The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship

At the heart of Natalie Lue’s Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl lies an uncomfortable but liberating truth: emotionally unavailable relationships are not random accidents. They are patterned exchanges between two people whose fears of intimacy mirror each other. One retreats from closeness; the other chases it, believing persistence equals proof of love. Together, they create what Lue calls a partnership of unavailability—a dynamic of pursuit and withdrawal that keeps both parties stuck.

The dance of the unavailable

Lue’s framework divides these roles into Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl. Mr Unavailable offers fragments of intimacy—attention, sex, companionship—but always on his terms. He blows hot and cold, disappears, presses the Reset Button, and maintains comfort at a middling “five” out of ten on his emotional dial. The Fallback Girl, meanwhile, supplies emotional labour, making excuses, rationalising neglect, and tolerating half-measures in the hope that perseverance will convert him into Mr Available.

Mutual responsibility and mirrored fears

Lue argues that both participants are emotionally unavailable. The Fallback Girl fears rejection and hides in passive hope, while Mr Unavailable fears engulfment and hides in evasiveness. Their interaction is circular: her pursuit confirms his fear; his withdrawal confirms hers. If you’ve experienced an intense, inconsistent relationship, you’ve probably played both sides of this dance.

The hot-and-cold cycle

The hallmark behaviour is the hot‑and‑cold rhythm. When Mr Unavailable is “hot,” he floods you with attention, declarations, and promises—the highs Natalie calls “relationship crack.” When “cold,” he vanishes, blames stress, or acts aloof. Those shifts keep you hooked because they resemble reward cycles familiar in addiction research (see Patrick Carnes’s work on intermittent reinforcement). The warmth gives temporary validation; withdrawal creates chase behaviour. Each reset erases accountability and conditions you to accept crumbs instead of bread.

Roots and repetition

Beneath these adult patterns are childhood imprints. Lue traces emotional unavailability to parental dynamics—an absent father, a critical mother, or early lessons that love is conditional. You internalised those scripts, built defenses, and kept replaying them in adult relationships. When love feels scarce or unsafe, familiarity overrides satisfaction. You chase what you know, not what you need.

Why readers relate

Lue writes with confessional candour—her blog Baggage Reclaim emerged from her own years as a Fallback Girl involved in affair dynamics and emotional yo‑yo loops. Her insight turns shame into information: patterns survive when denied, and shrink when named. Unavailability is not destiny; it is a learned coping style you can unlearn through awareness, boundaries, and different choices.

The promise of change

Throughout the book, Lue insists on accountability. You cannot fix or rescue Mr Unavailable; you can only change how you relate to him. Her recovery model blends psychology, self‑help practicality, and personal narrative into a guide for emotional independence: identify your patterns, end contact when you must, treat yourself as worthy of reciprocity, and rebuild life as more than waiting for someone’s potential to appear.

Core understanding

Unavailability is not merely his flaw; it’s a relational script—familiar, seductive, and changeable through conscious choice. When you stop participating in half‑relationships, you start reclaiming authenticity, dignity, and true intimacy.

By exposing these patterns with empathy and precision, Lue gives readers what many self‑help books skim over: not only how to spot emotional unavailability, but how to break its cycle and build self‑respect as the foundation of love.

Natalie Lue connects adult relationship patterns to emotional lessons learned in childhood. You don’t develop the Fallback role overnight; it grows from years of emotional conditioning. Parents teach what love feels like—sometimes through neglect, criticism, or substitution. When those lessons include distance or inconsistency, you internalise confusion as love.

The parental blueprint

If your father was absent, emotionally numb, or only approving when you performed, you likely equated affection with effort. Lue calls that pattern “Daddy Hunting”: chasing men who replicate the conditional approval you once craved. Similarly, mothers who model anxiety, competition, or martyrdom transmit beliefs such as “any man is better than no man” or “you need to be indispensable.” Those messages keep you chasing validation rather than seeking equality.

Abuse and abandonment

Children interpret trauma by turning it inward: “What did I do wrong?” That unspoken guilt grows into attraction to emotionally damaged adults. You might gravitate toward wounded partners or assume responsibility for fixing them—a distorted attempt to rewrite childhood pain with adult repair work. The result is empathy without boundaries, compassion without safety.

