Speaker A
Why am I continuously attracted to unavailable people? Is a question that many people ask me.
Esther Perel counsels a 26-year-old woman who keeps choosing emotionally unavailable partners, exploring how her parents' communication breakdown, fear of being trapped, and freeze responses shape her
Key Takeaways
- Attraction to unavailable partners often reflects early family dynamics and a learned sense of safety in distance.
- Freeze responses are protective survival mechanisms that can block connection in the present.
- Body-based awareness and implicit memory can help people reconnect with feelings that cannot yet be narrated.
- True independence means maintaining a sense of self within a connection rather than avoiding intimacy.
What the video covers
- A 26-year-old single woman asks whether it is possible to change who she is attracted to, noting a pattern of choosing emotionally unavailable people.
- She describes her parents' poor communication: her mother as pursuer/provoker and her father as withdrawer, with both having been hurt as children.
- Her core fear is being trapped in a long-term relationship that becomes sad or unfulfilling, mirroring her parents' dynamic.
- Esther highlights the freeze response: her mind goes blank and her body registers panic in the chest when intimacy gets close.
- Esther suggests that the body holds implicit memory and recommends placing a caring hand on the chest and breathing to ground herself.
- The woman's father reportedly has a childhood blank after his parents' separation and his mother's breakdown, suggesting intergenerational patterns.
- She copes by moving and listening to music, notably Bob Marley's 'Could You Be Loved', which evokes emotion without narrative.
- The session explores her view of her childhood as loving while acknowledging the visceral impact of hearing constant fighting as a child.
- She reveals a sense of responsibility to fix her parents and keep the family stable, which Esther connects to fear and shutdown.
- Esther reframes independence as being able to hold onto yourself while remaining connected to someone else, not being alone.
Chapters
- 00:00Introducing the Question on Unavailable Partners
- 01:07Fear of Being Trapped and Vulnerability
- 03:52Parents' Communication Patterns
- 05:48Freeze Response and Body Memory
- 08:48Father's Childhood and Family History
- 11:54Music, Coping, and Childhood Memories
- 16:40Responsibility, Fixing, and Independence
- 26:40Closing Reflections
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
And in this case, this young woman asks me, too. And especially her dad lives through her vicariously. Her life is meant to feed her and her parents.
Speaker A
That is a big burden to carry. All of this on the next episode of Where Should We Begin?
Speaker A
Hi Esther. My question to you is, do you think it's possible to change who you're attracted to?
Speaker A
I'm a 26-year-old woman and I've been single for 5 years. I feel like I have often in the past been attracted to people who are emotionally unavailable and it's taken me a long time to realize those patterns. Uh, your podcast has really helped me to understand the dynamics between my parents. Growing up, they were very bad at communicating and I think over time the ways in which they rejected each other led them to want to be independent and self-sufficient and essentially not have much of a relationship anymore. I think this has really impacted me in the way that I search for people.
Speaker A
Recently, I've felt that I have felt attracted to more available people, but there's a lot of fear and I think I'm not able to let my desire overcome the fear of being vulnerable, truly vulnerable with somebody who's available.
Speaker A
Let's pick up really at the end of the sentence that seems to have been cut in the middle.
Speaker A
I have tried to open myself up to people who actually welcome me. But that is very scary.
Speaker A
Mhm. Let's start right there.
Speaker A
Yeah. Why does it scare me so much? And what scares you?
Speaker A
Yeah. I think that's fear for myself and I think that's fear for the other person as well. I think that's maybe a sense of like guilt about entering into something when I don't feel completely sure about how it's going to end.
Speaker A
I think there's a fear of being trapped in something a long term. I think that's a fear for myself that I like someone and over time I don't like them anymore.
Speaker A
Mhm. Being trapped in something sad or unfulfilling. That scares me a lot. And that is where I look at my parents and how they were trapped and stuck.
Speaker A
Yeah. Tell me. Yeah, I guess the communication has been really bad throughout my childhood.
Speaker A
Between them or Yeah, between them. I think we all experienced, me and my siblings experienced a lot of love and attention, but I think they definitely didn't know how to understand each other.
Speaker A
My mom is the like pursuer, like provoker, and my dad is like the withdrawing one.
Speaker A
And both seem to be playing out ways that they have been neglected or were upset and hurt as children with each other.
