Singles and Commitment Phobia: Singles searching for a lasting relationship or marriage have an excellent chance of becoming involved with a non-committer. The commitment phobic single is the subject of this article. 

3. Singles and the Commitment Phobic 

By Jan Wilson
with contributions by the SOLO for Singles staff and single readers.

Commitment Phobia and Singles:  Single non-committers do everything possible to win emotional and sometimes sexual commitment, often even pursuing your commitment to marriage.

More information about singles and non-committers: 

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Singles searching for a lasting relationship or marriage have an excellent chance of becoming involved with a non-committer. It may happen, or have happened, to you!

A non-committer eventually destroys any solid relationship. He/she wants love, but fear of commitment makes a lasting love impossible. When the relationship moves forward, he or she quickly shifts into reverse fear and backs right out the door.

You are devastated usually with a great loss of self-esteem. You may even feel that you are somehow to blame for the end.

Not true! You are merely another victim of the non-committer.

Jane, a divorced woman in Texas, shared her experiences with SOLO.

Jane wrote, “John was my first relationship after my divorce. Of course, I had dated, but no one I was really interested in until John came along in a real blaze of glory. After it was over, I kept asking myself what I did wrong. I went over and over every detail of that relationship two hundred times. Gradually, it dawned on me that there was nothing else I could have done. My first, and hopefully my only, experience with a non-committer.”

Recognize the non-committer!

According to Steven Carter and Julia Sokol, authors of Men Who Can’t Love, How to recognize a commitmentphobic man before he breaks your heart, this is the hard-sell stage. This is when the man is “smitten” and typically:

• Comes on strong, appearing vulnerable and often more interested in you than you are in him.
• Indicates that you are “special” and that he has decided to pursue you.
• Does everything possible to impress you using his best dog-and-pony show.
• Goes out of his way to be with you, even calling just to say ”hello” or “I love you.”
• Engages openly in future talk, making plans for the two of you together—often referring to you both as “we.”
• Indicates with words or deeds that he is seeking a meaningful, monogamous relationship.
• Has a rocky relationship history, but makes you think (and probably even believes) this one will be different.

Singles and Commitment

In short, he does everything possible to win emotional and sometimes sexual commitment, often even pursuing your commitment to marriage.

Next week we will explore physical intimacy and the non-committer.

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