I decided to start blogging about my trials and errors in dating. To start, I looked back at my past relationships and found that everyone I dated had a commitment phobia. Here is some research I found interesting.
Commitment Phobia is one of the most common phobias that affect people in their lives. Commitment Phobia can affect almost any part of the person's life, but especially affects how a person feels about becoming involved, or staying involved, in a long term relationship.
Commitment Phobia can also impact on someones career, and they may find it hard to progress in their chosen career, because they find it difficult to offer their employer the kind of long term commitment that the employer probably wants from them.
When someone with Commitment Phobia is asked what it feels like, they will often report that it is like a fear of being stuck, or trapped in a situation, or that they fear feeling 'out of control' in their career or relationship.
The Symptoms of Commitment Phobia
The symptoms of Commitment Phobia, which can be seen here, can often go hand in hand with some of the symptoms of Social Anxiety. Many people with Commitment Phobia will relate in some way, to some of the symptoms of Social Anxiety.
Some of the most common symptoms of Commitment Phobia, include...
Criticism of a Partner
Hurting Their Partner
Scared of Getting Noticed
Unrealistic Ideals
The Unavailable Partner – The Affair
The Unavailable Partner – The Long Distance Relationship
The Commitment Phobic Partner
Commitment Phobia and the Long Term Relationship
The ‘Yo-Yo-ing’ effect in commitment phobia
The Serial Commitment Phobic
The Fear of Commitment to Anything
What Causes Commitment Phobia
Commitment Phobia, in common with many other phobias, is a mechanism put in place by the brain to protect us from something that (for some reason), it has mis-judged the threat of.
In the example of Commitment Phobia, the person may have had an experience in their past where they felt out-of-control, or trapped, and their mind is over-protecting them from similar situations, in case something similar ever happens again.
Treating a phobia can by surprisingly simple, because all that really needs to happen, is for that 'unresolved emotion', or 'conflict', to be resolved. Once the 'unresolved emotion' is resolved, there's no longer a need for the mind to protect us (or over-protect us) from it, and the phobia can disappear.
