Always Choosing Unavailable Partners?

Have you ever found yourself in a relationship where you felt like you were giving everything, but your partner just wouldn’t fully show up? Maybe they avoided deeper connection, their communication was hot and cold, or their actions never quite matched their words. If this resonates with you, you’re not alone.

I know this pattern well—not just because I’ve coached countless women through it, but because I’ve lived it myself. I’ve been in those relationships where I bent myself into impossible shapes, hoping to be enough for someone who couldn’t meet me halfway. I know the ache of wondering, “What’s wrong with me?” or “Why does love feel so hard?”

The truth is, attracting unavailable partners isn’t about being “broken” or needing to “fix” yourself. It’s about uncovering the hidden beliefs and patterns that have been shaping your relationships—often without you even realizing it. These patterns influence not just how we stay in relationships but also who we choose to date in the first place. Let’s dive into why this happens, how it keeps us stuck, and, most importantly, what we can do to break free and create the love we deserve.

The Pull of Unavailable Partners: Why It Feels So Familiar

One of the hardest truths to face is that we’re often drawn to unavailable partners because it feels familiar. Early experiences with love, especially if they were inconsistent or conditional, teach us that connection has to be earned.

These beliefs might sound like:

“If I give enough, they’ll love me.”
“If I’m too much or ask for too much, they’ll leave.”
“This is the best I can hope for, so I’d better make it work.”

These unconscious scripts drive us to seek out relationships where we replay these dynamics, hoping this time will be different. The problem? It keeps us stuck in a cycle of chasing after love instead of receiving it freely. And it often starts before the relationship even begins—when we choose to overlook the early signs of emotional unavailability.

The Early Signs of Emotional Unavailability

The truth is, red flags are often present from the very beginning, but we either don’t see them or we choose to ignore them. Why? Because our early experiences with love taught us to normalize these behaviors or even find them attractive – in a subversive kind of way.

Does this sound familiar?

Inconsistent Communication: They’re warm and engaging one day, distant the next, leaving you questioning what you did wrong.
Avoidance of Deeper Connection: Conversations stay surface-level. Vulnerability feels off-limits.
Breadcrumbing: Just enough attention to keep you hooked but never enough to build something real.
Ghosting or Love-Bombing: Either disappearing without explanation or overwhelming you with affection, only to pull back when things get real.

At the start of a relationship, these traits might seem minor or even excusable. Maybe you tell yourself they’re just busy, they’ve had a hard day, or they’ll open up once they feel more comfortable. But over time, these behaviors reveal deeper patterns of unavailability.

Why We Overlook the Red Flags

Recognizing these behaviors can feel like a revelation, but seeing them in hindsight often comes with frustration: Why didn’t I see it sooner? The answer lies in the patterns we developed in childhood to cope with inconsistent or conditional love.

As children, we learn to adapt to our environment. If love felt unpredictable—one moment available, the next withheld—we internalized beliefs to make sense of that experience. These beliefs might include:

“Love is something you earn by being good or giving enough.”
“If someone pulls away, I just need to try harder to win them back.”
“This is normal; this is how relationships work.”

These beliefs can blind us to red flags, making unavailable partners seem appealing. It’s not that we don’t see the signs—it’s that part of us feels drawn to them because they reflect the patterns we know. And because they feel familiar, we ignore the discomfort, telling ourselves that this time it will be different. And… if you’re comfortable with that, it could be a sign of your own vulnerability around feeling unsafe and wanting to avoid rejection. Hear me out…

Turning the Lens Inward: The Real Shift

The game-changer in my own journey—and the work I do with clients—was realizing that these patterns weren’t just about them. I had to ask myself:

Why do I keep choosing people who can’t show up for me?
What’s happening in me that feels comfort in their unavailability?

It was a painful realization, but it was also freeing. I saw how my own walls—fear of being fully seen, fear of abandonment—were keeping me stuck. I wasn’t just choosing unavailable partners; I was showing up as unavailable, too.

The good news? You can change this. When you stop settling for crumbs and start addressing the patterns within yourself, everything shifts.