Speaker A
And she would pursue him in order to argue. She would pursue him requesting more connection.
Speaker A
She would provoke him. What's the dance? If I was a camera on the wall in your house, what would I see?
Speaker A
I think that the provoking would come in the form of seeking support for something.
Speaker A
But in a way that's really non-productive. Such as? Seeking help with, um, housework or a decision or wanting collaboration, basically.
Speaker A
Um, a lot of these things I remember would be being used almost as a sort of like buffer between two people.
Speaker A
So, it wouldn't necessarily be direct towards him. It'd be like a question posed to me.
Speaker A
If that makes sense. Not yet. Okay. Um, but I'm asking it to you with more precision because you give off the vibe that things are, on the one hand, etched in your body and, on the other hand, they are rather blank.
Speaker A
Yeah. It's like you're freezing on me. Yeah, I am. And, uh, not on me. I mean, it's not doing something to me, but the closer you get to it, the more frozen you start to feel.
Speaker A
Mhm. And to the point where suddenly you can't remember anything. Yeah, that's just what happened now.
Speaker A
Yes. Yes. And maybe that is more important than whatever else we are going to talk about because you're trapped inside yourself.
Speaker A
You're trapped inside a past that feels totally vague and nebulous because it feels so painful.
Speaker A
And so, freeze is often one of our reactions. It's fight, flight, freeze, fix, and fawn, you know? But we freeze because that way we can tune out. We can numb ourselves to the noise, to the fear, to the intensity of what's happening around us.
Speaker A
Yeah. And when you say I prefer to be with someone who's unavailable, so that there's a preserved distance between me and that person.
Speaker A
In a way, you're saying, because if I do go inside and I open that up, that word, I'm going to be trapped, which you said a few times, I'm not only sure that you would be trapped with the person, but that you wouldn't be trapped in the frozenness that helped you survive, but that at the same time is not allowing you to connect with anyone.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah, it's happened before also. I remember that I was seeing somebody and we had a lot of conversations where my mind went blank.
Speaker A
And when you go blank, you have thoughts, you have melodies, you have colors. You have just physical sensations. What happens?
Speaker A
Yeah, just physical panic. And where in the body? At the chest. Yeah. Keep your hand there. It's okay.
Speaker A
It makes a difference when we can place our hand, a caring hand, a gentle hand, in a place that just completely shuts down.
Speaker A
And then, if you can breathe inside your hand and feel your chest expand, and don't force yourself to remember anything, because your body's remembering.
Speaker A
You're having plenty of implicit memory stored in your body that remembers on the spot. The more blank you go, the more your body remembers.
Speaker A
It tightens up and it holds it all, but it's right there. Yeah. Do you remember blanking at home?
Speaker A
I don't, but then I think, like, my sister remembers a lot of things that I don't remember.
Speaker A
This is also really interesting because my dad has talked about the fact that he has a huge blank in his childhood.
Speaker A
And does he describe anything more than the blank? Does he describe what he needed to blank from?
Speaker A
Yeah, his parents were splitting up and my grandma had a nervous breakdown and left.
Speaker A
She moved away. She didn't come back, but they were in contact after that. How old was your dad?
Speaker A
I think he was like 11 or 12, and he didn't talk for like a year or something.
Speaker A
And do you remember one thing your sister remembered that you said, "Oh my gosh, how is it possible I completely forgot this one?" Um, I, the same thing's just happening to me.
Speaker A
Good. I'm glad you're telling me. Yeah, I can't think right now. Okay. Just put the hand right back. It's fine.
Speaker A
It's fine. That entrapment. That sense of, I've got to get out of here.
Speaker A
I can't take this. I need to tune all of this out. Must have been really intense.
Speaker A
Were you 11 years old, too? Um, I mean, there's been arguing throughout my childhood.
Speaker A
I don't know. It feels all similar. Mhm. It's okay. You don't have to force and produce something just because I ask a question.
Speaker A
Mhm. When you shut down, do you turn to nature, food, music, movement, any of them or more others?
Speaker A
Yeah, probably moving. Moving. Moving. Moving. Mhm. Yeah. With music or... Yeah, with music, too. I'm a musician.
Speaker A
Mhm. And is there a song that often comes into your head in the midst of blank?
