How to Stop Being a ‘Foster Partner’ to Emotionally Unavailable People
Moving on from situationships, dead-end relationships, and those who aren’t committed.
February 1, 2025 by Paul Trood
To briefly recap what I mean by ‘foster partner,’ I saw this ridiculous meme one day on Instagram. To be honest, I chuckled at it, but deep down, it resonated with me, because it put into words what I couldn’t really express myself.
“Me driving home from my situationship knowing I basically foster people until they find their forever home.”
How often do we end up choosing people who seem to easily take us for granted, use us for a time, and then move on when they’ve gotten what they wanted?
Probably too many times.
If you haven’t read this article first, I’d recommend it as well.
When You’re the ‘Emotional Foster Partner’ in Your Relationships
Do you give too much to those who don’t plan to stick around?
medium.com
And I stopped to think of a brief (but significant) ‘relationship,’ and how this made so much sense.
While we were running errands one day she said, “You know, I’m starting to feel like myself again.”
I asked if it had anything to do with me entering her life, and she told me it did. I came into this girl’s life, loved her unconditionally, even for the time we were together, and I was emotionally grounded and available.
Unfortunately, it was a rather bittersweet moment. It felt great to feel like I was a positive influence on her life, but there was also a newly developing feeling that I was her rebound.
The signs were there. I wasn’t really high on her totem pole of priorities.
Yeah, sure, we spent a bit of time together, and she’d often come over when I’d spontaneously invite her out, but none of it felt like there was any solid foundation to it.
There were cheeky comments like, “Oh, I can’t keep sleeping with you — I’ll catch feelings for you!”
Or the wishy-washy, indecisiveness of ‘what she wanted to do with her life,’ despite being well over the age of 25.
Eventually, she ended that relationship about as quickly as she came into my life.
My point isn’t to bore you with personal recollections of my relationships but to briefly highlight how this was essentially the turning point in how I started to re-frame most relationship dynamics.
Because when she left, it stung. Deeply. I had to seriously step back and try to see what I was doing wrong, who I was getting with, and why I was getting with them.
And a lot of this introspection has helped me write clearer, deeper, and better advice on relationships in general.
How to start breaking the cycle
Recognize the red flags as soon as possible:
Just got out of a relationship: Relationships take time to process. I’m not saying that one can’t fully heal and move on from a breakup in a couple of months, but be wary of someone who just came out of a long-term relationship and immediately starts dating again. Chances are they’ll have some kind of lingering, residual feelings.
Uncertain, or undecided about their major life goals: Typical statements include “I’m still figuring things out,” “I’m not sure what I want to do,” or “I just want to see where things take me” reveal more than you think. These statements indicate wishy-washy, doubtful thinking. A lack of clarity to be precise.
Their behavior is wildly inconsistent: From what I’ve seen, things like bread-crumbing, flakiness, and mixed signals are the biggest signs of emotional unavailability. These are the types you end up ‘fostering’ short-term.
They’re in the middle of or entering a new stage in life: Relationships require an investment of time, energy, and money. Anything that can distract someone from starting a new relationship like job transitions, moving cities, or going back to school should be carefully considered.
Boundary setting
I’ve identified four key parts of boundary setting.
Set your intentions
Acknowledge what the problem is
Express your wants and needs
And then define the consequence(s)
For example, you can say:
[Set your intentions] “I like you, and I enjoy our time together.”
[Acknowledge what the problem is] “But our time together is starting to be distant and one-sided.”
[Express your wants and needs] “I want to see us grow closer, and I’m wondering how you feel about this, and why we might not be as close as we should be.”
[And then define the consequence]“But if we’re struggling to be intimate, then I’ll have to limit the amount of time and energy I invest into our relationship.”
Of course, this is a template.
A real conversation is unlikely to follow such a standard script. You’ll have to explain in greater detail what the problem is, and what needs to be done.
For my insight into boundaries, and expressing your wants and needs in a relationship, I’d suggest reading my 9-page PDF on this topic, which you can download here.
But the important part is to follow these four basic steps.
