The term commitment phobe...

[ShannonM10]

If you are at all interested in reading my previous threads, I have been having a hard time dealing with a breakup of 5 years. I have been trying to understand what I could have done in my relationship, and what to look for me in my next one so that I do not ignore signals that I am with someone who is emotionally immature or unable to commit. I feel like the term commitment phobe gets thrown around a lot...and as much as it makes it easy to diagnose our exes with this, it may very well be they just didn't "feel it" enough anymore. Don't get me wrong, I def had doubts in my relationship, and issues were not discussed which I think contributed in the breakdown, difference was was that I was more then willing to make changes and work at it, he basically threw me away like a piece of garbage, stated he didn't feel the spark anymore, which he claimed all stemmed from purchasing a house together and got a new girlfriend that he told me about meeting at a bar a month before we broke up. When I asked him if it was just fear of committing to me or committing in general..he said in general. I honestly believe that if he was not scared of the house, and was happy and we weren't in a rut, the chick wouldn't have mattered, right time right place for her I guess.

 

I don't believe in "the one". I feel relationships ebb and flow...and that they require work. Unfortunately for me and my ex...he seems to believe that the spark should naturally be there, you don't have to work at it and that doubts are not natural in a relationship. I beg to differ, I think doubts can come and go, and I had worked through mine....he may be right, I guess I wont know until the next one. When we eventually did talk he went on about how he made a mistake and should have tried. This girl was a little over the top when they started dating, paid for a trip for him 6 days after we broke up, wanted him to move in with her, called my cell phone from his threatening to call the police when we were talking in my car in front of me and his rental, plastered him all over her facebook as her bf literally 6 days after we slept together and broke into his phone, saw a message his sister had wrote to him stating she thought he made a huge mistake and texted the sister asking her why she didn't like her, all things that I would never fathom doing 5 years into a relationship let alone 3 months...I guess my biggest "pressure" was moving our relationship forward into making a smart financial decision. I guess I just wonder, is it actually natural to have doubts? do commitment phobes exist? Or does it just boil down to the relationship running its course?

 

It doesn't matter I guess what she has done, those were things that I observed right after the breakup and cannot even imagine how someone could be attracted to that level of bunny boiler. I guess I wonder if she will get the commitment from him that I wanted at one point, or if he is was what would be thought of as having commitment issues, and when push comes to shove, he will repeat this pattern and I dodged a major bullet in the long run. Any thoughts are appreciated. The advice on here has been insightful and helps me cope with these ruminating thoughts...and I am slowly healing, but these questions continually plague my mind. Thanks everyone.

[dave_1966]

Depends what you mean with 'commitment phobe', if you're equating that to marriage then possibly yes. Men avoid marriages these days because they simply come off so badly in law courts if things go wrong, this is magnified when you bring kids in to the picture and the fact that 75% of divorces are initiated by women. You have things like MGTOW being fairly vocal on this subject, but some of them do seem a little sad.

 

Hopefully the house is under your name now, and you can put this down to experience. No two situations are alike, and I'm sure the next man you meet will be worth making the effort for.

[ThatwasThen]

He sounds like an immature serial monogamist.... someone who stays with one girl until the honeymoon period is over and the new relationship energy has waned and then he allows himself to bond with a member of the opposite sex because he misses that NRE.

 

My guess is he'll tire of her eventually or, he'll come to discover she really is as nuts as she sounds and he'll leave her... however, I don't think he's going to get out of that relationship as easy as he did the one with you because she will go psycho ex on him.

 

Try to immediately change the subject of him and any unanswered questions you have about the end of your relationship. You'll drive yourself bonkers trying to figure him out. He's her problem now.

 

You deserve a quick healing so that you can find someone worth having.