Why Some Men Won't Commit

While some women are afraid to commit, I have found that men have this problem more often. I researched this and discovered that men just naturally fear commitment because their primary caretaker was a woman. During that stage in their childhood when they idealize their mother, they imprint with the image they have of her. Even though they are unaware of this at the time, this makes them feel emotionally incestuous with the kind of woman their mother was when he was young. Later, when they have these same feelings for another woman, it makes them feel ashamed of their emotions and don’t understand why. To deal with their shame they run from the relationship or at least commitment.

Some men go on to be able to only love women who are the completely opposite of their mother. So if she was kind they will be attracted to a female narcissist.

Let me be clear than men like this can fall in love, it is just commitment that throws them off track. Therefore they may lead you on for awhile until you want more than they feel safe giving you.

Men are not only afraid of commitment, they are afraid of emotional intimacy. They will often substitute sex for sharing their feelings. Sometimes women contribute to this. While many women want a man to open up, for others this is not always true. I read a study once in which women said they feel uncomfortable when a man cries.

Men may also fear commitment if they ever fell in love with the wrong woman. This will make him hesitate to go all the way the marriage the next time.

When does this fear of commitment come up. It depends on the man. I have known men whose fear comes up.

- After the first date;

- After you show affection for him;

- After you want his to return your affection;

-After you ask for monogamy;

-After you ask for anything that might lead to a commitment;

- After you want to meet their friends and family;

- After you want to spend more time with them;

- After a few months of dating;

- After the honeymoon when they fall out their infatuation.

- Whenever he feels uncomfortable and doesn’t understand why.

What do men do when they fear commitment?

- Stop returning your phone calls and text messages;

- Make excuses for spending time with you.

- Start seeing other women;

- Spend less and less time with you;

- Refuse to talk about the relationship;

- Tell you are being selfish and controlling;

- Complain a lot about everything;

- Break up with you;

What do you do if you love a commitment phobic?

- Take you time when you meet someone;

- Do everything in your power to avoid falling in love even if you are attracted to this person;

- Pay attention to his history with women;

- Find out as much as you can about his relationship with his mother. Were they too close? Emotional incest means he was asked to take care of his mother and be her confident when he was just a child.

- Once you realize the man you love is afraid of commitment, don’t waste your time trying to change him. That is his job.

- Move on and be more careful next time.

I like to tell the following story to illustrate how to spot a commitment phobic. John was a doctor and we met at Alcoholics Anonymous. Because of this I assumed he was in the process of changing. Therefore I ignored the warning signs.

On our first date, John took me for a walk. I asked him a little about his past relationships and he told me that he had been married and was now divorced. I thought that this meant he was not afraid of commitment. As we were walking, he told me about all the women he had been dating since his divorce. There were at least twenty women over a five year period.

Soon he told me about these woman always wanting more than he was comfortable with. Then he asked me why women always want to spend the night after sex. I was speechless.

On our second date he invited me to his house. He has a nice apartment with two bedrooms. In one bedroom, where he slept, he has a single bed and a picture of his ex wife on the bed stand. The second bedroom was reserved for having sex with women.

Within a few weeks he started to become distant and stopped returning my phone calls. I asked him why, and he said he just needed his space. We saw each other less often after that but I still felt it was all right to ask him over for Thanksgiving. He balked at this and said this was way to personal for him. The next night he called and ended the relationship. When I asked him why, he blamed me for wanting “too much.”

I would like to say that I learned my lesson, but it took a few more years before I realized that attraction was not enough to dream of a future with a man, and that men who are afraid to commit are really not likely to change even if they say they will. (Some men are afraid of commitment but don’t want to break up with you so they will go to therapy hoping to stall the inevitable. I call these men seductive withholders.)

Today, I am happily married to a man who loves me and had committed to share his life with me. I am very happy that I figured out that some men just don’t like commitment and that nothing I do is going to change that.





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