He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (11 page)

Although each of us tends to act out in one particular style, if you have commitment conflicts, the potential for both patterns exists. We have all known men and women who clearly flip-flop between the two. Behavior can also change depending upon age, circumstances, or partners.

ACTIVE COMMITMENT CONFLICTS

“I
fall in love. And then I fall out of love. Then I fall in love again. Sometimes I don’t bother falling out with the first before I fall in with the second. This makes the women you’re with angry. There are a lot of angry women in my life. Two women who get money from me every month, one who
thinks she should get money from me, and one or two who just hate me. If making and breaking commitments means I got a problem, I got a problem.”

—NEIL, forty-eight

Active avoidance is all about running, and active avoiders find it almost impossible to stand still. Whether they are pursuing a new love or running away from an old one, they are fully active in the relationship arena. When we talk about someone who has active commitment conflicts, we are describing the man or woman whose problems are almost glaring even to the casual observer. He or she never allows a relationship to develop beyond a certain point. On some level the active avoider is always gripped by conflict, and he or she is the one creating most of the turmoil within the relationship.

THE SEDUCTIVE POWER OF THE PROFOUNDLY UNCOMMITTED

Active runners are best described as profoundly uncommitted and highly elusive. Unable or unwilling to allow a relationship to evolve and grow, they are nonetheless highly appealing. Often the very partners whom they have hurt are most persuasive in defending and explaining their behavior. Because runners ultimately convey their ability to walk away from a relationship, their partners are often insecure. This means that within relationships those with active conflicts hold most of the power. Because they control most of the dynamics in their relationships, they are most likely the ones to be blamed for any failures.

A runner’s moods control how often the couple sees each other, how often the couple has sex, and how quickly or slowly things progress. The person who is actively running away is setting most of the limits, boundaries, and controlling movement. This man or woman is most likely to be terrified of the M-word. In short, by avoiding commitment, he or she is typically identified with the kind of rejective behavior that frequently ends up being extraordinarily hurtful to their partners.

MIXED MESSAGES—THE TRADEMARK OF THE PERSON WHO IS ACTIVELY AVOIDING COMMITMENT

People who are actively running are not always running away. Quite the opposite. In fact active runners are frequently as busily engaged in chasing after new partners as they are in avoiding the ones they have already found. They are totally ambivalent and are acting out their ambivalence. It is the constant activity—looking for love/running from love—that is the trademark of the person with an active pattern. No matter how much these men and women claim to want an easy, uncomplicated love relationship, on some level they are always creating conflict. These men and women will usually be giving their partners a wide variety of intense messages that can best be described as mixed or double. For example:

• Very seductive/very rejective
  

• Very intimate/very withdrawn
  

• Very accepting/very critical
  

• Very tender/very hostile
  

• Very romantic/very distant
  

• Very sexually provocative/very sexually withholding
  

• Very giving/very cold
  

Within a relationship the classic active runner will move forward, then back, then forward, then back—until it becomes the traditional one step forward, two steps back.

This behavior is extraordinarily confusing at best, whether you are on the receiving end or you are the one acting it out.

Commitment conflict isn’t just in your brain. It oozes out of every pore, coloring every moment, every thought, every action, every sentence.

Your touch says yes while your words say no; your body says stay away while your eyes say you care; your tears say you’re sorry, but your behavior doesn’t change; your smile says you’re happy, but your posture says you’re scared. There are always two messages; there is always a contradiction.

The thing to remember about commitment fear is that there is a problem committing to yes, but there is an equally overwhelming
problem about committing to no. Commit to another person and you feel trapped, disengage from another and you worry about what happens if you change your mind. Either choice represents a limiting of options and a restriction of freedom. And maintaining options and a sense of freedom is what commitment conflict is all about.

ACTIVE COMMITMENT CONFLICTS—THE MALE-FEMALE DIFFERENCE

Until recently we presented active commitment fears almost exclusively in the context of a male behavior pattern. But as society has changed and women have achieved greater equality, they have been presented with scores of situations in which they too can act out their anxieties. Once, women who did not automatically want marriage were thought peculiar. Now many women are realizing that they can support themselves, raise their children, and function successfully in the world without male partners. The fear of being alone is no longer as threatening as it once was. For the first time women are beginning to act out commitment conflicts in ways that we traditionally associated only with men.

