Fear Of Commitment

Your partner is putting pressure on you: “Why don’t you commit already?” You feel pressure, and you balk. Your partner says there’s something wrong with you: you’re afraid of commitment. What can you do?

It's hard for you to figure out what to do. On the one hand, you’d like to please your partner. Or, at the very least, to stop the pressure. But you also feel wary. You become extremely sensitive to the problems in the relationship, to the risks involved... With those feelings, avoiding commitment feels to you like a very rational reaction.

It is normal to feel uncomfortable making important decisions under pressure. But your partner feels this is just a cover.

Your partner sees you as trying to wiggle out of making a commitment.

Now, this is a delicate situation. What are you going to trust: your perceptions, or trust that your partner knows better what's good for you?

You do need space to figure this out. But the sort of space I'm talking about is not the kind of endless postponements that drive your partner crazy. It is the mental space of looking within yourself to find out how you truly feel.

This is not about doing something to please your partner. This is about taking care of yourself.

You need to figure out what YOU want. If you’re unable to do so, it’s not just your partner that you’re hurting... You’re doing a disservice to yourself. How can you live without knowing what you want? Is this the only area of your life where you don’t know what you really want?

What happens next is you start a process of asking yourself questions, of understanding yourself better. You owe it to yourself to know what you want.


How to overcome the Commitment Fear

People won't "commit" to this, that or the other, and that could be anything from marriage to moving in with each other, from starting a business to starting a diet, to the AA or the church, or even to loving their children, because they are TERRIFIED.

They are terrified of selling their soul to the devil, their life down the drain, and becoming helpless slaves to whomever and whatever.

That's the fear of commitment, best summed up by the old proverb "Out of the frying pan, and into the fire."

But there is one thing that people who suffer from fear of commitment don't understand.

They do NOT retain their power by refusing to commit. Commiting means, in case you don't know, to MAKE UP YOUR MIND and make a decision, either way.

Let's take the most common example, that of men not wanting to commit to marriage.

They think that they retain their FREEDOM by not commiting; not deciding to go forward into this marriage, and I'm afraid that they don't.

Instead of real freedom, they find themselves in nowhere land, an uncomfortable place of insecurity that is neither one thing, nor the other.

The true power and the freedom that results from this true power is to be ABLE TO MAKE A DECISION.

That's what commitment is all about.

Because it works like this: if you can decide to commit, at the same time you do that, you AUTOMATICALLY aquire the power to un-commit, should that become necessary.

If you can say "Yes." to marriage, you can also say, "Yes." to divorce, or "No, no more of this," should it come to it.

It's exactly THE SAME POWER which makes both decisions.

This is completely true; check it out for yourself with real life examples of people you know.

I met a man the other day who couldn't get out of the relationship he was in, because actually, he had never made the commitment to enter into it. He was railroaded into it by his now wife; she made decision to start the marriage.

He was completely powerless and remained in that no-man's land of indecision and is still in it to this day.

He met another woman and would have loved to leave his wife and his unhappy marriage but was incapable of doing so - he was POWERLESS.

He'll never get out of that marrriage now unless he finds it in himself to make a decision and a commitment to his own sanity and happiness; or, if his wife "lets him go" finally.

And that's not going to happen in a hurry ...

So this is our lesson.

As long as you remain in the no-man's land of indecision and powerlessness, you are nothing but a VICTIM of circumstance. People will seize upon your fear and weakness to make all kinds of commitments on your behalf. And these are usually in THEIR best interest, and not in yours.

If you pick up your own power and make a decision, make a commitment, you IMMEDIATELY, and INSTANTLY, and as a complete side effect of that power ALSO INHERIT THE POWER TO UN-COMMIT at any time - and that is FREEDOM.

Instead of being trapped forever, you are free.

Free to change your mind, free to revoke your commitment, free to walk away.

Making commitments is a POWERFUL and FORWARD MOVING thing to do.

Do not and never be afraid of it.

It gets you out from endless worry and powerlessness, gives you back your destiny, and allows you to have all sorts of fun experiences along the way that the ditherers and fearful ones will NEVER have.

Remember: It isn't the things you did that you regret on your death bed, but instead, the things you didn't do.

And with every commitment, every decision you make, and un-make, re-make, re-voke, expand, extend as well, your PERSONAL POWER will grow.
Here's to commitment!