Getting to Commitment offers understanding, inspiration, and a concrete plan of action for any woman, man, or couple who is ready to tackle the eight most destructive demons that make people run from loving relationships.
Getting to Commitment
Overcoming the 8 Greatest Obstacles to Lasting Connection (and Finding the Courage to Love)By Steven CarterM. Evans and Company
Copyright © 2000 Steven Carter
All right reserved.ISBN: 9780871319050
Chapter One
I'm standing in front of a small audience of very well intentionedwomen, and men, who are investing their time, theirmoney, and their hopes to attend a lecture on commitment andcommitment conflicts. As always I have asked members of theaudience to write down three questions that they would hope tohave answered before the end of the evening. While they are signingin, I look at the questions. I do this carefully even though Iprobably already know them by heart. As much as I appreciate thateach question reflects the unique personality and dilemma of theindividual questioner, the truth is that the questions I'm asked arealways fundamentally the same.
"How can I deal with a partner who is afraid to commit ... a partnerwho doesn't let me get close ... a partner who avoids intimacy?"
"Why do I get scared in relationships?"
"How do I know whether I'm afraid of commitment in general,or just this specific relationship?"
"I keep choosing people who are afraid of commitment. Whatdoes this say about me?"
"What can I do to help a partner who says he/she is scared?"
"One of us always seems to be afraid of moving forward. Howcan we break this pattern?"
Every time I schedule one of these talks and look at these questions,I wonder what I can say to make a difference to these people.I know what kind of disappointment and pain brings a person toone of these lectures. I know how hard it is to expose one's personallife to a group of strangers. I know how much work goes into havinga good relationship. What I don't know is whether people areprepared to do the work that is required. I know for sure that fastanswers are simply not enough. There are no quick fixes.
Sometimes as I stand in front of these men and women, I wantto say, "Even if I share everything I know as honestly and openly aspossible, are you really sure you want to know what I know? Willthat help you? Because if you are sincere, then you have a problem:You will have to do something with this new information. You willhave to change the way you think and act. You will have to dosomething differently in your relationship with yourself as well asyour relationships with others. This takes time and work, and itisn't always pleasant."
During the nineties, many of us got into the habit of watchingSeinfeld. Each week, we looked at George Costanza, and welaughed at the consistency of his problems. One thing we couldcount on was that George was not going to change. I rememberone episode in particular: George fell in love with a woman inprison; her situation made her the ultimate in unavailable partners.How typical! By definition the relationship was limited andwould put few demands on George. Of course, he was enthralled.And, of course the relationship fell apart as soon as the womangot out of jail. As always nothing changed. We can laugh atGeorge, but often our behavior is just as predictable. In our relationships,we follow the same patterns time and time again. Weeither make the wrong choices or we mess up potentially goodrelationships. But in real life, it's just not funny. We can laughthrough our tears, but the tears are still there. I believe there islittle that feels more empty and painful than being incapable offorging a working commitment with another person. It implies alifetime of missed opportunities, first dates, and failed connections.How dissatisfying.
The message is that for most of us, the "eyes-closed thing" isn'tworking any more. We keep bumping into the same objects andending up in the same dark places. All we have to show for ourefforts are the bumps and bruises that come from repeatedly hittingthe familiar walls and experiencing the same negativeemotions. If old patterns haven't worked in the past, what makes usthink they will work in the future? They didn't get us into the openspaces of relationships; they didn't help us find the love we want.
Ten years ago, I knew everything there was to know about notmaking a commitment. I knew everything about romantic fear--everynuance, every gesture, all of the language and all of thebehavior. I was an expert, if notthe expert on fear. A thousandand one different ways to runaway from love. For a while in mylife, running away from love hadit's own appeal; sometimes it was even fun. Fun to be ducking,dodging, and dating. Then it became awful. I wanted long-term love.I wanted a real life. I wanted to be able to share a deep commitmentwith another human being. I wanted to be able to fall in love andstay in love. I wanted to be able to make a real commitment.
Some people may honestly believe that they can live very happylives without having a stable relationship. They say commitment isnot an essential ingredient in their lives; they say this is not howeverybody wants to live. I agree. Not everybody does. But it's how Iwanted to live, and if you have picked up this book, a committedrelationship must certainly be something that you desire. Now, youprobably want to know how you can get from that place of desireto a place where you have the relationship you want.
My job is to help you get down the road. My job is to demystifythe process, familiarize you with your options and tell you aboutthe common pitfalls so you don't veer too far off the path. Thetough stuff is up to you. There is only one difference between thosewho make it through and those who do not. One single difference,and it has nothing to do with your age, history, or desire. The onesingle difference is courage.
Examining My Own Fear of Commitment
One hot summer day more than ten years ago, I found myself inChicago, sitting on stage at the Oprah Winfrey Show, waiting forthe cameras to start rolling tape again after the commercial break.The subject of the show was "commitmentphobia."
