It’s a common misconception that men are all afraid of commitment and would rather wrestle with a grizzly bear than get “tied down” to a woman.
With that being said, many men do have certain fears that prevent them from committing fully to you at times. It is not fear of commitment itself but of other factors that can make a man appear as if he is a commitment-phobe.
You know that feeling as if your man is pulling away from you? It feels like he’s physically there but he’s not mentally present with you.
It’s almost as if something is tugging him away from you and every move you make to keep a hold on him only makes him slip further through your grasp.
You would do anything to break through his shell and melt the ice around his heart. You want to break down the guards he has up and show him that love and a relationship with you is wonderful and something to enjoy.
Many women simply don’t understand the things that men fear when they think about commitment. Without knowing what men are really worried about, it’s easy to assume that it has something to do with you.
When you panic and get anxiety over not being able to get him to commit, you often do things you normally wouldn’t and can end up sabotaging the entire relationship.
Insecurity is one of the deadliest killers of relationships and it can easily develop in you when you don’t know why a man puts guards up and how to get him to take them down again and open up to you.
It’s easy to see why when you are surrounded by media and everything in society hammering in the idea of men being terrified of commitment.
If that were the case then we wouldn’t have married couples and families. Everyone would just be single all the time, but that’s clearly not how reality is.
So what is it that sends a man running for the hills at the mention of commitment?
The short answer is that he is afraid of losing his freedom.
You might be thinking, “Well he has all the freedom we need. We live in a free country. He can do whatever he wants. What are you talking about?”
I’m not referring to the freedom of choosing where you want to live, what to do in life, who to talk to, and what to spend your money on. I mean the simple idea of complete and total freedom.
Your man needs to be reassured that he is not going to be locked down and dictated to once a relationship starts and he is worried about this.
You’ve probably heard at least one joke in your lifetime about a wife being the old “ball and chain” holding him back as a prisoner in marriage. Men joke about giving up their life and friends once they tie the knot and commit.
Your man is thinking in the back of his mind about the possibility that you are going to start making demands on him and encroaching on his freedom. There’s a chance you might even be doing these things already without knowing it or meaning to.
Men want to be able to go out with their friends, have a beer, enjoy a sports game, go for a weekend camping trip, goof around, spend some time completely alone, etc.
This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you or want to be with you when he does his own thing. But he fears losing that freedom when he gets closer to you.
When he’s single he can do whatever he wants. He can sleep in late. He can flirt with women. He can pretty much do whatever he wants.
Once he’s in a relationship certain things will change. But he’s also worried about everything changing and he may begin to pull back.
This makes it seem like he is completely avoiding commitment when in reality he is merely trying to hold onto his freedom.
So what can you do to eliminate his fears and show him that he’s got nothing to be worried about in committing to you?
You simply need to give him his space and freedom without worrying and becoming insecure.
Believe it or not, the more room he has to move around and a sense of freedom, the less time he will spend away from you and testing the boundaries of that freedom.
You can kind of think of him like a dog (in a good way!). Imagine taking a dog for a walk in a field and letting it off its leash.
If it’s a fairly well-behaved dog it will most likely explore for a bit, but always circle back to you. It jogs off a bit further but looks back to you for reassurance. If you start to walk away or down another path, the dog comes bounding back to you to be by your side.
It has freedom to roam but it comes back to you and will especially come running back if you move out of sight or start to move away from it.
Men are the same way. They simply need to feel that sense that they have the freedom to roam but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will take advantage of it and use it all the time.
The more secure you act in the relationship, the happier a man is to come back to you and the less time he will spend away from you. Simply knowing that he can do what he wants any time is enough freedom.
Obviously I don’t mean that he’s free to run around with other women or be disrespectful to you. I simply mean that you are not going to pout and whine and become needy if he wants to do something on his own.
I’m going to let you in on a little known secret about men that most women have no idea about: men actually need some time to themselves.
It doesn’t mean that your man loves you any less or that he doesn’t want to be around you. He simply needs time now and then to cool off and do something he wants alone.
It’s the way that men work out their problems and issues. They simply need to remove themselves from everything around them that is a distraction and figure things out on their own.
The more freedom and space you give him to do this, the quicker he will sort through things and the more secure he will feel in committing to you because he knows that you are not going to be upset with him.
It’s a great feeling for a man to have a woman who understands these needs and fears that he has.
When you can show your man that you understand his need for space and freedom, he will feel as though he’s hit the jackpot and will do everything in his power to hold onto you and keep you in his life.
With love,
Nick Bastion
