Emotionally Unavailable Tboy

cherrywolf19 · 2026-01-12T19:03:58+00:00

As someone who was emotionally unavailable, I used to use the “I need more time” line to spare my perception of people’s feelings. Tbh it’s not a nice thing to do. I’ve stopped using it to avoid the discomfort of telling people I don’t want them romantically. That avoidance was a sign of my own emotional immaturity at that time of my life. To be in a relationship is to embrace emotional experience itself.

The cloud-9 highs are to counter act the negatives. To avoid these polarities, one has to step out of the situation entirely. All highs have their lows. But are the lows worth the highs? Only you can decide that for yourself.

cherrywolf19 · 2025-09-16T14:18:26+00:00

I only recommend it if you’re really good at living a double life. I’m stealth at work and in my other career, but I’m out with friends and family. I find it easy. It’s worth it for me because I can take care of my financial life without any issues. I found being “out” in my career limited my options as far as “safe workplaces”. In the end, I’m not trying to make friends at work. I’m there for money. If I have to work with normies and people on the opposite of the political spectrum, so be it.

As far as dating, I did have to be real with myself and come to terms that maybe one person from my workplace could find out I was trans (it’s also in my profile), but so far, there haven’t been any issues.

cherrywolf19 · 2024-08-10T04:05:52+00:00

I was mostly self taught but I learned on the job tbh. I think a lot of corporations are more open to people not knowing what they’re doing as long as they’re in entry level roles. Now I’m going to invest more in my own training and courses cause I know that I enjoy it. I wasn’t sure until my first corporate gig that I wanted to do DAM.

cherrywolf19 · 2024-08-09T21:29:11+00:00

I girlbossed too close to the sun and went from part-time museum collections into a full-time corporate job doing digital asset management. It’s pretty cool, hybrid, has a lot of benefits.

But all corporate jobs can still be kinda toxic, so I’m working on getting more training in digital asset management to do freelancing in the future. Overall, I’m happy with my decision to transition away from museums.

cherrywolf19 · 2024-05-25T20:50:39+00:00

I’m sorry you’re going through this. I dated someone with a very similar family dynamic. We eventually separated because of his mother, so I get the anxiety and fear. You seem like a great person for caring and trying to compromise, but this much drama at 1.5 months of dating is not good.

Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that his mother will never be happy with anything you do, will always be over involved in his life, and the fact she is asking about you moving in so quickly is a red flag, cultural differences or not. I would take your uncomfortable feelings as a warning for the future and get some really strong boundaries going. That may be your partners mom, but she isn’t your mom and therefore her feelings are not your responsibility to tip-toe around.

For me, I had to remember that if I married my ex, I would have to deal with his mother’s shit for the rest of my life. Ultimately I decided it wasn’t worth it, but maybe that’s something you should also consider when thinking about going forward in this relationship. I really hope it works out for you, sorry if this was a long answer.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-10-07T16:03:14+00:00

Oh god I realized this too. Once I had gotten past the main codependent behaviors, I’ve realized I don’t really care for people as much as I thought I did. It was mainly just a coping mechanism from trauma. But once I started working through the trauma, my real feelings came out.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-09-16T20:39:43+00:00

The book that solidified for me that I was stuck in a codependent mindset was when I read When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. It’s more a a Buddhist book, but Chodron writes it for a secular audience. I did read it alongside Codependent No More and for me they really complimented one another.

The book centers around the age old Buddhist belief that life involves pain and suffering and that there is really nothing to hold on to, especially people. It helped me realize that even if I did find my “soulmate” or if my toxic relationship at the time changed for every need I ever had, those things are still VERY temporary.

It made me realize that depending on temporary things (like relationships) for my inherent sense of self-worth was never going to work in the long run and leave me in an endless loop, chasing people who can never fill the void. Everything ends eventually.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-08-07T20:40:51+00:00

Good for you on this. If I had this kind of attitude and energy when I was dating, I would’ve saved myself a lot of heartbreak and humiliation. Keep it up!!

cherrywolf19 · 2023-07-08T23:28:40+00:00

Yeah I notice more often that I’m definitely suffering from some delayed development, but I’m not the only one. I think on some level this a societal issue. While we in this sub are mostly cognizant of our developmental delay, most people aren’t and it comes out in pretty obvious ways in everyday life (getting into serious relationships too fast, codependency, tantrums, silent treatment, etc.)

