How to detect an emotional zombie

The emotional zombie is a term I have recently created to describe someone who is devoid of sharing or showing any deep feelings, especially to someone they care about, even in a committed relationship. But in a relationship they are pretty much a corpse. 

Hopefully you have never experienced this creature from the dead but scarily they are more common that I had realized. Even worse is the fact that emotional zombies seem attracted to people with warm hearts, who are open to love and this is the fate of every relationship with an emotional zombie.

You have been warned!!!

You are probably wondering if you are dating or know an emotional zombie?  It is possible. Some of the characteristics that may be present is a lack of commitment and being aloof, vague and distant – all factors that are so poisonous to healthy relationships. 

You can quickly become lonely when dating an emotional zombie and so you should, because you are devoid of the love and emotionally connection that is expected in a relationship – unless you are with a zombie. 

Don’t expect love from a zombie.

I realized this phenomena existed after the final nail was firmly hammered into the coffin of my relationship with Olly.  I reflected for some time about why the relationship didn’t work out. I don’t think either of us truly wanted to split up but the arguments were so constant with no reconciliation nor agreement to compromise that the writing was on the wall.

It was over.

There had been a few themes in the arguments where I appeared to be blamed for things that actually were carried out by an ex and not me! Olly was definitely haunted by his past.  One of my many suggestions was to consider speaking to someone together, maybe a counselor or someone neutral to help us work through our differences. I think that is useful for all couples – people are so different it is a miracle that anyone ever gets into a relationship, let alone gets married. The response to my well-meaning suggestion was “YOU need a counselor”…………ummmm I thought WE were working on OUR relationship. So what is the resolution? We split up. There was no resolution.

He was so stuck in the past that we had no future.

An emotional zombie is dead to the idea of relating to you because it is either too painful or there is another barrier stopping them from moving forwards in their relationship with you. It is like not being in a relationship at all – because they aren’t, not truly. That’s why loneliness can set in because you are emotionally alone when you really shouldn’t be if you are in a relationship.

Olly was clearly an emotional zombie because of some very prominent behaviors….mainly I wasn’t any sort of a priority to him in his life. What man on earth would not prioritize the woman he is dating? Yes, balance is important but being so unavailable physically and rarely seeing each other is a massive indication of the lack of emotional connection he has. Who wants to be an option? “I have nothing to do on Sunday arvo so I can see you.” Tempting!

Sweep me off my feet, why don’t you?!

An emotional zombie can be detected though a lack of planning or last minute changes to plans, not once or twice but as regular behaviour. This is often coupled with chronic lateness because they were somewhere else, investing their time and possibly emotions there too.

Who wants to be second… anyone?

Emotional zombies are indeed troubled creatures for one reason or another, they aren’t necessarily bad people. They just need the support to work through their frozen emotions in order to be capable of fully connecting in a relationship. 

We all have different experiences in life. Perhaps your ex ran away for a better life in a land far far away like the depths of Serbia or somewhere else exotic but life goes on and we have to move forwards at some point. That may take time yet the emotional zombie is unlikely to recognize this because they aren’t addressing the emotions that keep them locked in the pain of the past.

Zombie nation.

I deeply cared for my emotional zombie, Olly*, he had some awful experienced that remained to trouble him and I hoped to support him through that. However, he rarely shared any of his pain with me, thus isolating me from journey with him through his horrors together.

Why go it alone?

Every day I could see on his handsome face that he was very clearly troubled and he refused to share a morsel of it with me because it was “for my protection” or as I like to rephrase it “for our destruction” because in a relationship, if you aren’t united, together then you’re apart – and that was us. Two separate individuals trying to move in the same direction but one was frozen in time, paralyzed and unwilling to be pulled back into life. We were unable to move anywhere.

It was tragic.

Olly and I were an example of a sad loss of a relationship with enormous potential, that never was to be, all due to un-addressed pain that was allowed to destroy the present and steal hope for the future.

Woah!

I wanted to support Olly yet it seemed that my every attempts were always met with hostility. There was no way for me to navigate the reinforced fort that he had built around his heart. He was majorly suffering and so was I.

I was the collateral damage from the battles Olly faced.

You know you are with an emotional zombie when the past ruins your present and future because you exist only in the past. Being emotionally unavailable in the present means you aren’t in the here and now. Olly was definitely not with me on an emotional level at all.  He was missing in action.

Granted, he was positive, kind, generous – all wonderful traits that make anyone adore him but actually on reflection many of these characteristics are also present in my relationships with close girlfriends. However, Olly wasn’t another great friend to me but he was my love. The problem with love is that it needs to be reciprocated for it to really go anywhere but being the emotional zombie that he was, Olly and I were clearly doomed. He couldn’t love me and as a consequence I eventually realized this made him unworthy of my love.

Don’t get me wrong, emotional zombies do need love, like all people do, but they don’t need a relationship, they need support and opportunities for healing. Emotional zombies don’t realise this and seek out relationships to fill the void. Who wants to be a filler? The stand in? Or stunt double? At this point of realization it was very evident that the impact of dating a zombie was becoming damaging to me and it was essential that I protect myself from him also turning me into a zombie.

Happily I broke free.

I hope you aren’t dating an emotional zombie because it is tough. Perhaps you are congratulating yourself that your date doesn’t have any of these characteristics but there is something worse than dating an emotional zombie – being one yourself!

Are you an emotional zombie?

*name changed to Olly because it sounds like a zombie name...Olly the Zombie. Yep.