Fear of Commitment - The Most Natural Thing in the World

If you've ever dated you've dealt with commitment issues. More often than not, it's the man that doesn't want to commit and the woman that wants to know to ‘get' her partner to commit. The following letter is a perfect example of the fear experienced by men when faced with commitment:

"Over the years, I've had many relationships with women, and I have a pretty good time with each one until she wants to get serious. Especially if she says, I love you, I'm out of there. I've been told I have a fear of commitment, but that doesn't make sense to me. I'm really committed to my job, and I've made long-term commitments to many things, so how could I be afraid of commitment when it comes to a relationship? That old "fear of commitment" label just doesn't help me see what's happening here."

The single thing we all need most in order to be happy is Real Love, but the vast majority of us-including you, I suspect-have seen very little of that kind of love. Instead, we've seen that people "love" us when we do what they want-when we're good-but when we're inconvenient and uncooperative, we get quite a different reaction. That conditional love creates an enormous and painful emptiness within us, which we then try to fill with Imitation Love.

Real Love is, "I care about your happiness." Imitation Love is, "I like how you make ME feel." Imitation Love includes conditional approval, praise, sex, money, power. Imitation Love is traded, bought, and sold, and although it can seem pretty exciting in the moment, it never lasts and never makes us genuinely happy.

Eventually, we come to resent and fear our experiences with Imitation Love, because we don't like the constant feelings of obligation and disappointment and irritation that result from having to BUY the affection of others with our behavior. It's exhausting and unfulfilling. Trading in Imitat5B4ion Love gets to be a real drag.

That's why you tend to avoid getting close to women. Without Real Love, all you've ever known to do with women is trade Imitation Love, and although that was sometimes pretty exciting in the beginning, you've noticed that eventually the exchange of praise, sex, approval, flattery, and so on becomes less and less rewarding.

It turns to garbage. Somehow you just know-deep inside-that these women care about you only conditionally-the same way you're caring for them-and why would you want to make a commitment to anybody to experience that kind of emptiness for a lifetime?

So avoiding commitment on your part is actually brilliant. Your intuition-yes, men have intuition too-is telling you that commitment to a life of Imitation Love would be a lousy deal. Good thinking. Does that mean you'll never have a great lifelong relationship? Not at all. We'll get to that shortly.

You mentioned that you really get nervous when she says, "I love you." Of course you do. All our lives people have told us they love us, but then we find out that they like us only when we're doing things for them and when we don't inconvenience or hurt them. They often get tired of us and leave. Or they stay in our lives, but they're demanding and they criticize us.

So it's understandable that you'd have some negative feelings when you hear, "I love you." When you hear those words, it's likely 5B4that some of the following thoughts go through your mind-mostly unconsciously:

1. What do you want from me?

2. What do I have to do so you'll keep loving me?

3. Do I really want to take on the burden of doing everything it'll take so you'll keep loving me?

4. I wonder how long this will last?

5. So what? Lots of people have told me that, and I didn't end up happy because of it.

6. When are you going to hurt me like everyone else who's "loved" me?

7. I suppose now I'll have to tell you that I love you, or you'll be hurt and angry.

8. I don't know if I'm capable of loving you like you want in return.

These are all serious concerns, and they explain why many of us have difficulty making a commitment to relationships, especially marriage. We feel obligated to anybody who expresses affection for us, or we're certain that things will fall apart as they always have in the past, and then we'll feel even more hurt and alone. We want to avoid all that, so we stay away from commitment.

It's important that you see that you're afraid to commit only to a relationship based on imitation Love, because that includes trading, demands, expectations, obligation, and inevitable disappointment and pain. If you knew what a relationship based on real Love could be like, you wouldn't be afraid of that. Real Love is unconditional and could never hurt you.

When people have felt enough Rea5B4l Love in their lives and begin to share it with others, they can't imagine how they ever lived another way. By comparison, Imitation Love is utterly empty, even harmful.

The good news is this: You can learn to find Real Love. Visit the information section of RealLove.com to learn more about Real Love and take the simple but powerfully effective steps that will give you the happiness and rewarding relationships you've always wanted. When you find a partner with whom you can share that kind of joy, making a commitment to him or her is a delight, not a burden.

The world is literally dying from a lack of the one thing essential for our happinessReal Love. We spend our entire lives trying to replace that unconditional love with praise, power, sex, money, entertainment, safety, and so on. But it never works, and the resulting emptiness and fear are almost too much to bear.

We dont have to live like this anymore. Greg Baer and RealLove.com are teaching (1) the real cause of fear and anger and (2) how to find this Real Love that replaces the fear, anger, and conflict in our lives with peace, confidence, and genuine happiness.

Dr. Greg Baer is the author of 16 books, DVDs, and CDstwo of which are internationally published by Penguin Putnam Groupand has presented the life-changing message of Real Love to32A hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.

For more information on Real Love, including hours of free streaming video and audio, visit http://www.RealLove.com . Youll be grateful for the rest of your life that you took this step.

Moon Magic