Is This Commitment Phobia?
By Nina Atwood
Jenna and Clay dated for six months and all seemed right from her point of view. She was in love and she assumed he was as well. After all, they saw each other two to three times per week; he called, asked her out, and they had a good time. They were sleeping together, of course, since about their sixth date.
The part she tried not to focus on was that he never said “I love you” or gave her sentimental cards or sent flowers. He never talked future but then again neither did she. She didn’t want to scare him away. But the truth was that she didn’t really feel completely fulfilled. She began to think it was the issue of commitment. So she brought it up. Immediatley, he began to back-pedal. He didn’t want to talk about it; he shut down emotionally. Jenna’s friends counseled her that she was dating someone with commitment phobia. No one knew exactly what that meant, but it seemed to fit.
That’s the problem with this diagnosis: it’s used far too frequently and most people don’t know what it really means. In Jenna’s case, the real issue was that she was the transitional woman for Clay. Once she began asking for commitment, he backed away because he wasn’t really in love with her. She was nice enough and good enough, but she wasn’t the one. Since being rejected, not being someone’s true love, is a tough reality to face, it’s easier to tag these dating scenarios with “commitment phobia.” In the next post we’ll look at what it really means and how to spot it.
Entry Filed under: Relationships
1 Comment
1. CPmania | August 20th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
This post hits close to home – 6 months for me and I started emotionally acting like a jerk. Funny thing is I didn’t even know I was doing it!
Maybe commitmentphobia, maybe it was the girl…i’ll never know!
http://lovelifeandthelawofattraction.blogspot.com/