Fear of commitment is an understandable reaction to bad couple experience and is the fear (sometimes more or less irrational), of a situation that has to do with limiting one's freedom as a sacrifice to be made to form a bond with another person.
We often link fear to the world of relationships, but it can really appear in any situation where we can see the possibility that we will be maniased in a formal or informal relationship that demands too much from us.
The truth is that there are people who don't want to commit and there are people who simply don't want to get in the way or live as a couple. If those people aren't able to get to that level of commitment, it's because they have a thousand reasons behind them. Because they have a great professional or family burden. When this is the case, these people have an obligation to play the rules of the game clean, that is, they must notify their partner that if they start a relationship with them, they will not commit. This doesn't have to be a disorder (what's unfair is not to warn you and have the other person waiting).
The fear of commitment exists and occurs in people who stay in the phase of infatuation, as well as are unable to enter the next stage, which is that of love. Only those who go from infatuation to love are those who can risk compromising at all, getting involved with their whole being. And this is something that happens when you reach emotional maturity, otherwise it is a typical infatuation of "the stage of adolescence". Commitment has a lot to do with the authenticity of the person, self-esteem, realism, etc. Fear of commitment has a lot to do with that elongated adolescence beyond what corresponds in time (now we are talking about a adolescence that begins at age 9 and ends at age 35).
Fear of commitment often arises when the other person asks us to take a step and feel that there will be a change that can destabilize our "comfort zone". If, in valuing our relationship, we conclude that we lose something with that union (less intimacy, rest...) rather than winning (love, companionship, well-being, etc.), fear will take hold of us and will not let us move forward. That's what's called "fear of commitment."
This type of fear is often more common in men than in women (although it can also occur in women). One of the most common reasons men fear commitment is because they can see it as the end of their freedom. Through misconceptions about love and relationships, they assume that having a partner will corner them with responsibilities and they will never be able to live a life without worries again. At other times, they equate commitment to boredom and find the idea of getting more involved unreactive. Many kids can be in a relationship for fun and don't consider exclusivity as something to consider. A classic reason is the bitter memories of past relationships and reproachable behaviors on the part of an ex-partner, so they may be afraid to reexperience the suffering caused after a painful rupture. Other common reasons include lack of trust in the person or relationship, lack of maturity, and personal insecurities.
The pillars on which fear of commitment is based are:
A marked individualism: the way people think about fear of commitment is basically individualistic. They don't have to be selfish or self-centered, they simply value individual needs first and not so much collectives. It is for this reason that they will hardly show enthusiasm and self-initiative for a joint project that is just beginning. Fear of commitment makes the possibility of having a romantic relationship interpreted as a way to dilute one's identity and sacrifice time and effort.
Pessimism in valuing the future: people who show a fear of constant and systematic commitment tend to believe that each of the future choices that extend before their eyes, are destined to be a bad experience, in which the costs and sacrifices that must be made, will not be offset by the advantages. The problem is not so much that a concrete commitment is not accepted, but that it is rejected to embrace any commitment that limits one's freedom in the future.
Diatomical thinking: people afraid of commitment see decisions that have to do with reciprocity and covenants, as an all-or-nothing issue: either it fits into a framework of relationships imposed on us by the other person or not accepted. We hardly think of the possibility of negotiating where everyone's responsibilities and obligations begin and end, nor does it go through the head that this commitment can adapt to the needs of oneself.
How to detect fear of commitment:
He has had a bad experience in the past: usually those who are afraid of commitment, it is because they have broken their hearts in the past. It may not have even happened to him personally, but they have had a strong divorce with their parents or they are still together but they are miserable.
He has been in many short-term relationships: if his stable relationship record does not exceed three months, it is a clear sign that he fears of compromise. You can also look at their ex-girlfriends, if they're all "unavailable" people (married, work-addicted, living in another country) you'll realize that they've never really committed (it's easy to "commit" to someone who can't really commit to one).
He likes to be in control: if your partner hates being told what to do or how to do it, it's probably because he's afraid that by losing control of his emotions, they might hurt him.
