Good & Healthy Relationship Advice & Tips

A soul mate must be willing and available to have a relationship with you. If he or she is unavailable, this is not your soul mate at the present time. A confusing part of being attracted to unavailable, commitment-phobic people is that the emotional or sexual chemistry can feel so strong. You accept behavior that you’d never tolerate in friends. Why?

The electricity can feel so incredible and rare, you may mistake intensity for intimacy. You make compromises you wouldn’t typically consider in order to give the relationship a chance. Still, connection or not, you must take a sober look to determine if someone is truly available for intimacy.

Hear this: Not everyone you feel a connection with, no matter how mind-blowing, is your soul mate. You can fall for someone who is totally wrong for you, as unfair and confounding as that reality can be.

For a relationship to work, a soul connection must go both ways. Even if the intuitive bond you feel is authentic, it can remain unrealized. Just because someone might’ve been your soul mate in previous eras  doesn’t mean he or she is right for you today. Perhaps the person can’t or won’t reciprocate or is simply oblivious, a frustrating irony you must accept.

Don’t put your life on hold for unrequited longing. Love that is destined can never be stopped. How do you avoid getting entangled in dead-end or delusional relationships where you see someone in terms of how you wish them to be, not who they are? To start, here are some red flags to watch for. Even one sign warns you to be careful. The more that are present, the more danger exists.

10 Signs of Unavailable People

1. They are married or in a relationship with someone else.

2. They have one foot on the gas pedal, one foot on the brake.

3. They are emotionally distant, shut down, or can’t deal with conflict.

4. They’re mainly interested in sex, not relating emotionally or spiritually.

5. They are practicing alcoholics, sex addicts, or substance abusers

6. They prefer long distance relationships, emails, texting, or don’t introduce you to their friends and family.

7. They are elusive, sneaky, frequently working or tired, and may disappear for periods.

8. They are seductive with you but make empty promises — their behavior and words don’t match.

9. They’re narcissistic, only consider themselves, not your needs.

10. They throw you emotional crumbs or enticing hints of their potential to be loving, then withdraw.

At first, some of these signs may be more obvious than others. It’s tricky: we tend to show our best selves in the honeymoon stage of a romance. It can take time for a person’s unavailability to emerge. That’s why it’s eye-opening to look at a partner’s relationship history. Who he or she was previously with reveals volumes about their capacity for intimacy now. Beware of rationalizing, “I’m different. This person would never be that way with me.”

I don’t care how mightily someone blames the blood curdling horrors of an ex for a relationship’s demise; this person played a role too. Being able to admit that or trying to understand the reasons for making such a terrible choice is a positive sign. Playing the victim is not.

To find true love, you want to avoid getting involved with anyone who can’t reciprocate your affections. If you are in a toxic, abusive, or non-reciprocal relationship, withdraw even when your passion is strong and says “stay.”