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What is the fear of commitment?

Article by Paul Douglass, professional therapist, author, and creator of
the LifeShaping Process

One of the most common questions about commitment phobia, commitment issues and relationship issues is 'What is the fear of commitment?'.

The symptoms of Commitment Phobia

Commitment phobia can express itself in all kinds of different ways, but typically sufferers may exhibit any of these:

• Being overly critical of the other partner in the relationship, and/or the relationship as a whole.
  
  
• Annoying / hurting the other person, thus sabotaging the relationship, even if it's considered to be working well. An example of this, might be consistently turning up late for things - whether with apologetic excuses, or not.
  
  
• Being scared of getting noticed, because the other person might want to start a relationship. In fact, they'll often reject other people from the word go, so that a relationship barely gets off the starting blocks. The feeling behind this, can be to protect themselves from even the prospect of allowing others' to get too close. 
  
  At the other end of the scale, a commitment phobic, may be flirtatious and appear to want the attentions of other interested parties, desiring even a longer-term physical relationship. But, eventually the fear can, and often does, win out and the other person gets pushed away, leaving broken hearts in its wake.
  
  
• Fearing being swamped by others, and thus losing sight of who they feel they really are.
  
  
• Unable to face or explore the prospects, issues, or thoughts, of living together, or getting married.Some commitment phobics may want to find Mr or Miss Right and get married, but will often have somewhat unrealistic 'ideals' over possible suitors. 
  
  
• Often friends and relatives notice and will often make comments like: 'you're being too picky', and 'Mr/Miss Perfect' just doesn't exist'.
  
  
• Sometimes they'll fall in love with other people who just aren't interested in forming an intimate relationship. The reasoning behind this can be that the commitment phobic has, (deliberately, or otherwise), chosen a person who can't/won't, form a lasting relationship, and so they are 'safe' from having to make that long-term commitment.
  
  
• There is also the type of sufferer who enters a relationship, can't commit, then leaves at some point, only to return sometime later, before leaving yet again. This yo-yoing can happen time and time again leaving hurt, bewilderment and distrust in its wake.
  
  
• There can be the avoidance of having to commit to anything. This can also involve jobs, tasks, timekeeping, as well as personal relationships / friendships. Interestingly, it can even involve undertaking treatment for the commitment phobia itself.

What we recommend for overcoming commitment phobia...

If you're looking to overcome commitment phobia, then there are a few things that you can do for yourself that can really help you with commitment phobia.

A lot of people have got rid of commitment phobia very successfully, and if you want to do the same, then by far the best way to do it, is to save yourself a lot of time and effort, and learn from how they did it.

Whether you choose to do more than one of these is of course, up to you... it depends on how much you want to overcome commitment phobia, and how determined you are to do it, but if you do want to overcome commitment phobia, we would recommend you do at least one or two of these things.

• Understand how commitment phobia works, and why it's affecting you: Most people who have trouble overcoming commitment phobia only have problems because they don't understand how commitment phobia works. It can be much easier to overcome commitment phobia when you know what it's all about. We highly recommend LifeShaping: Overcome Commitment Phobia as an excellent place to learn how and why commitment phobia is affecting you.
  
  
  
  
  
• Use something to help you with commitment phobia in the short term: There are products, such as downloads and audiobooks that can help you with this. Help in the short term can keep you on track and build those feelings of being back in control.
  
  
• Keep up with the latest information about commitment phobia and how to overcome it: These days it's SO easy to keep up to date with the latest news and info about commitment phobia. You can, for example, sign up to our email newsletter, and / or be our friend on Facebook. That way, we can keep you up to date.
  
  
• Talk to other people who are in the same boat: There are lots of other people who are, or have been, in the same situation as you. Join our forums, and talk to people who are either looking to overcome commitment phobia, or who have beaten commitment phobia and have valuable information to share with you.

Above all else, it's important to remember that you CAN overcome commitment phobia, it just may be that you need some help to do it... so be sure to do some (or all) of those things we just mentioned, and you'll be well on your way!

About Paul Douglass MIAPH
Paul Douglass is the co-founder of Anxiety Matters and creator of The LifeShaping Process. You can connect with Paul on...
Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn

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