The show was going out live to much of the country, and forthe first thirty minutes, several men sat on stage and spilledtheir insides to an audience of riveted viewers. It gave theappearance of an on-air confession, and it was coming from agroup of normal looking guys who were acknowledging theirproblems with romantic commitment and long-term love.Talking about their relationships and their problems withwomen, these men were taking responsibility for their share ofbroken promises, broken dreams, and broken hearts. The studioaudience was surprisingly sympathetic. The women particularlyseemed grateful for the honesty as well as appreciative for thenew insight and understanding into a problem that had touchedmany of them personally.
Then it was my turn to talk. But I was not there to tell mystory. I was there for a different reason. I was there because I hadjust published a book called Men Who Can't Love. In this book myco-author, Julia Sokol, and I coined the term commitmentphobiato describe people who have a claustrophobic response to intimacy.This book, which offers a self-protective message for womeninvolved with commitmentphobic men, is devoted to understandingthis problem.
I remember that day vividly. On stage, with Oprah Winfrey infront of me asking her first question, I am terrified. I glance atJulia for assurance. She knows just how terrified I am. Not onlybecause it's Oprah, but also because I have my own unpleasant littlecommitmentphobic secret that I would like to keep off thescreen. Right now I am painfully aware that even though I am theshow's "expert," I am no better than any of the men who havealready spoken. In many ways, I am worse. I have never been in acommitted relationship. The obvious questions I am dreading arevery simple ones. "Mr. Carter, what about you?" "What about yourlife?" "What do you really know about intimacy?" "What aboutyour relationships?" "What about your own commitment fears?"
Now, I want you to understand that I know that there are norules that say that someone writing about relationships has to beliving a perfect life. There are no rules that say I cannot be strugglingwith my own commitment issues. For years all kinds ofexperts have invoked the "do as I say, not as I do" clause to explainand justify their own behavior. To some extent, this is valid. Justbecause the messenger is flawed doesn't mean that the messageisn't reliable. Ultimately for the messenger, however, this kind ofreasoning is bound to wear thin. Besides, on that day, I wasashamed of the way I had behaved in many, if not all, of my relationships.So ashamed that I could not imagine telling my wholestory to anyone, let alone millions of anyones--and on nationaltelevision. As a relationship expert, my veneer of superiority wasbeing severely tested, and it was humiliating.
After Men Who Can't Love was published, I received scores of mailfrom women who asked if I somehow knew their boyfriends, husbands,or lovers. How else, they wanted to know, could I have souncannily detailed their relationships. One of the reasons why thebook so accurately described the behavior of people with commitmentissues is because I was one of those people. Yes, hundreds ofother men and women were interviewed about their relationships, buteven though the details were different, their stories were my stories.When it came to running away from love, there was little that I had notdone, said, or felt. I had pursued all the "wrong" relationships, and runaway from all the ones that had the potential to be "right."
Writing a book about commitment fears had helped me.Some. But not enough. It had made me see very clearly how mybehavior was hurting women. It had made me acutely aware thatmy ambivalence and, let's face it, cowardice, had created pain aswell as confusion. Once the bookwas published, I felt as though I hadbeen completely busted. I could nolonger justify my old ways of beingin relationships. I had to do somethingnew. But what?
I figured that if I didn't do any ofthe things I wrote about, somehowmy romantic relationships would change. Researching and writingabout commitment problems made it impossible for me to go backto my old patterns. So what I did was shift gears into something farmore dangerous--for me. For years I had been an active commitmentphobic,running away from women who acted as though theywanted me. I was too guilty and aware to do that anymore. Butwhat could I do instead? My foolish knee-jerk reaction was fairlyclassic. I began to run away from love by pursuing women whowere themselves on the run. Deeply ashamed of my inability tocommit, I formed some new excuses for myself by somehow findingwomen who were themselves hard-pressed to commit to a date,let alone a long-term relationship.
Soon after Men Who Can't Love was published I started datinga woman who could turn on a dime. My head was spinning fromthis relationship. I think I knew I wasn't in love, but I was certainlyin a fair amount of pain. I was getting a first-class education inwhat it meant to want someone who doesn't really want you--atleast not for very long.
The week that Men Who Can't Love hit the bestseller list, myphone was ringing off the hook. Some of these calls were frompeople congratulating me, but there were also a fair number offriends as well as a couple of ex-girlfriends who called to say thatthey were finally beginning to understand my behavior. My currentgirlfriend, in the meantime, wasn't sure whether or not shecould commit herself to meeting me for dinner. The relationshipwas making her feel a little pressured. Maybe next week? SuddenlyI began to really understand the pain of women involved with menwho forge and break connections. In the meantime I had a publisherwho wanted a new book, one that would take up where MenWho Can't Love had left off, and I had a mailbox that wascrammed full of letters from people asking me how to break commitmentphobicpatterns. They wanted to know how to moveforward. So did I. But I didn't know how.
