He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (6 page)

There can be something tremendously liberating about being in love with a person who is subtly, or not so subtly, pulling away. It allows you to pursue your love with the most tender or terrible passion. Love doesn’t become frightening until it is returned in kind and threatens to become entrapment.

7.
You have a history of becoming involved with, or obsessed by, partners who are emotionally, circumstantially, or geographically unavailable
.

If you choose unavailable partners, then you are choosing relationships that already have a built-in sense of distance. And if you have a clear-cut pattern of falling in love with people who are, to all intents and purposes, unavailable, then, much as you may deny it, it is questionable whether you yourself are truly available for commitment.

Remember, an unavailable partner will never make you deliver on the commitment you say you want. He or she will never hold you accountable for all of the feelings and desires you are holding in your heart. He or she will never require the commitment you say you’re prepared to give. Why? Because unavailable means unavailable.

Unavailable partners include those who are:

Geographically unavailable
. It’s the classic scenario. You live in New York, your beloved lives in L.A. You have great weekends together six times a year. Your phone bill is outrageous. Is this a relationship? It may be romantic, but there is too much fantasy and not enough reality. Of course you don’t have to live in separate states to have a long-distance relationship. The same purpose can be served by becoming involved with someone who travels all the time or someone who is never there long enough for it to feel settled and real.

Emotionally unavailable
. Usually those who are emotionally unavailable give you plenty of warning up front. They may actually tell you that they can’t handle commitment. They may be emotionally elusive. They may tell you that others have found it difficult to relate to them. They may simply be unable to give that much, and this becomes apparent very quickly. They may be too elusive, a little too hard to reach, too hard to find, too hard to pin down, too hard to keep around. In short too distant, too controlled, too unavailable. A man or woman who behaves this way is warning you that he or she is afraid of intimacy. Why would you keep trying unless you’re afraid of intimacy too?

Circumstantially unavailable
. Okay, he’s married, and she’s involved with another man. So why are men and women in these situations so appealing, so desirable—so perfect? Even if someone sees you five days a week and calls five times a day, if he or she is involved with other partners, that special someone is unavailable for commitment.

It may seem like a cheap shot, but we have to ask the question. What easier way to disguise your reluctance to commit than to choose partners who are unavailable?

8.
Within a relationship your responses tend to be highly unrealistic and extreme—overly romantic, overly critical, overly involved, overly detached
.

Real commitment requires real compromise, real wishes, real hopes, real desires, and real people. One of the most effective ways of avoiding commitment is to avoid reality. Occasionally you may imbue a real-life partner with all the characteristics you ascribe to your fantasy mate, but that happy state rarely lasts very long.

That means that at all stages of a relationship, you’re not authentically responding to your partner’s reality. You are either overwhelmingly romantic, or you go the other way and become incredibly picky and critical out of all proportion to what is happening.

Real commitment takes place in a real world, and an unrealistic attitude toward your relationships and your partners is symptomatic of unresolved commitment conflicts.

9.
You have a history of becoming involved with people who have more difficulties with commitment than you do
.

You think that all you want is a commitment, but your partner is unable to commit. This scenario is the single most effective way of concealing your own commitment issues.

Entering a relationship with a man or woman with severe commitment anxiety means getting involved with pain and disappointment. It means devoting a large portion of your life to trying to force an unwilling partner to come closer. It means that you are always the person wanting more from the relationship. It means that you are always with somebody who is erecting boundaries and obstacles faster than you can tear them down. And it means that your whole attitude in relationships is one of trying to understand and change another human being.

If you are in love with someone with serious commitment conflicts, then you already know how exhausting and painful it can be. You probably can’t believe that your own commitment issues could have had anything to do with selecting such a person. After all, why would anyone deliberately choose such pain? And, in truth, you probably didn’t choose the pain. But people who have serious problems with commitment, any kind of commitment, typically telegraph this information in a myriad of ways. Sometimes they actually tell you straight out. Sometimes they simply give you
the sense of distance that you may find desirable. Often they are highly seductive and, by words or deeds, they initially provide you with a highly unrealistic romantic scenario that fulfills your finest fantasy.

All of this provides an environment in which you rarely have to examine your own fears. If you spend all your time trying to analyze another person’s problems, you rarely have time to think about your own. But when you are being totally honest with yourself, don’t you have to admit that you saw their conflicts from the very beginning?

10.
You look at friends who have solid commitments and think that they have compromised in a way that you wouldn’t
.

For those with unresolved commitment conflicts there is frequently something about a real, down-to-earth, settled relationship that looks downright boring. You look at friends who have become part of a settled couple, and while you envy them the
idea
of being part of a twosome, you don’t really envy their lives. You feel that they have compromised in some way. Perhaps their spouses aren’t good-looking enough, or exciting enough, or rich enough, or glamorous enough, or smart enough. And what do they talk about? Children, schools, dinner menus, petty household conflicts. Who wants that?

People with commitment issues tend to be certain that if they ever do settle down with another human being, along with comfort and coziness they will also experience a greater sense of freedom and a much, much more exciting day-to-day life than the average person.

