When we want someone to be more emotionally available, our instinct is often to try harder, to explain better, ask more clearly, or try to teach them how to deliver what we need.

But as you embark on this process, keep this in mind:

Emotional availability is not a personality trait. It is a capacity that we build and develop.

And our capacity depends on the quality and state of our nervous-system’s regulation and baseline perceptions of safety, not on our intentions, intelligence, or goodwill.

I want to draw your attention to this because when we mistake a capacity mismatch for a communication failure, we often exhaust ourselves by investing energy in the very things that will not work, and quietly erode self-trust and trust in our relationships.

In Episode 126 of Conversations from the Heart, we dive into a longer conversation about this with Nina, but in the meantime, here are practical ways to respond when you want more emotional availability, without collapsing into self-abandonment or over-functioning.

Name the Real Problem Accurately

If someone cannot stay present with your feelings, it is usually not because:

• They don’t care
• They are unwilling to grow
• You haven’t explained it clearly enough

More often, it’s because their nervous system becomes overwhelmed by emotional intensity and moves into protection: withdrawal, distraction, fixing, intellectualizing, or shutdown.

Seeing this clearly does two things:

1. It helps you stop taking their unavailability personally
2. It helps you discern what is changeable and what is structural

    

Compassion does not require self-betrayal.
Understanding capacity is about clarity, not excusing harm.

Regulate Yourself Before You Reach

When you feel the ache for more presence, pause before pursuing. Ask yourself:

• What am I feeling right now?
• What does my body need in this moment?
• Am I making an open request, or feeling an indignant protest?

 Before reaching out or speaking, ground yourself: 

• Put your feet on the floor and breathe slowly for 60 seconds
• Name the feeling precisely (not just “upset”)
• Remind yourself: I am allowed to need connection, and I am not dependent on this one person meeting it right now.

 This step is not about suppressing your needs, desires or wants, but it is about preventing reenactment.

Meet Some of Your Needs Elsewhere, For Now

Trust and growth is more likely to happen when we stop loading all of our regulation needs onto one relationship. If someone is emotionally unavailable in the moment:

• Text a friend who is responsive
• Journal what you wish you could say
• Take a walk and let your body discharge activation

 We are not “giving up.”We are instead just working with reality instead of fighting it. And, focusing on getting your needs met in places that already have capacity protects you from escalating into anxious pursuit.   

Reveal, Don’t Recruit

One of the most important distinctions that I explored with Nina in the episode, was the difference between revealing feelings, and managing feelings.   When we want to connect emotionally with someone, strategies that are less likely to work include …   

• Explain attachment theory
• Point out patterns
• Ask questions that are actually demands
• Try to guide the other person into insight

 Ironically, these approaches usually reduce safety and trust instead of increasing connection.  A far more effective strategy would be to try revealing your inner truth, cleanly and briefly. Here are some scripts that reveal (not manage):

• I’m noticing I feel sad and a little far from you right now.
• Part of me wants to fix this, and another part just wants to feel close to you.
• I don’t need solutions, I want presence and to share where I am.

 Revealing what’s in our hearts creates conditions that make connecting and being together feel safer and more welcoming.  When we desperately recruit someone, those approaches more often trigger defensiveness.

A Crucial Reframe:
This May Be a Mismatch, Not a Failure

If you value emotional presence, reflection, and growth, and the other person does not share that orientation, this may not be a moral, mental health or personality problem. It’s more likely a goodness-of-fit question. Some relationships help us heal for a season.
Others become lifelong partnerships.
Both can be meaningful. Our work is not to force sameness, but to notice and discern for ourselves:

• Am I healing more than I’m being harmed?
• Do I feel like a co-creator, or am I managing the relationship alone?

Final Integration Practice

This week, try this experiment: When you feel the desperate urge to pursue someone into more emotional connection:

1. Pause. Tempting as it is to pursue them, it rarely works. 
2. Regulate yourself first; take a breath, calm your system, connect with yourself
3. Reveal one heartfelt truth about your current state 
4. Make one present moment, do-able request for something that might help
5. Then watch what happens, and stop yourself from chasing any particular outcome

Emotional availability grows through safety, not pressure. And your clarity about what you need and what works for you (and what doesn’t) is wisdom worth following.   

For a deeper conversation on these themes, listen to Episode 126 on Conversations From the Heart, Want Someone to be More Emotionally Available to You?