Breaking the transmission

Lue’s method for change begins with awareness. Map your relationship history—who you choose, what issues repeat, and which childhood emotions they echo. Then reframe: your parents’ limitations were about them, not you. Tools like journaling or the “Unsent Letter” help discharge stored resentment. Therapy anchors awareness into action by teaching new emotional scripts—acceptance, reciprocity, and self‑trust.

Key principle

When you understand how old models shaped your adult choices, you stop confusing familiarity with love. You can then replace inherited scarcity with learned security.

This step is essential to every later tool in the book—from boundary setting to No Contact—because sustainable change grows from self‑recognition. Naming the source transforms guilt into context, and context into choice.

Unavailable relationships thrive on illusion—promises without proof and intensity without stability. Natalie Lue highlights three particular traps: Future Faking, Fast Forwarding, and the sexual confusion that treats chemistry as commitment. Each overlies emotional absence with a mirage of connection.

Future Faking and Fast Forwarding

Future Faking means painting visions of marriage, children, or shared life without intent to fulfil. Fast Forwarding accelerates emotional bonding—intense declarations, quick exclusivity, and premature sexual intimacy. They often coexist: he speeds up the story and scripts fantasy futures you buy into. The aim isn’t partnership but control, making you invest before evaluating reality.

Sex as camouflage

Sex often extends these illusions. “Great Dysfunctional Sex,” Lue warns, feels profound because it temporarily fills emotional voids. Booty‑call patterns and casual arrangements masquerade as modern independence but leave someone—usually you—emotionally exposed. The Justifying Zone appears here: after sex you rationalise staying, telling yourself intimacy equals proof of love.

Boundaries and clarity

Lue’s remedy is practical: slow down. Observe consistency before committing. Prioritise evidence over declarations. Emotional availability shows in reliability, empathy, and respect—not in dramatic promises. If someone disappears or rescinds intimacy without explanation, treat it as a boundary breach, not independence. The cure for illusion is data—track actions, not rhetoric.

Practical rule

Authentic intimacy grows slowly through consistent attention. If a relationship runs at sprint speed from day one, you’re in a fantasy, not a commitment.

By distinguishing fantasy from reliability, Lue teaches emotional pacing: your job is not to resist passion but to require proof that passion is matched by participation.

The Fallback Girl rarely appears alone—she rotates through several coping roles to maintain unavailable relationships. Natalie Lue categorises them as Renovators, Florences, Miss Independents, and Floggers. Each is a mask for fear dressed up as virtue.

The Renovator and Florence

Renovators date projects; they believe love fixes flaws. Florences rescue wounded men to feel indispensable. These fixers confuse control with care, over‑invest emotionally, and erode self‑worth when effort meets resistance. Childhood lessons of caretaking become adult missions: “If I give enough, he’ll change.” He seldom does.

Miss Independent and the Toxic Type

Miss Independent avoids vulnerability by chasing thrill instead of depth. She proclaims freedom but selects emotionally distant “chasers” who promise excitement without commitment. Her “type”—often aloof creatives or rebellious charmers—repeats unavailability under self‑protective logic. Lue’s antidote: test attraction beyond type. If your “preferences” have never yielded a stable relationship, they’re not preferences—they’re defences.

The Flogger and Over‑Talker

The Flogger keeps negotiating, talking, and waiting. Endless discussions replace action; emotional argument masks fear of leaving. Lue’s guidance: stop flogging dead horses. Conversations that don’t yield decisions are emotional busywork. Make boundaries consequential: decide, act, move.

Key understanding

Every role—fixer, saviour, strategist, self‑proclaimed lone wolf—keeps you safe from vulnerability but also from real love. Step out of the masks to meet authenticity.

Recognising which role you occupy lets you disrupt autopilot behaviour and redirect energy toward relationships that require authenticity rather than rescue missions.

Repetition is central to emotional unavailability. Lue describes the Yo‑Yo Girl and the Bad Penny—two sides of a chronic return loop. You leave, he returns, you hope, and the cycle restarts. Familiarity masquerades as fate until years pass in fragments.

