I need help figuring out what I want

[anonymous5]

Hello everyone!

There's a lot here, but I did try and keep it as brief as possible. I'd really really appreciate any insight!

When I was 23, I proposed to a girl that I didn't really enjoy being with, because she loved me and I was afraid that she was my only shot at marriage and family, that no one else would ever love me like that. We were married for a little less than two years, and have a daughter together.

I'm now almost 28, we've been separated/divorced for almost two years. I pay child support and visit my daughter regularly.

For over a year after we separated, I was dating all over the place, using Tinder mostly, sometimes going on three dates in a day. I slept with 8 or 9 different people in a year, and kissed many more. My whole life I've felt like my ultimate goal/desire is to find a real long term partner though. Anytime I'd meet someone that there was some actual relationship potential with, I would happily delete Tinder and commit.

In October of 2017 I met my current girlfriend. It was a match made in heaven. Similar interests, passions, amazing chemistry, all of it. Towards the beginning she did voice a concern that maybe I 'wasn't done' dating around, and when she said that a part of me went 'shit, what if she's right?' but I didn't worry about it because being with her was so perfectly amazing.

Two months in, on Christmas day, I invited my parents and brother to spend it with us, and I normally avoid seeing my mom because she's narcissistic and really messed me up emotionally growing up.

On that day I began to feel anxious and dissociated, like a distance grew between me and my girlfriend. Suddenly I was unsure about the relationship, it made no sense. After a couple days of this feeling, it suddenly landed on, of all things, her tattoos. Suddenly my experience was like "That's why I was feeling anxious, because I'm not okay with her tattoos!" Like my mind used the tattoos as an excuse for why I had begun to feel that way. But I had been with her for two months before that and never had a problem with them. I literally felt like everything was absolutely perfect except for the fact that she had these two small tattoos, and that those tattoos ruined everything. It was completely irrational and I felt very anxious.

Eventually the problem with the tattoos went away. I was fine with them again. But the dissociated feeling would come and go. There'd be a week where I felt blissful and perfect like in the first two months, followed by the anxiety and dissociation and something in me pushing her away emotionally.

By early March I felt strongly that I just needed to have experiences with other women, and that I can't commit to one person forever (she's strictly looking for long-term monogamous), and I broke up with her. We talked a LOT over the course of the next 24 hours, and I felt like I had a revelation that it wasn't that I needed to sleep with other women, but that I just needed to have more social connection and friends in my life. I basically have no friends, so I was putting the burden of all my social and emotional fulfillment on her, and naturally she couldn't fill all of that. So we were only broken up for 24 hours.

The next time I saw her in person, I was so overcome with a feeling of love and joy that I laughed uncontrollably for several minutes, just from unbridled, uncontainable joy. But over the next week there was still a part of me on edge..... did I break up with her because I actually didn't want to be with her? What if I actually do need to experience other women? What if I'm wasting her time and leading her on when I know that I'm going to have to end up breaking up with her again at some point?

Over the past month it's been back and forth for me, sometimes feeling grounded and stable and completely in love with her with no doubts or hesitations or desires for anything else... and then sometimes emotionally backing away and feeling anxious and afraid.

There was a good solid week there recently where everything felt perfect, and then she brought up some concerns she wanted to talk about, just about my behaviors in the past, and how they might predict future behaviors, and she also talked about her concern that maybe I don't actually want to be with her. And after that conversation I began to feel anxious again.

I'm so frustrated and confused about all of this within me, I don't understand why I can't just be like everyone else. I felt perfect with her, I had found my soul mate. I felt like with her by my side my life was complete, that she was my family and my world. And then suddenly something in me freaked out.

The reason I opened with a little bit of my history is because now when I try and combat this "commitment phobia" it's made even more confusing by the fact that I did that before already, but the last time I did it I was forcing myself to stay with someone I didn't really want. But my current girlfriend is a perfect match for me, she really is. I adore everything about her. She's nothing like my ex, she has everything I want that my ex didn't. And yet I'm finding myself in the same space emotionally, where I'll have to 'force' myself to stay out of fear of never finding that again.

Why didn't those amazing feelings just sustain?

Is it that I just don't want a serious relationship? Or do I just suffer from relationship anxiety? Fear of intimacy? Commitment phobia? What is it? What is my problem?

Thank you so much!

[Dennis]

When a person is commitment phobic, love and fear can exist in the same place. Commitment Phobia is fear and fear is the core of the phobia "fear of commitment". Fear feeds the commitment phobia. Therefore, love and fear can and does exist in the same place for a Commitment Phobic person and the fear is very real.

I decided to write this based on my prior experience and knowledge of Commitment Phobia disorder. What I've learned is that Commitment phobia is a personality disorder, which allows one to have this disabling fear of commitment to just about anything in life, anything that is a long term or involves signing a contract or investing to much time in one person, place or thing. Depending on the person these behaviors may vary and may come in different forms and unless aware of this a commitment phobic will often sabotage a good thing just so they do not get hurt. Commitment Phobic people are notorious for dating emotionally unavailable people, perhaps a married person or an unattainable person (someone who lives far away or travels a lot). These are just a few examples. This is safe because it is almost a given that this relationship will not work and the commitment phobic will not have to commit 100% to this relationship, so it's safe, until the other person wants more from the commitment phobic person. Then this is where the problem can occur in the relationship and the problems will begin.