Steps to Break Free and Choose Differently

Breaking free doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s absolutely possible with small, intentional steps.

Awareness Is Key
Start by noticing your patterns.

What types of people are you drawn to?
How do you respond to behaviors like breadcrumbing or ghosting?
What beliefs about yourself might be driving these choices?

This isn’t about blame—it’s about understanding. Awareness is the foundation of change.

Get Clear on Your Non-Negotiables
Before you even start dating, define what you truly want in a relationship. This clarity helps you spot red flags early and decide whether someone aligns with your values.

Ask yourself:

What does emotional availability look like to me?
What are my non-negotiable values in a partner?

When you notice a behavior that doesn’t align, pause. Don’t ignore it or make excuses. Instead, communicate directly and give them the opportunity to address it. If they can’t, you’ll have the clarity to walk away early rather than getting deeper into a relationship that isn’t right for you.

Learn to Trust Your Intuition
Your gut often picks up on red flags before your mind does. If something feels off—if their actions don’t match their words or you’re left feeling unsure—pay attention. Trusting your intuition is an act of self-worth.
Build Self-Worth Through Action
Your worth isn’t something you “find”—it’s something you build. Each time you set a boundary, speak up, or walk away from something that doesn’t serve you, you strengthen your sense of self-worth.
Honor Your Inner Child, Lead with Your Adult Self
Recognize that the strategies you’ve used in the past—over-giving, staying silent—were brilliant tools to protect you as a child. But now, as an adult, you have the power to choose differently.

Embracing the Love You Deserve

The love you’re longing for isn’t out of reach—it’s closer than you think. But it starts with you. By showing up authentically, setting boundaries, and believing in your worth, you create the space for real, fulfilling love to enter your life.

When you begin to choose differently—recognizing red flags early, setting boundaries, and trusting your gut—you start to attract partners who are ready to meet you where you are. And the ones who aren’t? You’ll have the confidence to walk away, knowing you’re not losing love but making room for something better.

Let’s Take This Journey Together

If you’re ready to explore these patterns more deeply and take the first steps toward the love you deserve, let’s connect. Visit LeilaReyes.com to learn more about my workshops, programs, and resources.

Your next chapter is waiting—and it’s filled with the kind of love that sees and honors the real you. Let’s take this journey together.

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Resentment or Righteous Anger: How to Know the Difference

Difficult Emotions when you move on after divorce Who hasn’t gone through a breakup and felt angry, marginalized, or powerless? Divorce can often act as a catalyst for regaining lost power, but difficult and confusion emotions can complicate the process. As conscious as we want to consider ourselves, it is actually quite common to fall into the trap of trying to regain our power through manipulation and control. You need to know where you stand, in yourself, to be able to wield your anger in constructive and empowered ways. The First Step is Knowing the Difference between resentment and righteous anger! When your anger is a result of resentment, then you can be sure that you feel unsettled inside, but when your anger is the result of taking a stand, then you will experience a sense of calm – even when you might not get what you want! Here are some ways to recognize the difference: RESENTMENT Resentment is a result of not taking care of yourself, and expecting others to give you what you want even though you haven’t directly asked for it. Feelings of resentment are common in a breakup because they build over time. In the beginning, you might have an expectation that your partner will say or do something and when they don’t live up to your expectation, then you feel let down or a little angry. Burying the little feeling is like planting a seed that eventually turns into a garden of resentment. Over time, you will discover little ‘volunteer’ plants of resentment where you didn’t expect them.When you feel resentment, you will have an experience of wanting to get back at your partner (or ex), to hurt them in some way, or “make them pay” for what they’ve done (or not done). Once you’ve made it to the point of divorce, it’s much more difficult to pull the weeds of resentment, but you can do it. I’m not here to say it’s an easy task, but I guarantee you that the work you do around releasing your resentment will help you regain your power and leave you feeling the peace of mind you so desperately want to experience. RIGHTEOUS ANGER Righteous anger is different than the anger that comes from resentment, because you’re putting your stake in the ground and letting others know what your boundary is. The way to express righteous anger is to know yourself deeply and know where you stand, so you recognize when a boundary has been crossed. Regaining your power after divorce or breakup is sacred work and in the process you will discover that many of the choices you made did not serve you. In this recognition you can stop blaming your ex and start giving yourself what you need. You’re not always going to get what you want. You may have to fight for your rights, and as you stand up for yourself from an empowered, matter-of-fact knowing, then you will be able to release your resentments gradually and naturally. It’s not about “Right” and “Wrong” We tend to look at things from our own perspectives, so don’t get caught up in believing that your righteous anger is about you being right and your partner being wrong. There is no right and wrong thinking that will bring you peace. EVER! In the knowing of who you are, you can make decisions that are ‘right’ for you and you may take other people into consideration when making your choices. What you must know is the difference between the actions you take that are from resentment or righteous anger so you don’t make a bigger mess of things, because divorce and breakups are messy. Some suggestions: As you move on after divorce or breakup, it is important to own your feelings! Know yourself and the pain you’re in and take responsibility for your part of the co-creation of your current circumstances. Don’t blame anyone else for not getting what you want. Instead vision the life you want and make choices that lead you toward peace and happiness. Set and maintain clear boundaries with yourself and others, and above all else: Take care of yourself as if you were one of the top 3 most important people in your life. COMMENTS Please! (I’ll respond!) Leave your comments below, by answering one of the following inquiries: What are your top resentments are and your struggles for releasing them as you move on after divorce or breakup? Describe what you’re doing to hold on to or let go of your resentments. What stand do you need to take? How will you commit to taking really good care of yourself this week?
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The Law of Forgiveness

