Mr Unavailable - A guide to avoiding emotionally, physically and spiritually unavailable men

Achy Breaky Hearts

When I come across women who love emotionally unavailable men (including myself who is a recovering addict), I always ask: Where the hell did we all go wrong?

A common thread with a lot of us is that at some point our heart took a pounding. Most of us have a tale of a man who let us down, broke our trust, put us through the wringer, stomped all over heart and left us irrevocably (or so it seems) scarred forever.

I've heard tales of 'first' loves who in our teenage years took the innocence and trust from us and gave us a cracked view of what should determine a relationship. For most people, the first time we fall in love (or think we have) is our bravest because we have no prior experience of heartbreak unless we have some sort of life lesson learnt from experiences with a parental figure.

When we have been hurt, we rallied and railed against the pain and eventually we have moved on, or have we? For every woman that loves an emotionally unavailable man, you can be very certain that there is unresolved residue from a critical heartbreak experience. Think back and there is that moment when everything changed forever and your attitude about love and who you were choosing to be with changed forever. We stopped trusting, we stopped believing in love coming from a good decent man who is available and stopped believing in ourselves. We think we're protecting ourselves from being vulnerable but we are just putting ourselves in line for more and more hurt.

Breaking Up With and Getting Over a Married Man/Attached Man

When you're The Other Woman, it will often feel like incredible highs and lows, and at some point, you should and probably will become sick of being in the situation and want to end it with the guy. Like any break up though, breaking up is hard to do unless something so awful happens that it galvanises you. There are a hell of a lot of women in this situation that are readers of this site, and the most common issue is how the hell can they move on? Here I hope that I can help to put any woman who is in this situation on the road to healthier happiness. But first, think about this point first?

Is this a half hearted cry for attention from him which you hope will force his hand into making the decision to be with you? If so, be careful as this is probably still unlikely to happen and if it means you end up staying with him, you're wasting your own time. Otherise....

1. Be firm and strong.

Be resolute about your decision and immovable. If you really do want to break up with him and you are sick of the situation, he shouldn't be able to wheedle his way around you. One of the strengths of the guy in this relationship is that he has the power to get around you. This time he can't.

2. Make it about YOU, not HIM.

If you put the focus of the break up on him, he can make excuses that he means at the time but probably don't hold up after the event and he'll make promises that he means at the time but is also unlikely to keep. Yes, you are breaking up because he can't give you what you need, want and deserve, however, you're also breaking up with him because YOU are better than this.

3. Remind yourself that he is throwing you the crumbs of his time and his emotions.

Yes you may be conditioned to think that the crumbs are enough for you, but the reality is that a healthy relationship with a man that is only with you and puts you at the centre of his life, feels far different to the flimsy 'relationship' that you're in now.

New Year, Ring in the Changes

Happy New Year to all of the readers of Baggage Reclaim and The Mr Unavailable Guide. Thanks for your support of the blogs and please keep visiting in 2007. Apologies for my rather extended absence from the blog, although I note that there are still a lot of readers (!). This blog will be updated again very soon and will go back to more frequent postings. Thanks for your patience, NML x

People will make a lot of noise about new years resolutions and rather than suggest you make some that you'll no doubt forget by the end of the week, here are a few suggestions for making life easier and better.

1. Take life by the balls

If you're waiting for life to come along and do everything you want whilst you sit back, you could be waiting a while.

2. Stay away from men (or women) that 'belong' to someone else.

Most of the time, coveting or actually carrying out a relationship with someone who is already in one with someone else, will result in tears. Yours and possibly the person who they're cheating on. Better to be on your own with your self esteem intact rather than waiting for the few crumbs to be thrown at you.

3. Good female interaction (The Art of Sisterhood) equals good karma!

If you're pretending to be nice when really you're a bitch, if you're chatting sh*t about your friends and grinning to their face, if you covet their men, sleep with their men, chase their men, belittle, and be generally negative about the women around you, you'd amazed at the impact it can have on your life. Being ruthless to other women is a skill that men subconsciously spot in you that they can inadvertently use to their advantage. Having a close circle of female friends can actually help you to avoid bad dating mistakes.

4. Be happy in your own company.

If you detest being alone, even for a few hours, or detest singledom, you make yourself a target for bad relationships. You will make misguided choices to avoid what you think is the awfulness of being alone, but you'll choose men that you will expect to complete you which is a one way trip to misery.

5. Don't use sex as a way to 'get' someone to want you more
You could shag someone 24/7 and they may still not want to be in a relationship. For some guys, they do take the attitude of 'Why buy the cow if you can drink the milk for free?'

My new eBook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more.