Understanding Fear of Commitment

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Reka Morvay, I'm a psychologist and I'm going to talk to you today about understanding fear of commitment. Now this is a very sensitive point in a lot of relationships where you have been together for a while but perhaps you would like to take it to the next level and you find that your partner isn't quite ready to make that step because of a fear of commitment. Fear of commitment is usually actually about fear of the unknown. And fear of the freedom and the privileges that you have that you might lose. So when you are trying to understand somebody's fear of commitment try to look at it from their perspective. What would they lose by making that commitment. What is it that is so attractive about staying outside of formally committed relationship. Try to sit down and talk about these fears. But even better then sitting down and talking about them, it's showing them that they can be in a committed relationship without losing all of that freedom and all of those privileges. Fear of commitment is usually something that's more associated with men then with woman, but I think it definitely happens that women too value their freedom and value their independence. So it is really not a very gender based problem but very often you need to consider what it is about your relationship that you value and what it is about your freedom and your independence that you value or whether or not they can be reconciled. Because you might come to the understanding that you can have a committed relationship and your independence and your freedom at the same time. If you find a relationship like that or you can make your current relationship into a relationship like that, then that would be the best solution for both."