On Self-growth.com, Amanda Butler discusses this universal law in detail. The most powerful reason to forgive is for your own freedom. I’ve often heard Debbie Ford say, “forgiveness takes place in your heart, not your mind,” and it’s so true. This Spiritual Law often takes a little extra time to integrate, especially when deep betrayal is involved. It is empowering to know that once you have fully integrated the Law of Forgiveness, you will be free from the past and ready to move completely into a future that you create for yourself. Forgiving can be difficult, but it’s necessary to forgive so you can live your life. Here’s an extreme example: I was touched very deeply by Azim Khamiza, who practices The Law of Forgiveness every day. In 1995, his son Tariq Khamiza lost his life to a gang-related murder. Azim shares how holding resentment takes up precious space in our minds. This is true for all situations. If we are holding onto resentment, the person we hurt the most is ourselves. In forgiving, Azim has been able to create a foundation that educates and empowers. What will you be able to create through your forgiveness? What could you do with all that resentment that you hold for someone you once loved? or for someone who has hurt you? Here’s some more… In this short video, you see how forgiveness can benefit all of humanity. You might have to look a little, or should I say–open your heart, to see the possibilities resulting from your forgiveness. It may not be this dramatic, but your forgiveness will change your world. via My Heart Heals With The Law of Forgiveness | My Heart Heals.
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Divorce Care: 3 Steps to Protecting Your Heart

