When you are not emotionally available, this means you are not available to be in a relationship.  Your heart and feelings are wrapped up in another— your ex.  You were not always emotionally unavailable.  You were not born that way.  This came about you being hurt from a previous relationship.

It also means, you do not trust your own heart, nor do you trust your decisions when it comes to Love.  The choice of your ex partner haunts you and has debilitated you from moving forward.

You remain a hostage to the previous relationship and its pain.   You have not healed, and even worse, you are emotionally traumatized.  Even when it comes down to sex you cannot intimately connect. Emotional intimacy frightens you.  If it did not, why not engage?

Now the new partner is dealing with your emotional barriers and your closed heart.

When you left the previous relationship and entered into a new one, you never told your new partner you are damaged goods.   Such a confession causes one to pause and reconsider if venturing into a relationship with someone who is damaged is worth the time, patience, pain and price.  So, you were not exactly forthright with your status.  You were not and still are not available to be in a relationship.     

It is difficult to admit, you are emotionally unavailable, that your ex has dominion over you, and you are stuck and cannot allow someone in your heart again.  Your ex, who is no longer in your life, and most likely has moved on to greener pastures, is still fully present with you, where his/her mark remains.  You have also given your power away to your ex, and the imprint of pain is engraved in your life, so much so, that you new partner wants to love you, but cannot due to the prison bars around your heart and emotions.  This makes you a prisoner of the lover from your past.

You have not left your former relationship.

Why aren’t you able to move on?  Why are you stuck in a painful past that is impacting your present and future Love life?  Do you lack the strength and fortitude to move on? Has fear literally gripped your heart?

You have not learned the lessons yet.  Just because you chose someone who did not treat you well before, does not mean you cannot trust yourself to select a better partner on the next round.  Thanks to a painful experience you are better equipped to observe certain identifiers of someone who does not have your best interest at heart.  Knowing this is critical to moving forward.

The other lesson is no one on this earth should impact you from ever feeling again.  Your emotional system is the foundation to everything there is to being human.  Your emotions are your birth right.  No one has the right to take them from you.

How can you start again to be emotionally available?

Consider what you could have done to avoid the emotional damage.  What subtle red flag did you miss?  The signs were there you just missed them.  You were oblivious of the obvious.  Learn to trust yourself again through identification.  Once you can identify the oncoming of pain, you are able to avoid or deflect, and in this you can trust yourself again.  Trusting yourself makes allowance to trust others.

Understand that the journey of Love ushering us into the world of Love is not for the squeamish, the timid, the fearful, or the weak; and the biggest rewards in life are achieved by taking the biggest risks. You deserve the beauty of being loved and you deserve to Love someone.

Try explaining to your new partner, why it is difficult for you to open up.  Be honest and share the facts.  Tell him/her you need to try to trust yourself again by believing you know how to make better decisions in giving your heart away.  Share what you think would be helpful in removing your barriers.  Talk about your pain, about life, what your goals are, and what you really want.

Learn about your new partner.  Ask questions about the painful times in his/her life.  Understand why he/she is emotionally available to you and how to do it.  What are the similarities of pain you both have endured in your life and what are the differences?  Pay attention as to how they have overcome problems, hindrances and troubles.  It helps you to be sympathetic to their plight.  Ask him/her about lessons learned from past relationships.

Real dialogue and conversations like this will help to align with your new partner, and you may realize that he/she has been exactly where you are. You may find that both of you have painful commonalities.  This will create a connection where both of you will feel safe in sharing.  This is a good thing.  We have more of a tendency to bond with those  who are empathetic to our pain and experiences.