When someone we care about is emotionally unavailable it can leave us feeling shut out, or like we have to take up mind reading to figure out what’s really happening beneath the surface and how we can help. If you’re someone that prefers to be open and talk about your feelings freely, coming up against the opposite can be upsetting to the point of frustration; especially when at the root of it all, all you want to do is care for this person.
Because we might not respond in the same way, it’s really easy to overlook that while your partner/friend/family member isn’t leaping at the opportunity to be vulnerable with you, they actually do still crave connection, understanding and support – they just don’t know how to feel safe while letting you in.
Before we spiral, question why this person doesn’t feel safe to share, and grab them by the shoulders, shake, and go “just talk to me!”, let’s consider some healthier routes. With some patience, empathy, and the right approach, it’s absolutely possible to create an environment where these people want to open up with you. Let’s make a start with some practical, respectful strategies we can implement to help emotionally unavailable people feel safe and supported without pushing them past their boundaries.
1. Help Them Feel Safe
It’s important to focus on providing a safe, judgement-free environment. Being emotionally unavailable can stem from past trauma and/or emotional invalidation, so rather than overanalysing their behaviour or questioning their emotional distance, by being calm, non-reactive and accepting we can help them to slowly break down some of these walls.
2. Prioritise Consistency
Show that you’ll be around when and if they need you. This doesn’t need to be anything intense – just being consistent in checking in, remembering small details, and being available are all great ways to show up for someone. If an emotionally unavailable person fears unpredictability, abandonment, or invalidation, being reliable and consistent helps to build security and trust.
3. Avoid Direct Interrogation
If we don’t feel comfortable, direct emotional questions can feel threatening to anyone; and ultimately push us further away from actually wanting to open up. Offering gentle curiosity through indirect, observational prompts – like “what has your week been like?” – is a great way to create opportunities for conversation without being invasive.
4. Practice Empathy
It might feel like you don’t always have a lot to work with, but pay attention to subtle cues in tone, body language, and word choices and reflect this back. This doesn’t mean literally repeating back everything they have said in the exact same way, just helping them to feel heard and understood builds trust. This can range from simple things like “wow that sucks” to “I know a lawyer, fight them” (…for legal reasons this is a joke).
5. Remember What’s Underneath The Avoidance
Despite all the frustrations that might come from not knowing what they’re feeling or why, practice compassion over criticism. Recognise and remind yourself that behind emotional unavailability and avoidance is often anxiety, shame and/or trauma. Shifting your own mindset can help you to be more empathetic, and can help them not feel the need to be defensive.
6. Respect Their Pace
While it’s exciting to see them open up, don’t rush to fill silences or force the conversation on and instead allow them to pause. When we’re being vulnerable, pausing to think, plan out how we want to say something, or take a moment to calm ourselves, silence can feel like a safe space. Letting these breaks happen signals that they can take their time and you won’t push them before they’re ready.
7. Quietly Appreciate Openness
Meeting someone who is anxious about showing emotion with a lot of emotion can make them regret opening up. Try to keep the big emotional reactions under wraps and offer soft reinforcement instead, a simple “thank you for telling me that, it means a lot” can go a long way in building confidence and connection.
8. Provide Low Pressure Time to Share
If someone is anxious and avoids sharing their feelings, even when they want to, there can be an underlying worry of it ‘not being the right time’ or feeling forced and uncomfortable. Engaging in easy parallel activities together – like cooking, walking, gaming, exercising, all the way through to scrolling on your phones on the couch together – is a good way to reduce emotional intensity, ease pressure, and make sharing feel more organic.
9. Offer Indirect Help
Actions can speak louder than words. When you know that they are having a challenging time, if they clearly aren’t one to go into deep emotional conversations about their feelings and ask for help, then offering indirect help is a great way to show that you are there for them regardless of if you understand what is happening in their life. UberEats a coffee to their work, drop off a pre-cooked dinner, invite them out to a movie and shout their ticket, help them with a day of running errands, send them dumb internet videos because “haha – you”. Kind actions are a great way to show you are there for someone and make their day that much brighter.
10. Ask Them What They Want
So you’ve implemented all the steps and they’ve shared something big and emotional and they are feeling vulnerable (a weird thing to celebrate, but yay!), but what the heck do we do now? Beyond practicing empathy and thanking them for sharing, it actually pays to ask them what they’d like from you. They might actually not want your help or advice, or not want to talk about it anymore than they already have, or they might be open to you offering some suggestions to their issue, or things you can do to help them.
I highly recommend the system I have with some of my friends where we ask each other “do you just want to vent or do you want my advice?”; which has solved an astronomical number of misunderstandings and frustrations (sometimes you just need to bitch about something for the sake of it).
In Summary
Building emotional trust takes time—but it’s worth it. When we provide emotionally unavailable people with consistency, curiosity, and compassion, we can help to foster trust, safety, connection, and growth. It’s not about “fixing” them or forcing vulnerability, but showing up in a way that makes feeling safe and being able to share if they want to possible. Genuinely just being available is the best thing we can do for everyone that we care about and one of the best ways to create a safe environment.