The Yo‑Yo pattern

You rationalise his absences as shyness, transitions, or bad timing. Each return revives hope and nostalgia—the feeling that “this time things will be different.” In reality, his comeback preserves your availability to him, not renewed effort from him. Lue’s advice is data‑driven: patterns repeat unless acted upon. If he’s disappeared more than twice, assume recurrence.

Betting on potential

You may idealise him—seeing who he could be rather than who he consistently is. Lue calls this “Betting on Potential,” an emotional casino where investment replaces discernment. Fantasy trumps facts; imagination sustains disappointment. The antidote is evidence: sustained behaviour change over time.

Breaking the loop

Cut nostalgia’s thread. Closure isn’t delivered by him—it’s chosen by you. Use an “Assumption Diet”: stop assuming shared intentions; test them explicitly. Don’t be comforted by the returning childhood sweetheart or ex who resurfaces during your progress. Boundaries, not second chances, end the cycle.

Core takeaway

If the only proof of change is his return, there’s no change. Closure is self‑generated—deciding your emotional energy deserves better investments.

This lesson bridges the book’s psychological insight with practical boundary setting: end the loops to reclaim personal time and dignity.

Among Lue’s most striking sections is her analysis of affair dynamics and transitional relationships—the Other Woman and the Buffer. Both roles operate in secrecy and half‑presence, sustaining hope while eroding self‑respect.

Affairs: the illusion of exclusivity

Lue describes her own 18‑month experience as an Other Woman—meeting in stolen hours and rationalising absence as affection. She concludes that affairs rarely evolve into healthy partnerships; they embed shame and dependency. You become an understudy in someone else’s story, waiting for him to rearrange his life but participating in the dishonesty that prevents it.

Buffer relationships

A Buffer comforts a man in transition—a separation, divorce, or emotional recovery. You provide support during his adjustment, confusing temporary intimacy with durable commitment. When his equilibrium returns, he often leaves or retreats. The dynamic rewards availability with neglect.

Boundaries and exit

Lue’s boundary principle is unequivocal: “No borrowing.” Engage only with men who are free and single. To exit the grey zone, use cold turkey: block contact, alter routines, and expect emotional withdrawal like detox. Relief replaces longing as clarity resets self‑worth.

Guiding principle

If a relationship demands secrecy or substitution, it’s not intimacy—it’s hiding. Choose safety and visibility over the fantasy of exceptional circumstances.

These insights transition the reader from analysis to decisive ethics: respect is incompatible with concealment. Walk away to preserve dignity and open space for real availability.

The book concludes with a framework for recovery. Change begins when insight meets action. Awareness of patterns is necessary but insufficient; transformation requires boundaries, self‑work, and consistent behaviour aligned with self‑respect.

Core recovery tools

Natalie Lue’s toolkit includes the No Contact rule, pattern audits, boundary identification, and belief rewrites. No Contact—no calls, texts, or social surveillance—acts as emotional detox. The Get‑Out Plan structures withdrawal with accountability and new routines. Boundaries define what is non‑negotiable: honesty, respect, and mutual effort. Using “Code Amber” and “Code Red” systems, she teaches readers to triage behaviour—caution or opt out based on consistency.

Self‑esteem rebuilding

Lue’s own turning point came via therapy during illness. Physical recovery mirrored emotional healing: buried feelings manifest physically until expressed. She advocates journaling, therapy, and the “Bullshit Diet”—refusing excuses and rationalisations. Pair this with the rule “Good Things Don’t Feel Bad.” If anxiety is constant, that’s data, not love.

Integration and moving forward

To evolve, build a full life: hobbies, work, friendships. Available people are drawn to availability; fulfillment attracts mutuality. Forgiveness—through tools like the Unsent Letter—releases resentment and restores emotional bandwidth. You stop living reactively, start living intentionally.

Final message

You cannot change Mr Unavailable, but you can change your participation. Recovery is choosing yourself—the act that unlocks genuine intimacy.

Lue ends with pragmatic hope: self‑work makes emotional availability possible. Boundaries aren’t walls; they’re doors you open to people who can truly walk through.