Co-or herd: they are usually ultra-charming at first, but then, once they've conquered you, they disappear. They love persecution but not capture and the more serious the relationship becomes, the less interest it will have.
Avoid introductions or presentations: If you haven't met your friends, family or co-workers yet, rest a lot of money you don't want to have a stable relationship with you yet. For the truth is that those who fear commitment tend to compartmentalize their lives. The more people close to him/her know, the more access you have to their private life and you start to be a part of it
They're irresponsible: not only are you afraid to commit to yourself but anything. They are usually people who are always late, do not pay bills on time, nor do they keep their word. So if your life seems chaotic, this could be the reason.
They don't like to plan: whether it's a loan or a savings account to go on vacation, you just can't commit to doing it.
They do not share intimate details about themselves: If you hide their feelings and show no sure affection, you will be alarmed. For them to tell you intimate things is to give you the power to hurt them.
She puts he/herself on all things: his/her needs come first for him/her and are so busy protecting himself/her that they neglect your emotional needs.
Panic just by hearing the word compromise: when you get the point of arguing about the next step in the relationship, whether it's making it official, living together or getting married, you'll notice that it panics, so you just have to analyze their reaction. A true phobic compromise will try to invent an excuse, change the subject or disappear completely.
Some of the main characteristics of those who are afraid of commitment are:
They are usually people who have difficulty making decisions
They go around a lot to go live with the couple, get married or have children.
They are people who tend to want to have everything under control, because that way they feel safer or have difficulty expressing their emotions openly.
They feel insecure about themselves
How to overcome the fear of commitment:
To overcome the fear of commitment, it is vital to accept that the desire for complete security is not achievable for anyone and that uncertainty is part of life.
It is important not to torture yourself with the discarded elections, focusing on the current moment and the advantages it has. Also, being honest and expressing what happens is something liberating and helps foster understanding and empathy in our partner. Being aware and motivated to change are catalysts for the process. However, there are many individual differences and both personality, family relationships and disappointments from the past play a fundamental role in our beliefs about the couple and commitment.
Sometimes going to a psychologist helps us figure out our particular case, understand what's happening to us, identify our feelings, and address fears so we can move forward.
What to do when your partner is afraid of commitment
Make sure you're not pressing early: make sure you're not pressing too soon on the relationship. Some people simply need more time than others to make decisions and it's not necessarily because they're afraid of commitment. So you have to make sure first that what you're asking if it's timely.
Be realistic: as much as you like a person, if he's afraid of commitment, you're not going to change it if he doesn't want to.
He points out that nothing is ever 100% guaranteed: we live in an uncertain world and are almost never 100% sure of anything. No one knows what the future holds, all we can do is make reasonable decisions and strive to make it work. Let him know that you too are taking the risk (love makes us more vulnerable).
The one who needs to change must be the other one, not you: don't change to accommodate the other or they love you or not and if they really love you they will be willing to take the next step with you.
Take it easy: most phobic-commitments manage to overcome their fear once they find someone who gives them enough time to make the change. But it raises a limit, you can't wait a lifetime either.
Keep your life, your friends, your friends: don't stop making plans just because he/she is available. It's important that you grow separate plots in your life where you can find spaces to do what you like.
Respect their space, their relationships and their activities outside the couple: in a healthy relationship, moments of separation are necessary so that they can reconnect with renewed energies.
Try to make it open with you:make the relationship a safe place where you can express your fears, doubts and insecurities. Try to have deeper, more open conversations, free from judgment and criticism, where you can verbalize what you feel and think without fear of being judged or rejected.
Don't play emotional blackmail: the only way to forge a real bond is to start being real ourselves. Games and manipulation only get games and manipulation. True intimacy is nourished by honesty.
Don't let him pay for everything: it's okay for me to invite you sometimes, value the gesture, but don't expect him to always do it and he offers to pay for it yourself. Show him that what matters to you is his person and his company, not his checking account. Money is a symbol of power and the forces of both sides of the couple must be balanced.
