Asking yourself “do emotionally unavailable men change?” is a lot like wondering if watering a dead plant will bring it back to life.

Imagine walking in your neighborhood and seeing your neighbor, who has this beautiful garden, spend all her time with a hose over the one lifeless plant. She’s got a beautiful garden that she needs to take care of and maintain, but she’s laser-focused on watering the dead plant.

Do you know what happens when you spend all your time watering a dead plant? You neglect the beautiful garden around you that you need to water and take care of to maintain. As time passes, you realize that the beautiful garden is now gone and you have nowhere to turn. So what do you do? Stupidly, invest even more in the dead plant with the hope that it will come to life. You can’t stop now.

Even though your intentions are good, by continuing to water a dead plant, you’ll end up doing more damage than good. You’ll drown the dead plant and be made to feel crazy (and look crazy to everyone else) for drowning it when in reality, all you wanted to do was just come around, give it some unconditional love and be “good enough” to bring it back to life.

I used to go after potential because I used to equate being a used and in-demand doormat with people wanting me. And as long as I was with a man who had potential, that meant that my itch to get validation could be scratched (validation in the form of me being good/hot/important/cool enough for him to want to “come to life” with all I was watering). And because this kept me so busy, I always had a valid excuse for not taking action in my own life.

One thing that always made me continue to water dead plants was this innate fear that the second I stopped watering, it would suddenly combust into an award-winning rose garden and someone else would step in and reap the benefits of my love, dedication, investment, and hard work.

Do emotionally unavailable men change? Do they? I needed to know. I’ve had emotionally unavailable exes move on from me that are now are married with kids and seem to be everything that they weren’t with me.

Did they change? What did I miss? Why wasn’t I good enough to elicit “the change” in them?

Here’s what I’ve realized and learned when it comes to “do emotionally unavailable men change?”

• Babies, marriage, and engagements are all wonderful, but they aren’t markers of emotional availability. Last time I checked, you could obtain a marriage license, buy a ring, have a baby, and still be emotionally unavailable.
• There are some emotionally unavailable guys who change; everyone is capable of change. This is generally due to something MAJOR happening that makes it impossible to keep operating the way they do. Most of them never change. They don’t have the ability to self-reflect.
• Waiting around, watering a dead plant, hoping it will change is like hoarding trash in your house and never referring to it as “trash” just because it’s not in the trashcan. Stop living in a dirty house and toss the sh*t.
• If they kept engaging in hurtful behavior, it’s because that’s who they are. And they have no problem being that way! This has nothing to do with you. They were this way before you, with you, and will continue to be this way after you.
• You should never have to tell the person you’re with what respect, honesty, loyalty, and communication mean.
• Piece of sh*t people don’t just magically transform into people that are capable of empathy, love, loyalty, communication, respect, and commitment just because they are no longer with you.
• If you think he’s changed, it’s more likely that he’s just morphed into what is required in the moment so he can get his needs met. With emotionally unavailable guys, it’s their world and we’re just breathing their air.
• Emotionally unavailable guys are unable to empathize. And without the ability to have genuine emotional connections and zero empathy to tap into, the only thing left is the ego and these guys are ALL about the ego. Often, when they seem to make a big change or, if they move on and get married or start dating someone new, it’s because all of their bros have settled or they feel like it’s “the next logical step.” It’s never as deep and substantial as you think.
• To change, you have to want it. You have to be able to take accountability, responsibility, and you have to be able to be vulnerable enough to view yourself and how you’ve behaved in a not so righteous way. He’s nowhere near this. Genuine change takes time (that you have wasted enough of).

Your time is so much more valuable than betting on the unrealistic potential of a dead plant coming back to life.

Written by: Natasha Adamo