MAKING A COMMITMENT: REASON FOR AVOIDING A COMMITMENT.
There are many more reasons for avoiding a commitment. If you grew up in an atmosphere of hostility and lack of affection and you have bad memories of your parents fighting constantly, then it is understandable that you would want to avoid placing yourself in the same situation.
Other past experiences will have an inevitable effect. You may have been deeply involved in a relationship in the past, and your partner left you. Since then, you pull back when you feel yourself getting too close to another person so you don’t face the risk of getting hurt like that ever again.
To make a commitment, you need to be emotionally available to that other person. If you are not able to let go of a current or previous relationship, then it can be impossible to move on.
It’s easy to ‘awfulise’ about commitment. Using the example of a doughnut to explain the difference between an optimist and a pessimist: the optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist sees only the hole in the centre. ‘Awfulising’ means imagining all of the worst implications of a decision that you can think of. Instead of seeing all of the advantages, you concentrate on all the negatives. You develop a complicated system of ‘what-ifs’. What if it doesn’t work out? What if he/she has an affair? What if I’m attracted to someone else? What if someone better comes along and I’m not free?
Whatever your reasons for not making a commitment to another person, if they are not what you want for yourself, it will not amount to a fulfilling relationship. Making a commitment has to suit both of you or it can’t work. If your unwillingness to make a commitment is standing in the way of your feeling happy, then a good therapist can help you to work through the issues that might be blocking the way.
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