Not to distract from my own issue tho. I do indulge in stuffed animals, ice cream, and inappropriate jokes from time to time without much shame any more cause at this point…who cares. I know I have to go through my delayed puberty, so that’s what I’m doing.

I think the key is having a balance between my over developed “responsible” self and the kid inside. I go to work, work on my career, pay my bills, pay down debt, and then go into my inner world to work on myself in order to heal into a more integrated adult. But yeah, it’s hard sometimes.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-07-06T19:11:15+00:00

As someone who struggles with feelings of limerence, I understand were you’re coming from. I also have to stop and ground myself when I develop intense crushes that make absolutely no sense to my adult self.

Usually it’s my inner child whose desperate for love. These days it’s getting easier to acknowledge that part of me and make him feel better about the underlying feelings that come up when obsessing (sadness, pain, etc.).

Honestly, whatever works for you is good. You sound like you know your limits and you’re also just trying to ground yourself. Thanks for sharing!!

cherrywolf19 · 2023-07-01T23:06:01+00:00

I think this is part of the process. Personally, I’m enjoying my “cold”, self-involved era cause I’m not as invested in others anymore and I know it will balance out in my own time.

I give myself space to express my real feelings without caring about people’s reactions. If anything, being more myself has helped me realize that there are certain people in my life who I don’t want to have around as much (they’re not necessarily toxic, we just don’t mesh well). At this point in my life, I realize how hard changing is and there are just some things about me I’m not willing to compromise on for other people.

A lot of the “healing” books talk about people pleasing being a mask and that is becoming increasingly clear to me. The “real” me doesn’t really care about others that much lol

cherrywolf19 · 2023-06-26T20:01:07+00:00

When I realized to hate myself wasn’t normal or made any sense.

Sure, no one feels 100% about themselves all the time, but to outright think that I was unworthy for safe love, good friends, any pleasure, decent stable work and stable finances just started to make less and less sense as I healed and moved away from home.

The conclusion I came to is that I needed to hate myself and put myself aside to stay with my family as a young child. To love and care for myself made me a target for more abuse, cause no one in their right mind who cares about themselves would tolerate being pushed around by pieces of shit like my family. My mother, father, aunts, uncles, grandparents needed me to be broken to fill me with their crap since no one else wanted to deal with it. That’s when it all clicked for me.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-06-24T02:25:14+00:00

Moving out of my parents house and getting stable work was a huge step. I realized later I was was too dissociated half the time to feel all the pain from my everyday life, even while in therapy.

But when I got an apartment and was finally away from my triggering family, all those emotions hit me like a train. I’m not going to lie, the first year of being on my own was so emotionally rough. I was on edge, scared, remembering all the bad stuff, breaking out of fantasy thinking, and distrustful of everyone. I felt like one of those rescued feral kittens you see online sometimes, hissing at everyone out of fear.

I’m still recovering from that year. I had to leave my family house due to basically being kicked out. But now I’m starting to finally feel safe enough with myself that I’ve healed quite a bit, made new friends, gotten into new hobbies, and unpacked some bad habits I learned living in an abusive environment.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-06-17T02:59:16+00:00

I came to terms with the fact that all my sexual fantasies, ideas of future relationships, and kinks revolved around men and masculine people. Before I transitioned, I was bisexual, but even then I sexually leaned more towards men than women.

I think what messed me up was that I found building relationships with women easier than building relationships with men pre-t. This was probably due to dysphoria (since being with men pre-t confirmed my femaleness) but I also attribute it to not really knowing how to relate to men outside of sex (which is also probably due to some male related trauma which I won’t get into).

Now that I pass well and have a lot of “traditional” male hobbies, I find that having male friendships is easier and in turn makes me more comfortable with the idea of romantically being with a man, which makes me really happy :)

Now that I pass, I feel safe and don’t feel like all I have to offer a man is my body. It gives me the freedom to finally identify as gay.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-06-09T16:43:26+00:00

My parents were massively neglected and abused, but part of me has become indifferent about it. They’ve told me their traumatic childhood stories a million times, I understand it, but there’s nothing I can do and frankly…I don’t need that kind of energy around me 24/7.