Don't become the detective of your social networks: either out of jealousy, to examine possible threats or out of need of control, monitoring your partner online is never a good idea (it puts you in a position of insecurity and puts your partner's trust in check).
Don't compare him to your ex: we all know the saying "comparisons are hateful." And they are for a reason. It's not about hiding your past and acting like you're the first man in your life. Rather, it's about you give them their rightful weight and that your partner senses that you put it in the past.
Be clear about what you want: many people are afraid that if they are too sincere, they will "drive away" their partners. Thus, this strategy can be frightening if you do not want to expose yourself, especially if they are in a kind of "limbo", through which everything seems to indicate that it is a relationship, but has not yet been defined as such. But if you muster the courage to face that awkward conversation, you will know where the other person is: if they want to continue to see you more informally, if they want to formalize their own, or if, on the contrary, they are placed in completely different emotional places.
Set a period of time when you're ready to leave: If your partner doesn't intend to move forward with you, they'll be happily relaxed in the "honeymoon phase" forever. Set the time period you are willing to wait.
Turn the page if it doesn't give you the place you deserve: it's time to walk away when you're in a relationship where a/or feels emotionally insecure, their feelings aren't heard or answered with respect, where you can't express yourself freely, if you know it's not going well and, in the end, you're not happy. It will be painful at first, but it's always better than cheating or conforming to something that doesn't come close to what you want or isn't enough. Take the reins of your life and get out of an unsatisfactory relationship. Maybe to find someone else, at best, to find yourself.
FEAR OF FALLING IN LOVE (FILOFOBIA)
One of the most curious phobias is the phobia of falling in love or phylophobia. This anxiety problem can have an effect on the social and emotional life of the person who suffers it. In severe cases, the phylophobic can not only avoid potential loves, but can no longer relate to co-workers, neighbors, friends, and family. The act of falling in love may be one of the most incredible experiences that human beings can feel, but for a phylophobic, it can become a situation that gives it a terrible feeling of discomfort and high levels of emotional and physical stress.
These people are afraid to turn themselves in, fall in love, or build strong personal relationships. They only live relationships without commitment, speak little of themselves, avoid showing themselves as they are, put on an "impassable barrier" so as not to feel vulnerable, tend to establish simultaneous relationships because of the same fear that they have to be abandoned and their relationships are a roller coaster of emotions with constant ups and downs.
The fear of falling in love in the background is a reflection of the fear of suffering, of suffering a loss or fear of abandonment. Fleeing a relationship becomes a defense mechanism in the face of loss, a reason not to love someone with all that it entails. In the most acute cases, this phobia can encompass even the fear of feeling love from your family or even the affection of close friends.
One thing that makes phylophobia very problematic is the impossibility of "isolating" the source of fear, as could be done, for example, in the case of spider phobia. In phylophobia, any situation that is sensed that can trigger in the consolidation of affective bonds typical of infatuation, is rejected completely in advance. The latter is harmful in two ways: on the one hand, it makes it impossible to fall in love, a state of emotional activation that has moments associated with very intense happiness; people with phylophobia may feel that they reject infatuation while wishing they could experience it without fear so they can enjoy their good things. On the other hand, this fear predisposes people to isolate themselves socially, something that can lead to the emergence of a feeling of loneliness and sadness and which is also correlated with the adoption of unhealthy lifestyle habits and lower life expectancy. Phylophobia can become a crippling problem for the sufferer, as long as its intensity is very high.
It seems that what triggers phylophobia is an intense feeling of failure in a past relationship that has not been overcome. This school of thought argues that the patient suffering from phylophobia has wounds from a divorce or a painful painless process that causes him to avoid any potential situation of being hurt again by a lover. Other professionals think that Filophobia is born of an intense fear of being rejected.
Causes of fear of falling in love:
Un affectionate family: a family is our first affective school, hence the origin of fear of love may be related to family childhood traumas or inferiority complexes that were generated within it.
An individualistic and consumerist society: we live in a society that values individuality, untethered freedom and where commitment to a person for life is not fashionable and, for many people, is unrealistic.
