Hey Doc,
Appreciate the site, and your responses to so many of us trying to figure this whole “desire for romance” thing out. It’s not easy, so thank you.

My question to you regards the idea of “commitment-phobia”. I put it in quotation marks because, while I had heard the term before, I never really knew there was a pattern of behavior associated with the phrase. I just assumed it was what people told themselves/others when they were rejected by someone they fancied so as to alleviate the sting of that rejection. Plus, I know it’s not an actual, clinical diagnosis with criteria that need to be met and so forth so I never really thought it could be a real thing.

Until it happened to me.

I was telling my buddy that the great woman (we’ll call her E) I spent two months with abruptly ended everything and pulled the “I’m not ready for a relationship” card (another phrase I never take at face value, to be honest) out of nowhere. My buddy was aware of how quickly things between myself and E escalated, and upon hearing of her very sudden and unexpected departure, said “yeah dude. She’s afraid of commitment.” After telling him I thought that was bullshit, he went on to explain that commitment-phobia unfolds exactly how things unfolded with E and I. Commitment-phobes are super, crazy hot for you at the beginning, but the second they feel like a real relationship is forming, with obligations and expectations they’ll need to meet, they leave. They’re terrified of these obligations, these expectations, so goes the theory of commitment-phobia.

I started reading what the internet had to say about commitment-phobia and was floored. Blown away by how SPECIFIC these sites/authors were relaying E’s behavior. Our relationship was textbook commitment-phobia, come to find. We met through a friend of a friend and immediately hit it off. Numbers were exchanged that first night, flirted for about a month before our schedules allowed us to see each other again, and we were off and running. Text messages throughout the day, staying with each other two, three nights a week, dinners cooked, friends met and sex, sex, sex. Each and every time we were alone at either my place or hers, it went down. And SHE initiated virtually all of these things. I never said no to her, despite thinking once or twice that we were moving pretty fast, because I was absolutely crazy about her. She was amazing. We had “the talk” two weeks in, where she told me she thought about some reasons she shouldn’t move things forward with me but that she ultimately decided she had to be with me, she felt for me that much. “There’s no way I can not be in a relationship with you” she said, verbatim. I was absolutely over the moon. Couldn’t have been happier to hear her say that, I was head over heels for this woman.

So, this goes on for two months until one Monday night (she always came over on Mondays after her dance class and stayed the night with me; again, we definitely had a routine of shared time down by this point) she arrives without her overnight bag. I ask why she doesn’t have it, and she tells me we need to talk. My heart immediately sunk. Those are never good words to hear from your woman and sure enough, she did what everyone does when they tell you they “need to talk”. She dumped me. And did it by explaining how perfect a guy I am and that “this isn’t some Tinder shit with you, I think about you way too much, all day, and I can’t have that in my life right now. I’m way too busy starting my career and I’ve been through a lot of changes in life recently. You’re such a good, genuine person and I can’t give you what I know you deserve right now, so I have to end this.”

Crushed, broken-hearted and dejected I told her I wished she felt differently, that I would hope this could be something we actually talked about before she made such a big decision, but her mind was made up. So, I told her how much I cared about her and how awesome I thought our connection was one last time and then let her go.

But she didn’t let me go. Again, according to the patterns of behavior associated with commitment-phobia I read so much about, the commitment-phobe will end the relationship only until the anxiety they feel over being in a relationship and all the expectations with it subside, and then they’ll be back in touch. And E was. Not specifically to get back together, but to ask questions that didn’t need asking, to make comments that didn’t need to be made and just overall being unable to go without being in touch for more than two or three weeks at a time. I ultimately had to tell her not to be in touch with me for any reason, no matter how big or small she thought it was unless it was to discuss the rekindling of our intimate and romantic relationship.

To sum things up, and my question to you, is what I should be making of all of this and are the red flags described in the ideas of commitment-phobia something I need to pay closer attention should I find myself in a similar situation in the future? “If it feels great and is moving quickly because two people legitimately have deep feelings for one another, and they realize this soon, then SHUT IT DOWN because one of you is a commitment-phobe”. That just sounds crazy.

Or could E have been legitimately honest when she said she wasn’t ready for a relationship when she did so much, and went so far out of her way to make me think she did, and that she was into me and was in it for the long haul? If that’s the case, how is it possible the idea of her not being ready for a relationship only occurred to her after making it a point to spend as much time with me as she could for two whole months? She’s a mature, adult woman who is HIGHLY educated (38 years old with a Ph.D. in psychology FFS). How could she NOT have known she wasn’t ready for a relationship when we flirted for a month and then she solidified everything herself by bringing up “the talk” and telling me she had to be in a relationship with me?

I’ve had my fair share of experiences with women, I know when they pull the “I’m not ready” card it’s because they’re just not into you, but NOTHING about E’s behavior made me think she wasn’t anything but crazy about me.

What am I missing here?

Signed,
Victim of Commitment-phobia?

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