Speaker A
Or any songs? Yeah. I hear, um, "Could You Be Loved" by Bob Marley. So, it's one particular song that comes up and kind of fills the space?
Speaker A
Yeah, sometimes it's like made-up music as well. Mhm. Mhm. Because the music gives you the emotion without giving you the story.
Speaker A
It has a powerful effect. It's something I used to listen to a lot growing up, so I wonder whether that's, like, in the house, it would be in the house.
Speaker A
I think it's a lot harder talking about it than I thought it would be, because I view my childhood as very loving, and it feels like blaming, talking about my parents.
Speaker A
Mhm. You've been very clear that they were very caring and loving to all three of you.
Speaker A
Yeah. But the little girl who hears fighting around her doesn't have the reasoning that the adult has now.
Speaker A
Yeah. And so it's more visceral. The same loving people are being not very
Speaker A
Yeah. But the little girl who hears fighting around her doesn't have the reasoning that the adult has now.
Speaker A
Yeah. And so it's more visceral. The same loving people are being not very loving with each other.
Speaker A
And that's scary. Yeah. And a number of wires get entangled. Oh, adult love is messy.
Speaker A
Oh, adult love is a trap. Oh, adult love when you no longer love the person, what the [ __ ] do you do?
Speaker A
[snorts] Yeah. And you feel like it's your fault also because you know that you're the thing that's attaching them.
Speaker A
Like you're the reason. They're sticking around for you, or it feels like they're sticking around for you.
Speaker A
Mhm. And I think I was aware of that. That your parents stuck together for the children.
Speaker A
And that the other person would stick around. Because they wouldn't know how to leave.
Speaker A
You know, what's interesting is that in your version of your story, other people have no agency.
Speaker A
So it's as if you're making all the decisions and they are like hapless, helpless people. You know, characters of somebody else's plot.
Speaker A
That's not necessarily the way this goes. Mhm. That is true. Recently, um they came to stay with me and it felt worse than normal.
Speaker A
Yeah, I feel really responsible. I worry about what's happening when I'm not there. And is there a part of you that says, I cannot connect with anybody else until my parents are okay?
Speaker A
[snorts] Yeah. That's exactly it. I feel like I need to fix it and to help them learn and change rather than be stuck in habits.
Speaker A
Yeah, I feel responsible for my parents' relationship in an over responsible way. I can't grow up and leave and have my own life and my own relationships until I know that they are in quote, fixed, or that they are fine.
Speaker A
Or that they're not going to chew each other up. Yeah, it's weird also because I do think they need each other at the same time.
Speaker A
You know, it's it feels gray. It doesn't feel obvious that people would be better off alone without each other.
Speaker A
I don't think they understand how much they rely on each other in terms of the codependence kind of thing.
Speaker A
I guess I'm saying I I fear what it would be like to be truly independent.
Speaker A
What it would be like for you to be truly independent or for them? I guess all three.
Speaker A
[laughter] [gasps] Yes, they may be codependent on each other, but so are you on them in a way, right? You cannot be grounded in yourself until you know that they are fine.
Speaker A
Yeah. Are you close to your siblings? Yeah. Do you discuss any of it? Yeah, I talked to my sister about it. It used to be that she didn't want to talk about it.
Speaker A
She Mhm. viewed talking about it as like a betrayal, I think. Every one amongst you seems to feel that if they expose the challenges between the parents they are being illegitimate or they are betraying or they are inflicting guilt.
Speaker A
I think what you're highlighting, if I understand it well and and your sister, too, is that all of you are acutely acutely aware that your parents in some way compromised on their relationship in order to be for the children.
Speaker A
Yeah. And that you owe them. Yeah. [snorts] Something my dad has been open about is that because of the way he grew up, something that he sees as like a an big achievement in his life is having a
Speaker A
stable family unit. Like that's his success. I think he feels that that's that's what success is.
Speaker A
That he did not inflict upon his children that which had been done to him.
Speaker A
Yeah, and I think if there's an expression of negative emotions of of any kind it sort of undermines that. It would shake his worldview and view of the family.
Speaker A
As in I did everything I could to not have my children go through the chaos and the abandonment and the terror that I went through.
Speaker A
Yeah. So everything should be fine for them. How can they have any troubling experience?