Protecting your heart is a normal & natural thing to do! But it won’t get you what you want. One of the first things to happen when you go through a breakup or divorce is: you hurt like a #($*%. The pain can cut through you like a hot knife leaving you gasping for air. The normal human reaction to pain is to protect yourself. But unconscious protecting of your heart will leave you feeling alone and miserable and at it’s worse, it will deaden your spirit and leave you disconnected from the very things you most want: love, partnership, connection, to not be alone. It’s very common to commit to never loving again because of how deeply you’ve been hurt. Here are 3 steps you can take to protect your heart and keep it open. Step 1 -Stop Pointing your Finger! Protections like anger, blame, and resentment, are a few of the walls we erect to protect our hearts. We think these protections keep us safe, but they don’t really work. We mistakingly think that someone has to be responsible for what went wrong and we either blame the other person or we beat ourselves up without mercy. What’s really happening if you’re blaming your ex for the pain you’re in is that you’re unconsciously directing responsibility for the breakup away from yourself. If he or she did something that was really awful, then it’s easy to point your finger and say, “It’s all your fault!” It’s no different than self-blame, except that you’re unconsciously taking all the responsibility. If you’re a self-blamer, then you’re saying things like, “If only I did _____ differently,” or “If only I was better at______.” Either way, the first step is to cease and desist all blame – inbound or outbound. What if it didn’t really matter whose fault it was? What if you could take responsibility for your part without blame? What if you didn’t take responsibility for the parts that aren’t yours-without pointing your finger? The result will be a conscious awareness of what you and your ex co-created – together! Your breakup wouldn’t be happening if only one of you was in the relationship. While it may still be painful to look at your breakup in this way, if you want to protect your heart and keep it open for future love, then you must take responsibility without blame. Learn more about Spiritual Divorce ™ and the Law of Responsibility. Step 2 – Be Ruthlessly Compassionate! You can’t keep your heart open and protect it without a huge dose of compassion as you look at yourself and your part of the breakup. You may be tempted to circle back to the blame. Instead, take a breath and tell yourself that you’re okay and you did the best you could at the time. Be firm with yourself and don’t go into beating yourself up. If you do have an over-powering inner-critic, send him or her away for a vacation – they need a break! You will need to be able to be gentle with yourself as you notice your relationship patterns. Step 3 – Identify Your Red Flags! The information you discover from taking responsibility without blame will likely illuminate the choices you made that led to your breakup. If you’re completely honest with yourself, you will likely notice that you avoided something that you shouldn’t have avoided by sweeping it under the carpet. Maybe you didn’t speak up or you ignored signs of cheating, maybe you weren’t really happy but stayed for the kids. Give yourself permission to find your red flags, because they are your gold mine. Your red flags are what you will use to keep your heart open and safe at the same time. By addressing red flags as they come up, you will build a trusting relationship with yourself that you can count on to make conscious relationship choices. Need Support and divorce care? Learn the 7 Spiritual Laws in an 8-week Study & Support Group If you just haven’t been able to get through your pain, then I’d like to invite you to join me in a study of Debbie Ford’s Spiritual Divorce and get divorce care and support in our interactive online group. Use the above link to get more information or email me to sign up for the 8-week support group starting soon. You’re going to be okay!
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3 Ways to Expand Your Perception and Create Happiness After Divorce