The truth is that Men Who Can't Love gave, and gives, readersmuch needed insight. It gives information, perspective, and manyself-protective guidelines. These are all very important things. I was,and am, very proud of the book. To this day, I think it remains one ofthe most honest and comprehensive examinations of commitmentissues. But as much as I could describe, analyze, and even predict thepatterns of men and women who run away from love, I didn't knowwhat to do to change it. Not in my own life, and not in theirs.
Today I think I do.
FORMING INTIMATE CONNECTIONS
When we talk about love and commitment what we are really talkingabout is the capacity to handle the connections in our lives.Everything we do in life is about connecting. Connecting to ourfriends, work, homes, children, pets, communities, and even ourplanet. Good connections help us feel joy and happiness; bad connectionscan make us feel miserable and angry. The absence ofmeaningful connections can lead to emptiness and despair.
When we are connected to someone (or something) else, weare present and available. Typically a romantic relationship isdefined by the degree to which the partners are bonded or connected--thedegree to which they are present and available foreach other. When we make a commitment to another person weare agreeing to be present and available; we are announcing that itis our sincere intention to stay connected.
Relationships survive or fail according to the level and integrityof the connectedness between the two partners. When a relationshipis tested, it is the connectedness--the bond--that is put to thetest. A lack of deep connection, complex connection, meaningfulconnection, and the relationship is likely to fail the test.
When we talk about connection, we also have to talk aboutdisconnection--and the capacity to handle separation. For whenit comes to your relationships, how you handle separation is oftenevery bit as telling and meaningful as how you handle intimacy.
I know a woman who put on about twenty pounds in the firstfive months of a new relationship. Every single night after her newpartner left her house, she found herself eating big bowls of comfortfood--pudding and/or buttered noodles. She told me she wascompletely out of control. When she was with him, she felt "fine,"but if he left her house in the evening, there she was in the kitchen,stirring up a storm. She never did this when she didn't have arelationship. It's not that she can't be alone. She has always donejust fine alone. But once she connects to someone, she is reducedto a quivering, primitive mass of pudding-eating fear. Every timehe leaves, it feels traumatic. This woman had the wisdom tounderstand that this response had nothing to do with her partner.He was doing nothing intentional to trigger her anxiety. She has ahistory of trauma associated with separations, and she brings thishistory into every relationship.
With the people we love, we always have to survive a never-endingprocess of connecting and disconnecting. In relationships,we come together, move apart, and then come together again.Monday morning arrives, and the couple who spent the idyllicweekend together is pulled apart by the real world. What will eachof the partners be thinking and feeling when they are separated bytheir independent lives? When they said good-bye, both partnersappeared to be completely attuned. Will the connection hold firmin their separate day-to-day worlds, or will one or both of thembecome so swept up in new experiences that what they shared willbecome weakened? Will the necessary period of disconnection beemotionally uneventful or will it be filled with intense anxiety,jealousy, or obsessive longing?
Men and women with commitment issues almost invariablyexperience serious difficulty handling connection and disconnectionin an appropriate way. Often they attempt to shortcut theprocess or get around it entirely. Sometimes they form intimatebonds that seem as instantaneous as they are inappropriate. Othertimes, they erect enormous boundaries that keep their partners upin the air and prevent real bonds from forming.
LOVE IS A PROCESS, NOT A SOLUTION
If I continue to repeat this sentence, it's because so many of us don'twant to believe it. We grew up wanting--and expecting--love to besomething magical that changes everything on its first visit, andchanges it forever. We may have hoped to meet the perfect stranger. Wegrew up honestly believing that the experience of meeting that specialsomeone and falling in love would transform the way we felt aboutourselves and the world PERMANENTLY. We wanted to believe thatlove changes everything in the blink of an eye--magically and instantaneously.That is how we defined love. Often, even as we mature, wehang on to this unrealistic view of how people relate to each other.
My friend Mike, for example, is trying to decide whether ornot to move in with a woman he has been dating for the past year.I asked Mike when he felt most deeply connected to his girlfriend.He answered that it was deepest when they first met. This made itclear to me that he has not moved on to that other level of relatingwhere you look back at the beginning and see it as lovely, butalso a little bit primitive. If he still thinks he had his most powerfulconnection in the beginning, then someone has clearly not letthis relationship mature. Mike acknowledges that he is the partnerwho is resisting growth.
Years ago, a woman who was involved with a deeply commitmentphobicman told me that her therapist had once pointed outthat this troubled relationship had never progressed past the firstmagical date. It always had all the passion and intensity of acharged first meeting, but it never developed to the point whereanything could be taken for granted. Not even the next time theywould meet. On one level that was very romantic and exciting. Onanother, it was hell.