Speaker A
Any fear, frustration, hurt, sadness, loss since I made sure that the worst thing that could happen didn't happen.
Speaker A
No other feeling should appear after that. Yeah, I I think his coping mechanism is that he will pretend things are fine until they are fine.
Speaker A
And I I think it's this sense that you tell yourself you're content and then you will be content. Like there's nothing crazily dramatic going on in comparison to Mhm.
Speaker A
his experience. There's stability and that's contentment. [snorts] To which you say To which I say I want more for myself so much more than stability and like continuation.
Speaker A
You know, it's it's not active, it's not curious, it's not love to me. It doesn't feel like a relationship without the type of communication and understanding.
Speaker A
Like what is the where is the relationship? That's how it feels to me. Mhm.
Speaker A
Who [snorts] did you meet now? Did you meet someone and that's why we're speaking today?
Speaker A
Yes, I think so. I met someone who it felt like a lot of things aligned and they seemed really open and like emotionally intelligent and etc.
Speaker A
But it turned out that they were not wanting any kind of commitment. But it was sort of a slow very slow filtering down of understanding that not very transparent.
Speaker A
But yeah, it was the sense that my subconscious had gone for an unavailable person again or someone who decided that they didn't want something but didn't tell me.
Speaker A
And it was really frustrating cuz I felt like I tried really hard to not do that.
Speaker A
And somehow did it again. But my first thought about what you're telling me is that you think that what you did again was unconsciously go for someone who is not available. I think that what you did again is think that the only person
Speaker A
with agency is you. And that the other person just is happenstance. As if they have nothing to do with this.
Speaker A
Maybe you chose and you actually picked up on the signs that were out there and that's why you're very clear.
Speaker A
And that doesn't mean that you up secretously went and found that your unconscious is in charge leading you into obstructed roads when you think consciously that you finally are actually meeting someone who would be open.
Speaker A
And that person may have presented themselves indeed as open. And then decided for whatever reason that that's not what they wanted, but that doesn't mean that that's what you secretly went for.
Speaker A
Yeah. So this is the second or third time that I'm thinking, why does she put everything on her? Why does she think she's the only one who has and holds the wheel here, who has a sense of action and agency? And the
Speaker A
other people just kind of don't have any say or will or drive of their own.
Speaker A
Yeah, I do have a strong illusion of control over everything and therefore responsibility. Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah, I'm glad to hear you say that. [laughter] I can understand even why you would shut down. If someone feels that excessive sense of responsibility and control and decision making the only time it stops is when you shut
Speaker A
down. You don't know how to stay engaged without taking everything on top of you.
Speaker A
Yeah, I think that's true. You understand? The minute you enter in then you're engaged and you're present, you take everything on your shoulders.
Speaker A
Yeah, that's really true. I've been really struggling recently with seeking support from people in my circles. Like as in saying something if I would like something to change. And I do the whole thing in my head and resolve it in my head
Speaker A
already. Like control the whole situation and resolve it and push it back. Mhm. Me, myself, and I have made the decision.
Speaker A
[snorts] Yeah. It's safer for me to feel I'm in control of everything. To be in control of everything or to feel that the entire responsibility is with you is not the same as to be independent.
Speaker A
Mhm. Independent doesn't mean alone. It means able to hold on to yourself while also connected to someone else.
Speaker A
Yeah. It's a very different definition of independence and it's probably the biggest challenge in relationships.
Speaker A
It's how we negotiate attachment and authenticity. In connection with myself but also in connection with you.
Speaker A
Yeah. So, I don't hear your parents being independent. [snorts] True. And I'm not even sure that I hear you being in that sense independent.
Speaker A
Which is partly why you freeze. Or not why you freeze, but that's what happens when you freeze.
Speaker A
Nobody can come in. All sense of responsibility stops. [snorts] Bob Marley steps up on stage.
Speaker A
[sighs and gasps] What's the sentence from his song that comes first? Could you be loved and be loved?
Speaker A
Could you be loved? Is that one, right? Yeah. And loved. I'm wondering if part of the question is could you be loved?
Speaker A
I don't know. I was very much loved. But my parents sacrificed themselves for loving me.
Speaker A
And that makes me feel that I need to be really worth it. I have to be flawless.
Speaker A
I have to love them back. I have to thank them forever cuz they gave everything up for us and especially for me.
