Many people with commitment phobia have problems with committing to relationships. Quite often, the people who view this page, and go on to contact me, are not the commitment phobic person themselves, but their frustrated partners.
The fear of commitment can manifest itself in many forms…
- Expressing unusually high levels of criticism of a partner or relationship.
- Deliberately hurting their partner, effectively giving reason for the relationship to fail.
- Making themselves unattractive to potential partners, so that a relationship doesn’t get started in the first place.
- The person may have multiple partners, either all at the same time, or serially, leaving a trail of failed relationships and a lot of tears.
- Having a fear of losing their own identity if they were to allow a relationship to develop.
- May reject all efforts from their partner to discuss marriage.
- May have extremely high expectations in their partners.
- They may socialise with other people they know to be commitment phobic, so as to avoid any relationship issues to come up.
- They may leave a relationship, return to it, leave again, and so on.
- They may also not be able to commit to work, hobbies, timetables, and even therapy!
People who suffer from this phobia have often experienced loss at some time of their life, maybe the divorce or death of their parents.