Yes, a new romance feels magical. And yes, some of it feels instantaneous.But that's only the beginning of a loving relationship--theprimer on a paint job that will have thousands of coats. Love is somethingthat evolves in stages, changing as it grows. New lovers maythink their connection is very strong. But it is only over time, if we arevery lucky, that we can experience the full power of the extraordinaryexperience of genuinely loving another human being.
Creating an intimate connection means revealing yourself to thisother person, who is your partner, through your actions, words, andfeelings while, hopefully, he or she is doing the same thing in return.To create this kind of connection requires that both parties are ableto get close and stay close long enough for a bond to form.
Think about the many ways we reinforce our connections toanother person: Connections areformed through social contactand conversation; connectionsare formed through lovemaking;connections are formed throughshared experiences. We all know that intimate connections aredeepened through shared emotions, vulnerabilities, and problems.Don't forget the connections that are created through doing nothingat all, but doing it together, like sitting in the living room,reading the paper or watching television without having to speak.
When we love someone, and want to increase our sense of connectedness,we try to do so by doing things together. We increaseour knowledge and understanding of the other person by sharingour interests. We invite the people we love into our world to meetour friends and our families. This strengthens our connection.
As a relationship develops, all of these connections are happeningat once, overlapping each other, as all kinds of bonds arebeing formed. These are the bonds that can withstand almost anykind of weather.
People who have difficulty with commitment typically don't let theseties develop naturally. More often than not, they are more connected totheir fantasies than they are to another real, living, human being. Maggie,a woman who was involved in a long on-again, off-again relationshipwith a man who was resisting commitment, recently told me that it tookher years to realize that many of her super-intense feelings were based onher connection to her dreams, not to a real person. If she had been ableto look at her partner realistically, she would have seen and acknowledgedthe absence of true connections.
Commitmentphobic relationships are unions in which one orboth partners are resisting commitment. Often the partner who isrunning away from love does so by constructing boundaries thatkeep connections from forming or deepening. These relationshipsmay start out with almost instant intimacy and a strong sexualconnection, but then one partner refuses to allow further connectionsto develop. Ultimately the relationship may become heavilylopsided. There are strong, emotional bonds of passion and intensity,but the other ties of shared experiences are lacking. Therelationship never opens up and grows.
Many times we think we have made a powerful connectiononly to realize later that the connection itself had no teeth. Wemay think we have experienced a special bonding only to see thatthe bond was a superficial one, or one based on false informationor, worse, fantasies and false hopes.
We are sometimes so anxious to find love that we are seducedby the possibility of a loving connection long before a real connectionis made. We often painfully discover that some peoplesimply can't form real connections. They may do a great meeting,or a great phone call, or a great ten minutes. But they can't keepshowing up. They can't be real and stay real. It all feels too vulnerable,too raw, too exposed. There are too many chances to getrejected, hurt, misunderstood, or manipulated.
If you make a genuine connection, you continue to tie littlepieces of yourself to little pieces of someone else. Making a deepconnection means tying thousands of these little pieces togetherover the course of time. It means watching some of these knotsbreak, and it means retying new and stronger knots. That's whythe fabric of each relationship is so unique and unusual.
At the beginning of a relationship, it makes sense to maintainsome persona and interact with a little distance. When you aregoing to meet a stranger, it's not wise to bring and show everythingyou have. That would be dangerous and foolish. But if youare going to form a lasting and gratifying connection withanother, ultimately all parts of you must be revealed--in stages ofcourse. When we keep large chunks of ourselves disconnectedfrom our partners, we end up dancing on the surface of our relationships.We end up with fragile bonds--fair weather bonds.These can feel good at times, but they lack the depth and richnessto make us feel truly and permanently connected.
Men Who Can't Love was a book about understanding the commitmentproblem. This is a book about taking the necessary stepsto get to commitment. I often meet women who say that they cannow recognize a commitmentphobic man from across the room. Atthe first whiff of any singular symptom, the label gets attached andeverything ends. It would be nice if it were always that clear cut, butit isn't. Most of us have the potential to be "runners." Most of usalso have the potential to engage in successful relationships.
Today my life is very different than it was ten years ago. I amhappily married to a stable, loving, and lovely woman. I want andexpect to stay in the relationship I have. I'm happy with it. I don'tfeel as though I made any compromises I can't live with; I don'tfeel as though I have sold out. None of this is an accident. My wifejokes that I am the hardest working guy in the relationship business.She knows what she is talking about. I have worked very hardto get where I am. If I can reach this point, so can you.
Continues...
Excerpted from Getting to Commitmentby Steven Carter Copyright © 2000 by Steven Carter. Excerpted by permission.
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