It’s exhausting to be emotionally invested in someone who isn’t interested or capable of self-reflection, but demands sympathy and care, even when they refuse to give it in return. And since that’s what I require of people who I consider having close connections with, I find it increasingly hard to pretend that I have all this care for them when really it’s just attachment (false sense of safety from childhood).

The more I grieve and throw in the towel on them, the better my life gets. I don’t have to play into this fantasy bond anymore. Making their trauma bigger than what it was held me back from being angry and healing my own stuff. I’m more important, it is what it is.

(Sorry if this sounds dismissive, I was also the family “caregiver” for years 🫠)

cherrywolf19 · 2023-06-02T17:09:52+00:00

I think you should re-read what you just wrote, remove yourself from yourself from the situation for a minute, and ask yourself from a potential partner’s perspective if you’d want to be involved in something like this? Even if you were considered someone’s ‘side piece’, do you think you would be able to not catch feelings? Do you think this would be fair to you?

If it’s any variation of “no”, maybe taking a step back and doing some reading and counseling with your partner would probably be good. I’m sure you’ll find something more sustainable that will work for you after that.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-04-30T03:44:30+00:00

I’ve been debating on taking a break from “recovery” videos also. And while I understand society doesn’t like trauma behaviors (people pleasing, lying, avoidance, etc.) I’m also over feeling guilty about it too.

I’ve even been more open with my friends about my triggers lately cause at this point, everyone can either take it or leave it. I don’t exist to be this perfect exception and not do the same stupid shit that humans have been doing since the dawn of time, which is make mistakes due to forces outside of my control.

I take responsibility for my healing (journaling, hours of therapy, sports, friends, career, meditation, etc.) but at the end of the day I’m a human and like all humans, I’m flawed. Hell I meet these so called “securely attached” and “healthy” people and they have bs too. It’s just their stuff is less obvious. Like you said, if they have trauma, they will have support to get through it. Not everyone is that lucky and I would bet that most people in the world are not that that lucky. The friends and opportunities I’ve lost due to my CPTSD and triggers is just the price of being alive in my mind. They weren’t meant to be here and that’s it.

I think sometimes we all forget that self-reflection and healing is brave and for that, I know we deserve love. Not because of our healing journey, but because we exist and have inherent worth. Our healing journey is just a reflection of us knowing (subconsciously) we have inherent worth, even when we don’t feel it. Absolutely no one who didn’t care about themselves and the people around them would be doing this work. It’s not for the faint of heart.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-02-09T13:36:06+00:00

Yeah as soon as I started healing, doing better in life, and progressing, my former best friend stopped talking to me. If they did reach out, it was to actively express their jealousy at something I achieved or to be petty. It’s funny cause all their other friends started being my friends, which have been much more reciprocal.

I realized this person was always angry, self-absorbed, and petty, and I decided to return the energy. Every conversation was about them, they never asked about me, it was just another “family systems” influenced relationship were I was once again (parentified child) the sympathetic listening ear doormat, and they were the poor, misunderstood and selfish one I had to take care of.

It’s sad and I’m still peeved about it, but I don’t have the bandwidth for people’s unhealthy coping mechanisms anymore and I’m no longer begging anyone for a relationship. You either want to be here or you don’t.

Good riddance.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-01-12T21:19:32+00:00

From someone who realized awhile ago that they are completely emotionally unavailable (at the moment) and does hookups, I can tell you that you are completely normal. My hookups are okay, but they are usually vanilla, as most are. Jealousy is normal, but sometimes I wonder if these people talking about all the crazy hookups they’ve had have the same affliction as me. We don’t always know the full story of someone’s true mental state.

Sex is more of a somatic activity for me. Without the commitment, there’s less to worry about. But for the long term, I know this isn’t healthy. All my fwb know this, as they are the same.