The commitment phobic is afraid of a long term commitment. Most of the time commitment phobic people make poor decisions based on the wrong reasons. (Fear) For example, not being fully honest with the other person from the start and then ending up hurting that person by leaving them abruptly without warning or reason. Imagine just getting fed up one day and getting up and quitting your job. This is normal behavior for a commitment phobic person. They tend to make decisions based on their needs only and do not consider anyone else's needs or feelings first. Usually they never have children and if they do they are not planned. They seldom own any property and usually have very little furniture in their home. If you take notice of a commitment phobic person's home it's pretty empty you will not see anything that is really permanent. The reason for this is so that it's easy to escape when they feel the need to run. On the other hand some do marry and have children but if the commitment phobic is not aware of their problem and working on it, their marriages suffer greatly and can be very lonely for his/her spouse. Their children and spouse pay the price for just loving this person.

I would like to conclude by saying that Commitment Phobia can come in many different forms and can affect one's life in many different ways, but the one thing we all have in common is the fear of commitment, the commitment to anything that is bonding. There is only one way to conquer and beat Commitment Phobia, and that's to face it head on. Talk to your partner, be honest and admit it and seek professional help if needed. If your partner truly loves you he/she will help you work it through. Having commitment phobia can be extremely lonely and bewildering but there is a lot of help out there and books to read as well. Remember do not be afraid to trace it, face it and erase your fear. Good luck!

[Camila]

Commitment Phobia is among the most common phobias which affects the day to day lives of people. Basically, it is the fear of long-term relationships which in turn causes the avoidance of permanent partnership and even marriage. Not so long ago, men were by and large thought to be more commitment phobic as compared to women. However, after various researches and studies, it was concluded that commitment phobia is not gender specific and can affect both men and women equally.

Surprisingly, the paradox here is that the people suffering from commitment phobia run after the very things they are afraid of- intimate connection and long-lasting love. It is mainly the fear of making poor decisions along with the fear of lost options that causes the commitment phobic people to behave erratically. They would walk out of their stable relationships, hurt their partners.

These problems are time and again much more insidious and have adverse effect on the person's work and home life as well. It becomes tough for such people to improve in their work. This fear also causes difficulty in making everyday decisions resulting in a feeling of being burdened all the time and they feel as if not in control of their life.

Besides other symptoms, commitment phobic people also run after inaccessible partners, partners who are incompatible with them and they obsessively desire partners who are no longer with them. They are prone to self-destruction. In a desperate attempt to alleviate their angst, commitment phobic people use their imagination to conjure up reconciliation scenarios, fantasies which make up for their emotional needs. This in turn harms them more as nothing can be perfect and nothing in their real life lives up to their high expectations. They often set unrealistic ideals and somehow even after finding their perfect match they are able to bring out his/her negative aspects.

While they appear to be 'shy', they are actually scared of getting noticed and it's a way of avoiding a connection with anyone. Commitment phobia can be caused when someone suffers in an abusive relationship. People recovering from an unsatisfactory relationship sometimes develop certain beliefs about relationships and are scared of 'falling in love' again.

A child can also develop this phobia if he witnesses or is even if he has been a victim of an abusive relationship in his/her seminal years. Whatever happens in the child's formative years can shape the way he/she thinks as an adult, too.

Having poor role models or unpleasant step parents can also cause this phobia in the later years. The most common theory is that the mind knows that it was hurt by a loved one and that letting anyone too close again will undeniably cause pain. Therefore the mind subconsciously develops all sorts of defense mechanisms to prevent it from happening again.

Therapies such as Pure Hypo analysis can help people with commitment phobia to a large extent. It is unique and seeks to remove the feelings of being trapped and 'out of control' as opposed to just managing the symptoms, which is temporary. Lastly, along with the therapy it is best if the people around the commitment phobic person identify the signs and help him/her to recover.

[anonymous5]

Thank you for the replies. (By the way, I am starting sessions with a new therapist in just a couple weeks).

I'm a little bewildered because so much of what you guys describe as characteristics of the commitment-phobe do not apply to me at all. I like settling down in a space (I haven't bought a house yet though), and decorating it and filling it with stuff that reflects who I am.

I'm extremely social, I open up to people really quickly, people often ask me "Are you this candid with everyone...?"

I don't seem to have any commitment or anxiety issues in any area other than romantic relationships.

This just completely caught me off guard, I was so so happy with her (I still am much of the time), and now I'm just low-key freaking out a lot of the time, and my brain is telling me that I just don't want a relationship, and that I'm just too scared to break it off cause breakups are tough. It's telling me that I only got back together with her 24 hours after breaking up because I felt bad for her and couldn't stand to see her cry, etc. Even after 'cancelling' the breakup, I said a bunch of things to her kind of in the hopes that she would want to break up with me herself, I tried to make myself look bad so that she wouldn't want me and she would take the initiative to end it without me having to hurt her.

But I love and adore this girl! She's everything I ever wanted in a girlfriend! I eagerly sought out a committed romantic relationship with her after our first date, it's what I wanted, and she's everything I want.

What the hell am I doing??