It's a question I've gotten from so many of my coaching clients, I've decided to address it here on the blog.
If all of the men you date have a problem with commitment, does that mean it's actually YOU who has a problem with commitment?
There’s a difference here that I want to point out. You’re here and he’s not. That’s a significant difference because it reveals one very important thing; you’re at least open to having this conversation, however difficult it may be.
Why is that such an important distinction? Because it forms the basis of all our growth in every single one of our relationships!
If we’re not looking inside ourselves for our answers, if we’re not honestly asking ourselves the tough questions that keep coming around and around over and over again, we’re going to find ourselves in a type of holding pattern over this entire topic of commitment.
Why are you attracting the same type of men with commitment issues over and over again? Why are you overlooking the men who actually ARE ready for a commitment in favor of these other men who you have to push and pull and plead with to try to get a commitment out of?
And what are your hidden subconscious belief systems - your deeply embedded stories that keep convincing you this is what you must keep doing if you are to find the love you’re looking for?
What IS this kind of love you’re looking for and what makes you think you can somehow get it from someone who tells you (or shows you in every way, shape and form) that he is NOT on the same page as you, he’s NOT looking for the same thing you are, and he can’t tell you if or when any of this is going to change?
Whew! There’s a lot there, I know.
But those are precisely the questions you need to ask yourself if you want to break the cycle of attracting the same type of commitmenphobic men the way you have been.
We all come to this crossroads if we’re open to it. And being open to it is the biggest part of this!
Again, that’s why I’m less concerned about your fears of commitment than I am about his because you’re the one who’s doing the questioning. When you’ve been so used to explaining away your singleness with explanations like "I’m very picky", I "refuse to settle", I know exactly what I want but I haven’t found it yet, it’s time to pause and recognize that these are EXACTLY the same reasons to explain THEIR singleness by every single one of these men you’ve found to be so full of their own commitment issues.
Yes, really!
So how do you tell the difference between you being very picky, refusing to settle, and knowing exactly what you want but not being able to find it yet, versus you having your own commitment issues?
I’ll go back to that openness part.
Relationships are always a gamble. Always! And commitment feels scary to most people on some level, because it is! The difference is that for men and women in our culture, we’ve both been conditioned to see that commitment differently. Very differently.
For women, we’ve been sold on ideas of security and stability and status. For men, while they may gain the status with commitment and marriage, the running jokes around their loss of freedom and pressure around so much new responsibility to have to live up to, isn’t only a joke. It’s a message they’ve heard, they’ve learned well, and it’s one they take seriously because it’s cemented in their psyches by a father whose approval they will always seek, albeit subconsciously.
But whereas one person - namely you, because you’re the one here – is capable of moving through this and asking those tough questions, the other person (yes, him) is usually not. And being open to those equally as revealing answers to those tough questions, is what gets you to the root of what it is you’re actually looking for. If he’s not doing this same work himself, the chances of him pushing through give you little reason for hope, and for very good reason.
With that awareness, you also need to ask yourself what else he won’t be open to working through with you in down the road, when you're in the throes of a real relationship that's not always all sunshine and roses!
I know something about this journey.
I, too, had to learn to understand why I was so attracted to one type of man and found fault with so many others. I, too, had to be willing to not just learn about it or read about it, but I had to be willing to get out of my comfort zone to do something about it.
Discovering what my own stories were that I wasn’t even subconsciously aware of, was crucial to finding out my own answers.
This entire questioning process was what ultimately led to me finally getting it right - not culturally right, but “me” right. And it’s this same process that has brought so many of us who’ve struggled with this to find our own crack in our programming that ultimately leads to our own freedom and happiness in finding someone ready to walk through this commitment process together!
Not without unknowns, not with any guarantees, but knowing the most important part of any relationship – two people on the same page willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen – was something they could pay more than just lip service to.
Yes, you’re picky. No, you’re not willing to settle for anything less than you deserve. But are you lonely in that? Or are you at peace with your current path? Those answers matter, too!
So now what about you? Does this resonate at all with you? Share your thoughts in the comments below. After all, maybe it’s not just him - maybe it’s you, too!
Wow this was a lot of truth! Wake up call for me! Yes I have been settling for someone who keeps pushing commitment away...who keeps telling me what I do want to hear but actions don’t show what he says. We’re going on three years and still living apart, playing sleep overs. I can’t move in with him because it’s his mothers house and she does not approve of me...he’s advising me to move to a bigger place so we can call it our home BUT he will still continue living at his house or should I say “moms” house. Which is why I’m so confused. Do I wait? Do I let go? Keep trying and hoping he’ll commit?! Bdw he’s 43yrs old not a kid. I always wondered why he’s never been married or even engaged in the past. I’ve spoken to him about my feelings and wanting commitment and stability in our relationship. Am I just settling?
I would wonder that, too. The very fact that you're asking if you're settling is all you need to know. If going on three years and still iving apart, playing sleepovers, living by his mother's approval aren't what you signed up for, then yes, absolutely you're settling. My question for you to ask yourself is "why?" Answer that and you'll have a huge clue to what he holds for you - and how to prevent it from happening again!
Yes I agree. He continues to tell me to find a bigger place and he’ll stay over more often to get a feeling of what living together would be like....but we literally sleep together every night already. He tells me he’s putting house on the market in June, so I told him it’s best we wait until he sells house and we both do “one step”, “one move” together to what we would call our home. Sad but yes I have settled and made him comfortable. Now it feels like it’s impossible to break this routine. 🙁 I do love him but I also love myself and want stability in my life.