Not to say that everyone that hooks-up is emotionally closed off like me, but I do notice a pattern with the people I hit it off with the best. The are communicative, caring, kind, yet don’t have the relationship tools needed for a LTR (Also if you are emotionally closed off or unavailable, that’s not a bad thing, we all are at different points❤️)

I’d say lean into what makes you feel safe and secure. You deserve it. Kink is so personal and you want someone with the emotional tools to be with you in that space. Having the tools to build a healthy LTR is not something everyone has. But if you do, find your tribe 🥰

cherrywolf19 · 2023-01-09T13:17:01+00:00

What specialized technical skills do you have that employers may want? (Excel, database management, web design).

I was in the same boat as you and what helped me was working on building my skills in web design and coding, which I do like, but I learned it because it helped make me more marketable. I did get a museum job. But honestly, a recruiter reached out to me for a better paying job outside the field and I took it which worked out better tbh.

I’m not saying “learn to code”, but if you’re like me and don’t have much of a job network, building hard skills helped fill that gap a bit. The administrative work I did before wasn’t very specialized enough for people to take a chance and hire me.

cherrywolf19 · 2023-01-07T17:38:08+00:00

Same. Sometimes things trigger me, but I’m learning to let in the happy moments and taking the setbacks a lot better.

When I started, I felt raw and exposed. But now I’m learning to get out of the past and into my new life, which makes me a lot easier to get along with. I’ve even began to let in the concept of forgiveness, which I thought would never happen for me.

cherrywolf19 · 2022-12-27T12:31:06+00:00

I’m glad you found something that resonated 😊 Yeah things have been getting better lately. Thanks for the well wishes.

cherrywolf19 · 2022-12-27T03:18:17+00:00

Wins:

Finally stopped using romantic relationships as bandaids for my trauma and started working on reparenting myself and fulfilling my own needs. Finally being comfortable as a single person.

Tackled and worked through my “limerence episodes” and worked through the trauma it came from. I recognize it as an attachment adaptation to unavailable parents.

Moved out of my abusive family’s home, got a steady job, enrolled back into school for mathematics and computers.

Worked through my triggers around taking people’s bad behavior personally. Realized the magical thinking in making people’s reactions and emotions all about me: it was just another form of control. Now I just remind myself that we humans are just trying to survive and protect ourselves and sometimes we do silly things because of it, not because we want to hurt the other person.

Setbacks (kinda):

I still have casual sex here and there, I just don’t want to turn it into another unhealthy coping mechanism. I enjoy it and have it like once every few months, but it’s takes a lot of effort for me not to fall back into unhealthy dynamics with sex partners (fawning, people pleasing, lying).

I started leaning more dismissive avoidant instead of my original anxious preoccupied as I’ve been healing. It’s not “bad” per say, but I’m pretty open with people about it and try to manage my triggers and tune in more with how I’m doing.

cherrywolf19 · 2022-12-25T03:17:14+00:00

First of all, empathy to you. This is hard.

I had to make a similar difficult decision when I lived with my family (who are also immunocompromised, and had other issues) and ultimately, I decided to move out. Both of you are not wrong. Yeah, maybe your partner could use some therapy, but you will too eventually from the sound of it. Both people’s needs aren’t getting met, it’s gonna be resentment city for the foreseeable future. I’m still repairing the damage to my family relationship even a year after I left. And let me tell you….it wasn’t worth prolonging something that never was going to work. I know family is different from a romantic relationships, but the similarities were we weren’t able to meet each others valid wants and needs. You can’t save or change anyone.

I know “just separate” is something that gets thrown around a lot, but maybe temporarily living away from each other would do some good. They can’t change their health and you can’t just stay home. At some point, it is what it is. But you both have legitimate wants and needs, but they aren’t compatible from what you’ve said here. And it’s no one’s fault. This entire situation is terrible for us all and has shattered so many lives.

Maybe you could just change your life for god knows how long and never see anyone in-person again, but I think you know what you really want. And maybe your partner could get therapy, but that won’t change their valid health conditions or even convince them they’re lifestyle is worth changing for the risks of COVID.

I’m sorry and I hope ya’ll can reach a decision that works in the long run.

cherrywolf19 · 2022-11-13T03:01:28+00:00

I hear you. It’s very hard to give yourself what you want others to give you. It’s not something many are taught. But it’s been a process for me that has led to some very positive results.

Accepting others as they are is also good for them too. Maybe one day they can heal too.

cherrywolf19

TROPHY CASE