After Divorce, You need to think differently! The only way you’re going to have an experience after your divorce that is different than pain, is if you let yourself think differently about your circumstances. You can look at all the drama and trauma of what is wrong about your situation, and how it’s not supposed to be like this, but you will only prolong your suffering. People come to me because they’re tired of hurting so much and for so long. Your first task is to infiltrate your mind with newness. New thoughts and ideas that empower you to see potential in your future instead of more of the same struggle you might be experiencing today. There are many sides to a story! And not one of them is any more true than another. That means your story of what is happening to you, is simply that. A story! It may be a compelling story that has victims and perpetrators, good guys and bad guys. But it’s only a story. Each story is told from a specific perception. Here’s an exercise to see how your story is preventing you from being happy. Expanding Perception Exercise #1 Take a moment and tell your story from your perspective. Write it out in a paragraph or two and then set it aside. Now, this is the hard part. Write the same story from your partner’s perspective. What does he or she think about the situation? Who does this person blame and for what grievances? How do they see the problem and who do they cast as the victim? What would be the best next step from this perspective? Do this again from at least three different perspectives. If you are able to put yourself in the shoes of other people…. I mean, really put yourself in their shoes, you will see that you have increased your perspective. You may not like it or want to go along with what you discover, but that’s not the point… it’s simply to expand your perception and see possibilities that didn’t exist before. Being able to step out of your shoes and into another’s will give you a unique perspective that gives you access to new ideas that you could never, ever see if you were tied into only one way of perceiving a person or situation. After Divorce, you need to Speak Differently! I have found that the way we speak has a lot to do with how happy or unhappy we are. Bring conscious awareness to the words you speak to yourself. You might not even be aware of how harshly you are berating yourself. Maybe you’re not so hard on yourself, but even those clients I work with who are incredibly on-top of things and making all the ‘right’ choices have negative self-talk. Your perception will change when you bring your awareness to everything you are saying to yourself about who you are, what you’re capable of, and your general sense of worthiness. Expanding Perception Exercise #2 Stop yourself several times a day and write a short paragraph about what you’re telling yourself in an internal dialogue. See if you can start to catch yourself as you tell yourself negative messages. This exercise is only about expanding your perception around how you are treating yourself and the repetitive negative messages you tell yourself. Once you have an expanded perception of what you’re telling yourself on a regular basis, you can consciously choose to speak more kindly to yourself. Yup! It’s like setting a boundary with someone who isn’t nice to you. After Divorce, you will need to Act Differently! Thee is no other time when your behaviors will be as important to your future as when you are going through a divorce. Most people (not all) tend to keep patterns of behavior that no longer serve them. You may need to set stronger boundaries, or you may need to access a strength and courage inside of you that you didn’t know was there. You might need to take risks to meet new friends and try new things. Taking new actions will expand your perception and enable you to see new ways of behaving in the new world you’re creating for yourself. Expanding Perception Exercise #3 Notice the behaviors that you engage in that are routine and see if you can mix them up a little. You don’t have to cut the ends of the roast off any longer. The world is big enough for you and your bold life. It’s time to start living it. Take at least ONE new action each week. Try a new food, pick up a new hobby, meet a new friend. Write about what you notice as a result. Expanding your perception will bring you happiness! At the beginning of Brene’ Browns TedTalk on vulnerability, she explains how her research expanded her perception in ways that completely changed the way she lives, loves, works, and even how she parents. Staying tucked into a metaphorical box of limited perception will only give us more of what we’ve already created. If you’re not 100% happy with your life, then do everything you can to expand your perception of your circumstances. Think about it… there is a huge difference in perceiving your relationship breakup (or challenges) to be a huge failure instead of thinking of it as opening you up to a new wonderful experience of your life. Which way of walking through the fire do you think will bring you more happiness? Are you a victim or your circumstances? Or a powerful co-creator with the Divine? You choose!
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The Law of Choice

How we interpret the events in our lives determines our experience. How can this be true? Let me give you an example. My mother left when I was a teenager. She left without saying, “Goodbye.” I interpreted her leaving to mean that I was insignificant. I felt as if I didn’t matter and was unworthy of her time and attention. The belief that I created in my own mind, led to a life in which I felt very insignificant. To avoid feeling insignificant I created situations in which I was a key player. I didn’t want to feel those old wounds and so I avoided them like the plague. Unfortunately, I still felt insignificant, and nothing I could do filled the wound. The only thing that shifted my experience was integrating The Law of Choice. Once I stepped out of an automatic negatively created interpretation, I was able to consciously create an empowering interpretation of these painful events. Choosing your interpretations of the events in your life is a very powerful step toward healing your heart. There is no better way to empower yourself than to view the circumstances of your relationship from The Law of Choice. We make hundreds of choices every day. Are they conscious? You make hundreds of choices about how to spend your money. You make choices to turn left or right all day long. You choose what books to read and you choose which shows to watch on television. The amount of choice that is available to you is insurmountable. Life is a matter of choice. Why would it not be true also for your thinking? You decide what to think about what has happened to you–what it means about you. Often you look outside of yourself for what to believe about yourself and the events of your life. With the ending of a relationship, you will find yourself with a potpourri of options. You can choose to think that the ending of your relationship is the worst thing that ever happened or the best. I’d like to support you in making a powerful interpretation of the ending of your relationship. An interpretation that opens the door to a life beyond what you can currently comprehend. A life filled with peace and love and fulfillment. Choose your thoughts! I love the work of Byron Katie because she is able to zero in on how our thoughts dictate our behavior. We will either choose to think thoughts that limit us or that expand us. We will choose thoughts that empower us or disempower us. via My Heart Heals With The Law of Choice | My Heart Heals.
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