Thank you, Jane, for this very pertinent post.
This is something I've been exploring within myself but it comes in layers. The first time I looked into this within myself, I understood my commitment fear as fear of being judged and abused because that was what I grew up both witnessing and receiving. But now, lately, I think I've been finding even more layers to my fears. And of course many questions arise.
Lately, I've been thinking about what I would like and I feel that what comes up for me is "different". Not just different from what I've already lived, but different in a way that allows me to be the change I want to see in this world. I want to embody that difference in all aspects of my life, and of course in the aspect of romantic love.
I'm struggling to imagine different here though. Binary thinking, gender dynamics are so embedded that I'm worried about how to bring that difference to this. I see that even in the most open, kind men, there is this subconscious level of sexism and even misogyny sometimes that I just cannot overlook. I don't blame them because this is the waters we've been swimming in, so I know I'm bound to find those unconscious manifestations. It is however incredibly frustrating and sad for me to see that in these men that I have carefully tried to select as friends or acquaintances. So I struggle to picture a man who is on that page I am. I still do not know what he is like. Mmm.
Some other questions that come up for me are: if I am working on being emotionally available and I still find men who aren't, does that mean I am failing at becoming available? Does this mean that only when we find the first guy who matches us are we truly available? I'm not sure if that adds up. Some people get in relationships without being available... So I am a little confused as to how to measure my progress in that area. I still feel very afraid of opening doors to more abuse.
I do feel that I have progressed because I am now more aware of myself and a man's actions and I am less prone to chase around. I spot men who are not right just by seeing how fast they move without being clear on what they want. I definitely saw that in the last two men who approached me and I was able to not get involved; before, I would have just closed my eyes and gotten carried away and let my romantic fantasies take over, but no longer. I see that it takes me less and less time to see through them, so I get out. On the other hand, while I'm happy about my progress, I become a bit discouraged. It makes me wonder if I'm still unavailable and that's why they keep showing up even though I have learned to speak up, share, and be a bit more vulnerable when I couldn't even do any of those things before.
Does it mean that we have to be fully open to be with the first guy who seems ok who appears? Does it mean that if I'm the first to let go, it's still me being unavailable?
I don't know if my questions make sense but I find myself still questioning. I don't regret how I've handled these past experiences, but I still wonder.
I think your questions totally make sense. My initial thought after reading your comment was that it’s ok to still not settle even amongst the good guys/emotionally available men who are not afraid to commit. It’s ok! Kudos to you! I don’t feel like I’m unavailable just because I wont settle for the first genuine available man that comes along. They too must meet certain standards that are important to me. If a great available man comes along that i don’t intellectually connect with, that’s a dealbreaker for me! Does that make sense?
Exactly, Joanna. It's finding out what those questions mean to you - not to anyone else - but to you!
What if it doesn't have to mean anything except that you're happy, that you're at peace, that you're creating a life - and a social life within the bigger picture - that you can live with? It sounds like you've come to a place where the old "rules" that were never the ones you chose to begin with stopped working for you and you're in your own process of searching for a new set of rules to replace them with, ones that that actually work for who you are now - with all your new insight. When nothing's working and all you're feeling is more and more confused, give it all up. Start fresh. Start with the basics. In fact, Angel, with everything you're discovering, I'm wondering if going back to the basics with what you know now and with all these under layers coming through for you, is exactly what you've been brought here for. No, you don't have to be fully open with the first guy who appears and seems ok. If you let someone go, the only answer is never that you're simply unavailable. More to the point, this is all about you taking what you believe you're looking for and turning it on its head so you can get to the root of where that comes from and whether that's who you are and not what you're supposed to be. There's a perfection theme that comes up here time and time again, so I bring this up to see if that resonates with you again here as well. There's also a point where we question and think and overthink everything to the point where that's all we do, and that's why I can't stress enough the equally important place for letting your hair down, dropping all the expectations you place on yourself and everyone else, and just having fun. Without knowing you personally in these deeper places, I'm giving you some things that may or may not resonate with you. Take what does. Sit with what doesn't. And most of all, throw off any and all identities you've been given and let the Angel inside you out! Come and play and don't worry about getting everything right the first time around, is a great motto for those of us who are already there with the questioning and the root thinking and still finding something pulls at us to go further still. Find your own way!
Thank you, Joanna and Jane, for the words. You both have helped me untangle with though again. I can be exhausting sometimes with my thinking lol.
Joanna, the simplicity of your message really resonated with me. It makes perfect sense to me that availability does not equal match. I was losing sight of that fact, and now that I think about some past experiences I see how that was the case with them. I thought it was me just being picky but no, there were elements lacking there for sure that I was trying to overlook but I couldn't.
Jane, you hit it as usual: perfection theme. That's a really tough one for me. I can get very very lost in the idea of perfection, but now I think I have flipped it. Before, I was trying so hard to be perfect that I didn't even know who I was and overlooked gross imperfections in the men around me. Now I've gone from that to trying to find my perfect match and I see all sorts of things wrong with most men lol!!!! But deep down, there's still that feeling that I'm just not "right" and because of that, no one can love me. I hadn't felt it so much in a while, but reading your words and thinking of the perfection theme brought me back to that all too familiar feeling of feeling wrong, like there's something wrong with me. I haven't fallen back into depression the way I used to, thank goodness, but that feeling is still there. There is still some residue. My defense mechanisms kick up still. I'll try to stop thinking lol. I can't promise I will because... Well I'm a thinker lol. I've always been a thinker. I just hope I can learn to turn it off a bit sometimes.