The point of all this is to protect your time, energy, and emotional health. Usually, people who over-give and end up as a ‘foster partner’ in relationships are deeply afraid of boundaries.
As such, they won’t set limits.
Share, don’t over give
I’ve always been someone who wanted to do what was right. Always wanted people to like me. As a result, I became a reliable, hard-working person that anyone could count on.
I was always there for my fiance, at least physically. But emotionally? I checked out long before we ever broke up, and I pretty much detached myself from ever caring whether or not we actually got married.
The point is, after it ended, that sudden, jarring shock changed something in me.
I haven’t written too extensively on this idea, but here’s the gist of what I’m trying to say: Breakups can shift our attachment style temporarily.
Subconsciously, it seemed that my mind registered my detached emotional patterns as the main issue in that relationship.
So… guess what happened? The pendulum swung too far to the left of the attachment spectrum.
To compensate for this (and to prevent it from ever happening again), I shifted back to my ‘reliable,’ ‘accountable’ persona, but this time, I took it to an extreme.
I sort of reverted back to or at least embodied earlier childhood patterns of being over-giving, too available, too eager, or too trusting.
I let my anxieties dictate a lot of my decision-making in my relationships. And I’d often do things out of an innate need to be liked.
Over the last several months I’ve learned to tone it down by a lot, but one of the biggest things I had to learn was to be more open to sharing, not giving.
Real connection doesn’t come from over-extending yourself. Or putting someone else above you. You have to learn that you’re deserving of love just for who you are and not what you have or what you do.
Trust your gut
If you haven’t read Brandon Webb’s book, Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide, I recommend you do.
In the book, he walks readers through five simple steps, all the way from “Deciding” to “Knowing what’s important.”
One of the reasons why so many people fail to ever do anything with their lives is their fear of making the wrong choice. They think they have to have everything perfectly planned out.
But as it’s stated in the book, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
By now you’re wondering, what in the hell does this have to do with ‘trusting your gut,’ ‘situationships,’ relationships, or ‘being a foster partner?’
If something feels off in a relationship, it’s because it is.
Listen to that inner voice of yours. Your gut. Now… the great thing about your gut feeling is that it holds a lot of wisdom, but it’s also, not 100% always right.
Your intuition is still more consistent and reliable than purely emotional or logical decision-making.
It is NOT a magic 8-ball. But in this book, he discusses the back end of your intuition, and how it is a powerful blend between emotion and logic.
Again, if someone seems like they’re yanking your chain. They probably are. If it seems like the person you’re dating isn’t ready for something long-term, it’s probably not going to happen.
Out of all this, the most important thing to keep in mind is this: Your subconscious picks up on more subtle hints like body language, tone, mannerisms, and behavior more than you give it credit for.
Your conscious mind overlooks a lot that you’re unaware of.
Your subconscious doesn’t understand human language like you think it does. Instead, it sends you signals in the form of physical sensations.
Things like: Anxiety, anger, or disappointment.
Frankly, there were a lot of times when I’d feel this nagging gut feeling, but I’d simply ignored it.
I desperately wanted to see the good in the situation.
To see that ‘I could change her; I could show her how great of a person I was and that she should pick me.’
Focus on healing or melting into your own frame
We’ll discuss this in greater detail in a subsequent article, but the power behind knowing what ‘frame’ is and how influential it is can’t be underestimated.
For a quick read on ‘frame,’ you can click this link below.
How to Identify Your Ideal Relationship Without Wasting Years
A men’s guide on shifting from being the ‘salesman’ to the ‘buyer’
medium.com
Think of it as the ability to feel confident, at ease in your skin, and comfortable with setting boundaries with others.
A man with a strong frame draws others into him. He doesn’t chase other people, nor does he unconsciously beg or plead to be a part of someone else’s life.
Address unresolved wounds or patterns.
Who we attract is typically a mirror for who we are emotionally or spiritually.
Getting stuck in the role of an ‘emotional foster partner’ is exhausting.
And to be quite blunt, it’s a toxic dynamic, but you don’t necessarily have to experience it directly to learn from it.
Situationships and these kinds of imbalanced dynamics are more easily avoided with self-awareness, and a confident, strong frame.