11.
You believe that any difficulties you have with commitment will be resolved once you meet the “right” person
.

If you have commitment issues, the myth of the right person is the backbone of your denial system. Unable to compromise with mere mortals, you keep looking for that special someone. If you are unable to find such a person, you are obviously unable to have the right relationship. Consider the following example:

Dennis, a thirty-four-year-old executive, has absolute faith that all commitment requires is the right person. In the course of his
life he meets a great many beautiful, intelligent, lovely women who are attracted to him. But none of them is quite right; either they are too dependent, too bossy, too passive, too aggressive, too career oriented, too baby oriented, too something. Once every two years or so Dennis meets someone he thinks could be the right person. But inevitably she lacks the ability to maintain a relationship. Perhaps she is just about to move to another state or even another country. Perhaps she is already involved with somebody else. Perhaps she has extremely unreasonable boundaries or rules about space. Or perhaps she simply doesn’t want a relationship, at least not one with him. Whatever the reason, there is no way that his perfect woman is going to be making a commitment to him.

Dennis’s attitude reveals another pattern that goes hand in hand with a life devoted to searching for the mythological perfect person: Men and women hooked on this myth can and do fall in love with people who fall far short of their ideal—provided that these partners are inappropriate or unavailable.

12.
The time intervals between your important relationships are often extreme
.

Most of us have read books or articles explaining how an individual handles the loss of a love, even when that loss is brought about through one’s own actions—as in the case of a relationship that one has
chosen
to end. We know we need time to grieve, time to reevaluate, time to work through our feelings and understand what happened. And then we’re ready to move on and love again.

Men and women with commitment issues rarely go through this process in a “normal” fashion. Instead once again they go to extremes. Some jump right into another “important” relationship, allowing too little time to sift through feelings. Others experience a depression that goes deeper and lasts far longer than the circumstances seem to call for. Traditionally this type of behavior had been associated with women.

We look at someone who runs from relationship to relationship and we realize that he or she can’t possibly fall in or out of love that quickly; we watch someone pining over a lost love and we realize that he or she is holding on to a self-defeating illusion.
Both the jumpers and the mourners reflect the kind of unrealistic attitude toward romance that is so often symptomatic of unresolved commitment conflicts.

13.
You have difficulty reaching any decision that limits your future options
.

Choosing from a restaurant menu, deciding on a purchase (a computer, a VCR, a home, a car), making appointments in advance—all of these require a commitment. That’s because commitment isn’t just about romance. It’s about life, and in life there are umpteen moments when you are going to have to make decisions, large and small.

People who struggle with commitment have a tough time deciding on anything permanent. Whether it’s a residence or a job, they don’t want to do anything they can’t undo, and they don’t want to get into anything they can’t get out of. Wary of making the wrong choice, worried about getting trapped or stuck, nervous about losing their freedom and their choices, they can never comfortably close off any options. And no sooner do they make a choice—be it a new living-room sofa or a potential life partner—than they begin to question or find fault with the choice.

This quality frequently extends to “committing” to plans. We once interviewed a man who was unable to use a pen to write down dates in his calendar. Because he had to leave himself a way out, he always used pencil so that he could erase anything he had put down. Although few people are this extreme, men and women who are conflicted about commitment frequently resist planning too far ahead.

Commitment anxiety can surface anytime a decision has to be made. That’s because there is no such thing as the perfect choice. Once we have made a choice, we must not only learn to live with what we have chosen but also with the knowledge of what we have given up.

Sometimes it’s easier to recognize your commitment conflicts when they emerge in nonromantic areas. If you struggle with commitment, there are likely to be many such places in your life where your struggle is evident. That means that there is something going on in your psyche that transcends interpersonal
chemistry, transcends cultural input, and transcends what happened to you at the high school prom.

14.
You become acutely uncomfortable when you feel someone is closing in on you or invading your space
.

Think about the expression “I need more space.” Think about how it is used in relationships. Now for a moment forget about your love relationships. Let’s just think about how it makes you feel when someone comes to visit and “invades” your space. How easily do you adjust? Do you find yourself “climbing the walls” when others take up your territory? How about when someone stands too close to you in the office or when someone moves an object on your desk. How anxious does it make you feel? How angry?

Remember that men and women with commitment conflicts need distance. They don’t like feeling as though someone is closing in on them and limiting them in any way. That’s why space and territory are always such major issues.

15.
In your head you always maintain psychological space and a possible way out of every situation
.

If you have unresolved commitment conflicts, you almost always maintain a secret little spot in your head in which you are free and alone. Here’s how this works:

You’re married, but in your head you have a built-in escape plan that you can put into operation on short notice. You’re in a relationship, but in your head you know exactly how you can get out should you choose. You’ve held the same job for eight years, but in your head you might leave tomorrow, and just in case, you continue to read the employment ads. You own a house, but you have never fully decorated it because in your head you might sell it someday soon. If you have unresolved commitment issues, even if you never, ever take a single step toward leaving, psychologically you’re always one step out the door in every situation. You’re there, but you’re not there. You’re committed, but you’re not committed. You haven’t run away, but you know you can. And it’s knowing you
can
that keeps you from fleeing. That’s what gives you your sense of freedom.

If someone tries to remove that sense of freedom, you may well experience a sense of distress that is akin to what claustrophobies feel when someone is limiting their space. This response can include all of the classic phobic responses including intense anxiety and a need to break out, get away, run, and hide.

16.
You gravitate toward professions or employment conditions that allow you flexibility in terms of time and space
.

Because employment involves many of the same conditions as romantic partnerships, people with commitment issues often have very distinctive ways of handling their work lives. If you have a tough time committing yourself to anything that limits your freedom, you may try to avoid work that insists on rigid rules in terms of time and place. When forced to maintain nine-to-five routines, those with commitment conflicts may job hop, numb their discomfort with drugs or alcohol, or set up a peculiar system that allows them to dissociate from what they are doing.