Does you partner has commitment issues?
Have you ever been dumped by the person you love?
In case your partner is a commitment phobic, and you don't know how deal with them, read this.
Picture credit: Freepik.com
This is Lina's story of heartbreak and you could relate to her pain.
“Why did he leave me? why people are terrified to commit?” Lina sobbed. She bowed her head in pain over the wooden table placed on the carpet where we both were sitting.
Her voice quavering in anxiety, her body shaking. She was devastated. It was agonizing to see her writhing in agony.
As a friend, I could only lend a shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her and ran my fingers through her hair in an attempt to calm her grief-struck mind.
She was panting, breathing hard when she let out a harsh breath, it reflected her inner struggle to hold on her pride.
Coming to terms to a rejection was a tough fight for her.
I understand the pain she was going through. She had pinned her hope, planned her future with this man.
Suddenly, a jolt brought her back to reality. This man, with whom she planned to spend her whole life had refused to marry her.
Declaring that he was never interested in being a part of the dream she was waiving. It shook her. The rejection felt like a personal failure to her.
“Why, what is the problem with marriage? if you love me, why can’t we spend the rest of our lives together,” she argued. But he shattered her dreams by ending the relationship.”
Relationships are complicated, especially when your partner shows signs of commitment phobia or have an anxious - avoidant attachment style. Like Lina, most of us face similar struggle.
You come across guys who propose a fling or seek to be friends with benefits. They're attractive, and you feel there is a connection, but they leave you in the lurch by suddenly withdrawing and stating that they can’t commit to a long-term relationship.
Despite knowing their intimacy issue, you still took a leap and got involved.
That happens when you are longing for intimacy, companionship, and love. You get overthrown by the instant chemistry and overlook their emotional unavailability. You assume that things might get better with time.
On the contrary, you regret your decision later.
Why are people scared of commitment?
Long term commitment stirs anxiety in many people, but some develop marriage phobia or gamophobia.
It’s hard to understand their fear, but for some ‘the fear feels real.' For them, the future in a committed relationship looks bleak, trapped, and passionless.
“What will happen after marriage? I will lose my independence. I will be owned by my partner,” these thoughts crippled their mind.
We say it’s a skewed thought process, but this notion has roots. The perceived threat they feel comes from problems lying beneath which they are unable to recognize and name.
Relationship-phobic people have a hard time with emotional closeness, but at the same time they do not like too much distance due to their own needs and desires for intimacy.
Such people leave their partner dangling or shattered.
Eventually, partners question themselves, “what went wrong when everything looked perfect?”
“Am I at fault?
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Why it happened?”
In case you have found yourself in a soup by dating a commitment phobic. The finest thing you can do is to look out for yourself, or give a second thought about the relationship.
Such relationships could be draining and self-sabotaging in the long run. After all, who wants to be be ditched at the last moment. But if you still want to cultivate the connection, then let's figure out what makes them the way they are:
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What looms in the marriage phobic head?
They have the penchant to avoid serious commitment.
They avoid settling down to avoid stresses that the marriage may one day brings in.
They are scared to think how to balance individual and shared life goals.
They are unsure how to navigate closeness and separateness, moreover
They are apprehensive of the intense intimacy of being known, and knowing only a single partner, for decades.
Staying in a long-term committed relationship is not their cup of tea. They have this constant state of emotional conflict because of their negative, irrational beliefs about love and relationships.
These feelings drive anxiety in them, which snowballs as the relationship progresses and the expectation of a commitment looms larger for them.
The fear of tying down gets them into a fight or flew mode, often they are successful in flying off or running away, without actually giving you a substantial reason, which they actually don’t have.
While you left with nursing your broken heart and lingering feeling to know why it happened.
Though, the reason for their irrational behaviour could lie in the background. Maybe the fear encrypts in their trouble childhood or circumstances which is difficult to find out.
How do they feel:
Not that commitment phobic people don’t have emotional need or they don’t show it up.
Contrarily, they experience love like anyone else, but the problem is that the feeling of tying up is more intense and scary to them as is for most people.
In the start of a relationship they shower you with love and attention. Make you the centre of the world. Have great conversations and beautiful time.
Woo!!The excitement is growing, but Doooom!!. Once you are fully drowned, they simply pull the rug under your feet, leaving you in the state of shock.
Creating confusion, havoc, pain, and anguish because of their insensitive, unpredictable and bizarre behaviour.
However, they themselves actually do not understand that their negative, irrational beliefs about love and relationships is stopping them for having a stable and happy life.
What should you do if you are in such a relationship?
Ask yourself a few questions:
Do you want to pursue this relationship?
Is it worth to take so much risk?
Encase, you still want to continue, then it is advisable to set a time limit for yourself. If the person keeps you dangling, then give yourself a definite timeline to take a call on your relationship status.
Beside this there are few tactics which you can try, they may sound manipulative, but everything is fair in love and war! Isn’t it? After all, you are helping them to have a stable future.
How to have a romantic relationship with them:
Is there a way possible to overcome commitment issues. Well try these out.
Unless you are looking for a causal hook up, never rush to bed with them. They actually enjoy the chase.
If you need a serious relationship, then jumping straight to bed may leave your heart broken when they instantly withdraw.
They build an invisible shield to avoid serious connections. You need to figure out what feelings are they struggling with and what is their relationship capacity.
Try to break through the defense mechanism they have put to survive their anxiety struck brain
Give space!
Avoid being clingy, they find a partner who acts like a helicopter suffocating.
Act like you don’t need them and there are other suitors waiting for you.
Randomly you can highlight the benefit of being in a serious relationship, such as togetherness, companionship and sharing responsibilities.
Make them feel that you are not going to change their life and accept them as it is.
On the other hand, learn to support yourself psychologically in such relationship.
Take your time to understand their behaviour and evaluate yourself whether you are ready for such emotional roller coaster or not.
If none of the above work, honour yourself by stepping away, come out of the relationship, find a guy who respect and acknowledge your feeling.
Conclusion:
If the guy you are seeing is noncommittal, unavailable and inconsistent in the relationship. It’s high time to have a check on the relationship status before it goes out of hand.
You should determine whether or not you want to take the risk. You will get a "compromised" relationship, which would be exhausting. So take a call instead of hanging in uncertainty and spending your entire life waiting.
(It’s like spending time on the wrong station and waiting for the train to come some day).
Have you ever dated a relationship phobic person? Share your experience in the comment below.
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