Sentimental failures in the past: negative or traumatic experiences in previous relationships, such as heartbreak, divorce or betrayal..., produce fear or even blockade at the prospect of suffering a similar situation again.
Low tolerance for failure: Low tolerance to frustration makes it difficult to manage feelings in the face of stressful situations. Having someone else to carry out a life project puts many people in a situation of emotional tension that they try to avoid at all costs. The fear of falling in love occurs, in this case, more so we imagine that it can happen than by what actually happens.
Lack of self-esteem: Sometimes there are people who feel they don't deserve or aren't good enough to be loved. Hence, they are afraid to fall in love, as they assume that the other person will abandon them at the first opportunity they have.
Behaviors of people with fear of love:
People with philosophical tendencies often adopt the following patterns of behavior when faced with a relationship:
Victimist tendencies: those who are afraid to fall in love tend to hold everything accountable to the other party so as not to accept their degree of guilt and not to face their problem.
They look for flaws in their partner or their relationship: men and women affected by phylophobia, try to look for defects in their partner to justify themselves that they should no longer get involved in that romantic relationship and end up self-deceping themselves. Instead of enjoying and appreciating the qualities of their partner, they prefer to indedagate and be attentive to defects always looking for any signs of alarm with which to justify their thinking and their fear of love. If they do not find flaws in their relationship, they themselves create them and end up believing that they actually exist. This justifies the justification that it is not worth deepening your feelings.
They provoke disputes or reasons for breakup: they are instructed to create disputes with the couple so that the couple gets tired and leaves the relationship. Thus, the idea that he will be abandoning serves as an excuse not to compromise.
They are looking for an incompatible partner: another strategy is to bond with people very different from them so that the relationship fails and not feel pressured by their own fears.
They pretend to be unattainable: they aspire to relate sentimentally to unattainable people to reaffirm that they have no fear of love, but it is circumstances that prevent them from loving and being loved. In this way, people affected by phylophobia avoid facing their problem and convince themselves that the relationship does not work because their love is impossible.
They seek a relationship without commitment: people dominated by a great fear of falling in love often embark on superficial relationships, based solely on sex so as not to get emotionally involved. Sometimes several couples simultaneously in order not to fall in love with any of them. In addition, they reduce their sense of fear, because if one of them left, she would not feel her absence due to the presence of the rest.
They pursue isolation: retracting emotionally is a very common habit for those suffering from this type of phobia. The moment they feel that the other person is getting too close or intends to move on to a more serious stage, they fall into avoidance, evade their calls, and use false pretexts to avoid seeing them. So they get the other person to lose the desire to continue advancing in the relationship and in this way, they avoid facing their fear of falling in love.
They impose barriers: they establish barriers so as not to feel vulnerable and are elated when it comes to talking about themselves.
How to overcome the fear of affective commitment:
Identify your fear of love:try to find out what your greatest concern is about love, whether you are afraid to love or be loved. Explore your feelings in depth to try to overcome them from the root.
Take on your fear: running away or avoiding situations where you have to show your feelings will only cause this disorder to become more and more intense. Your fear of commitment cannot become a reason not to enjoy love. In addition, each sentimental situation is unique because the couple is made up of two people of totally unrepeatable characters.
Worry about the present: leave behind the bad situations experienced and don't think about future expectations. Focus your attention on the present and the now. This will prevent the anxiety that comes with you thinking about a possible situation of abandonment or failure in the future.
Communicate your fears: communication is a key factor in every relationship. Your partner must be aware of your fear of commitment, so that it is more sympathetic to you in the face of certain reactions that he sees in certain situations and value your effort to make your relationship work.
Take the time you need: any emotional conflict takes time to overcome, don't expect your fears to go away overnight. Give yourself the time and remember that every change begins with a decision. You're on the right track.
See a professional if you need help: If you feel that certain disorders arising from your fear of love (such as anxiety) are beating you, you need to ask a specialist for help. The therapeutic treatment indicated to overcome this fear is similar to that of any other type of phobia.
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