to me, do I feel safe, or do I feel a need to withdraw?

Not all of the answers we give to these questions are necessarily conscious. Certain relational patterns learned in the past can influence how we perceive new relationships in adulthood and how we behave within them.

Familiar Is Not Always Healthy

Sometimes a form of relationship that is psychologically familiar can feel appealing to a person not because it is healthy, but because it is predictable.

For example, if relationships in which closeness and distance are constantly shifting resemble a person's past experiences, uncertainty can be as familiar as it is uncomfortable. In contrast, a partner who shows consistent interest and is emotionally available may, at first, feel unexpectedly “unexciting”.

However, one should not conclude from this that “a person inevitably recreates their childhood relationship”. Partner choice is far too complex to be explained by a single psychological mechanism.

Do Anxious and Avoidant Attachment Attract Each Other?

One of the claims frequently encountered on social media is that anxiously attached people are inevitably drawn to avoidantly attached people. Such an absolute generalisation is not scientifically accurate.

Nevertheless, it is possible for anxious and avoidant attachment tendencies to form a particular cycle within a relationship. A person with a high anxious attachment tendency may seek more closeness and reassurance when they sense distance. The other person, who experiences discomfort with closeness, may in turn withdraw further in response to that demand.

In this way, each person's behaviour can unintentionally reinforce the other's fear.

How Does This Cycle Look from a CBT Perspective?

From the perspective of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, we can look at the recurring patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour in a person's relationships. For example:

At this point, the person's initial fear can be strengthened even further as a result of the interaction that unfolds. Therefore, in the therapy process it is important to look not only at the other person's behaviour, but also at the place of the person's own interpretations and behaviours within the relationship cycle.

What Might “Repetition” Mean from a Psychodynamic Perspective?

In the psychodynamic approach, recurring relational patterns are an important area of work. A person does not consciously decide to repeat an unresolved relational experience from the past. However, the expectations they have developed over time about themselves, others and closeness can influence how they perceive new relationships. For example, in a person's inner world there may be expectations such as:

• “I can't fully trust people.”
• “I have to try harder so as not to lose someone.”
• “If I show my needs, the other person will pull away.”

These expectations can affect a far wider area than partner choice; they can shape how a person sets their boundaries, which behaviours they tolerate, and how they make sense of the things that happen in the relationship.

So Can This Pattern Change?

Noticing a recurring relationship pattern can be an important starting point for change. In psychotherapy, work can be done on a person's ability to:

• notice the similarities between past and current relationships,
• understand their sensitivity to abandonment or rejection,
• evaluate their automatic thoughts,
• express their emotional needs more directly,
• become aware of their boundaries in relationships
• and reassess their expectations about closeness.

The aim is not to tell a person “you're choosing the wrong people”. The aim is for the person to be able to understand the recurring patterns in their relationships more clearly and to make their choices from a more aware place.

In Short: Why Do I Keep Choosing Similar People?

Choice of a romantic partner cannot be explained solely by childhood experiences or attachment style. Nevertheless, our past relational experiences, the expectations we have developed about ourselves and other people, and our emotional reactions to closeness can play a part in our adult relationships.

For this reason, sometimes the real question is not “Why do I always choose the same people?” but:

This distinction opens space for a person to look not only at their partners, but also at their own relational patterns.