Speaker A
Mhm. And so whenever I ask, can I be loved? I think about how lovable am I? How special am I?
Speaker A
How deserving am I? Because in my experience, loving me comes together with not loving each other.
Speaker A
What's the next sentence in the song? Um don't let them fool you. [laughter] Mhm.
Speaker A
Yeah. Don't let them fool you. And then? Um or even try to school you.
Speaker A
How fitting. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Your unconscious picked the perfect song. [laughter] [gasps] Yeah, I mean I did I have had this perfectionism since I was really young.
Speaker A
That's also something I worry about is that I don't show truth I that I'm not authentic in general.
Speaker A
Like I try to present a polished version of something. Or like an acceptable version or when I was younger it would be in the form of like you know, do over-exercising and not eating properly and it's come in lots of forms like, you
Speaker A
know, trying to be academically constantly the top. It's like having to prove something, isn't it?
Speaker A
Having to prove that I was worthy of the sacrifice that you made. I will be filling your bucket to the point of not knowing who I am.
Speaker A
Because I'm trying to be what I think you want me to be. Yeah, because I remember every time my dad would come to a show that I'm performing in, he'd be like, "This is what I live for." And I used to hate it.
Speaker A
I would hate it cuz I felt so much pressure. It feels like living vicariously through is your life, not my life.
Speaker A
Yeah. [snorts] Yeah. And that pressure when it goes acute on overdrive, it creates the shutdown.
Speaker A
It's like a circuit system that gets overcharged and then it just blows up. Yeah.
Speaker A
And you young and this is a developmental task for you. You know, this is the beginning of I was recruited.
Speaker A
But that doesn't mean that I want to keep that title. Yeah, it just feels like such a paradox because I know that it's completely out of love. You know what I mean?
Speaker A
[snorts and clears throat] Yes. But when my dad comes to see me sing and he says this is what I live for, I will have a part of me that that is pleased that he so enjoys it and that it
Speaker A
means so much to him. But I'm going to keep another part for me. Yeah.
Speaker A
That I don't just sing to give meaning to his life. To fill in the bucket for him.
Speaker A
To justify his choices and his sacrifices. That's there. But there's also another part of it that I think is I really love to do so.
Speaker A
Yeah. That it also belongs to me. [snorts] Yeah. How are you doing? [snorts] It's hard. It's really hard.
Speaker A
[laughter] [snorts] Feels wrong to see them in any other way, you know? But the older I get, the more I just see people instead of a perfect family.
Speaker A
[laughter and snorts] I don't know why I'm going to say what I'm going to say, but I have a feeling that if you said to your dad it's hard for me to feel that I sing for myself when I
Speaker A
know how much my singing needs to fill you up. I think your father would say, of course it's for you.
Speaker A
I don't think your dad is consciously wanting you to live for him or for him to live entirely through you.
Speaker A
Yeah. I think your dad wanted to change the story of his childhood. But I don't think he wanted to co-opt his kids to the extent that you feel trapped.
Speaker A
Yeah. I agree. And that may be worth a conversation with him. It will liberate you.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. The 6-year-old and maybe even the 16-year-old felt that all her accomplishments belong to him or to them.
Speaker A
But the 26-year-old is beginning to create a different version of the story for herself.
Speaker A
Yeah. I keep joking to everyone I'm in my rebellious phase now. Okay. Is there anything else that we need to add before we end today? We only have 1 hour, so. [music] Um no, I think it's a lot to think about
Speaker A
[laughter] already. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank [music] you, too. This was an Esther [music] Calling, a one-time intervention phone call recorded remotely from two points somewhere in the world.
Speaker A
If you have a question you'd like to explore with Esther, it could be answered in a 40- [music] or 50-minute phone call. Send her a voice message and Esther might just call you. Send your question to [email protected].
Speaker A
[music] Where should we begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast [music] Network in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut.
Speaker A
Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destry Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller, [music] and Gillian And.
Speaker A
Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive [music] producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker.
Speaker A
We'd also like [music] to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul.
Topics:attachmentemotional unavailabilityfreeze responsefamily dynamicsimplicit memoryindependencerelationshipscouples therapyEsther Pereltrauma
![[YBA] frosti — Transcript](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KAH0o3xSL3w/maxresdefault.jpg)