However, because of traditional dating patterns, men are still more likely to initiate the classic active pattern of pursuit/panic, and they are more likely to continue it for a longer period of time. The male in our society still assumes the rule of pursuer, and when a man is avoiding commitment, his avoidance is traditionally played out in that style. We have interviewed men in their seventies who were still actively running from partner to partner in the quest for the perfect mate.

The woman who is running away typically has a different style. This behavior might be more correctly described as accepting/ rejecting. Here’s the difference: a man with active conflicts may initially “come on strong.” Then as his fears materialize, he stops pursuing and starts backing off.

A woman with active commitment conflicts substitutes acceptance for pursuit. Then as her fears take form, her behavior also changes. She may express her fears by being less available, less cooperative, and more rejective. Frequently her anxiety shows it
self in the number and kinds of boundaries and/or barriers she erects in order to keep the relationship from developing. Sometimes she realizes that she is making a statement about her reluctance to commit. At other times, she truly believes that it is merely a statement about women’s issues and that she is only trying to preserve her space and independence.

PATTERNS IN LOVE

If you are involved with someone with active commitment conflicts, you know that it is extraordinarily confusing at best. And if you have such conflicts, you know that you sometimes feel as though you are being ripped apart; any way you move, you feel pulled in the opposite direction.

The conflicting desires—the need to merge and the need to feel free—often create a very specific pattern in relationships. We describe this pattern as the pursuit/panic syndrome. This can be broken down into specific stages:

The Beginning: The Hard Sell (Fearless Pursuit)

At the beginning someone with active commitment conflicts usually appears to be actively seeking a partner. Responding to an intense attraction to someone new, an active avoider will do whatever is necessary to cement an involvement, frequently laying the groundwork for a passionate, complicated relationship. This is not a simple con job; he or she is usually sincere in expressing what is felt—at the moment.

The Middle: The Beginning of Fear

The “middle” begins at the very moment that the active runner starts to feel so secure in someone else’s love that he or she begins
realistically
to consider commitment. This often coincides with an event that is associated with a deepening attachment. The decision whether or not to be part of this “event,” be it something as simple as celebrating a holiday together or as complicated as the joint purchase of a home, brings on the first rumblings of panic. As
fantasy recedes and reality starts to take its place, the active avoider starts placing boundaries and begins to express ambivalence and/or resentment.

The End: Running Scared

At this stage active runners are experiencing claustrophobic symptoms and are out of control in their need to put distance into the relationship. Even when there is still a great deal of feeling, passion, and bonding, they typically erect almost insurmountable boundaries. Because there are still a great many feelings involved, their behavior is confusing to everyone. It often ends up being very destructive to their partners.

The Bitter End: Escape

This is the point at which active runners must find a way out; overwhelmed by commitmentphobic anxiety and the need to get away, their behavior is frequently bizarre. Often they have formed overnight attachments to new lovers. Sometimes their behavior provokes the partner into ending the relationship. Sometimes they literally disappear. Other times the boundaries they have erected are so enormous that there is no way to get close.

KEEPING ALL OPTIONS OPEN—CANT SAY YES, WON’T SAY NO

For those with active commitment conflicts, maintaining options is always a need and a major priority. Carl, a twenty-eight-year-old engineer, describes how this need plays out in his life:

“I’m always concerned that something better is waiting for me around the corner. So I’m always trying to make decisions that will leave me open for that possibility. When I’m with a woman, I try to keep it so that if I decide I don’t want the relationship anymore, it won’t be a shock. In short I try to do nothing that closes any doors and I always make the decision that leaves me with the most options. I guess that pretty much sums up how I think about things.”

Carl says that he hates acknowledging this about himself, because he would like to think of himself as someone who can make decisions, but he admits that options are very important in his life. He says that this is one of the reasons why he is never fully comfortable with a woman.

“While I want to be somewhat decisive and have direction, I don’t want to have so much direction that I’m limiting myself to only one set of doors. Whenever I decide to date someone exclusively, that’s a tough decision. I’m always saying to myself,
How am I going to feel if I see some gorgeous woman giving me the eye?
When I break up, it’s impossible because I wonder whether I’ll be able to get back with this woman if I change my mind.”

Carl says that this attitude of maintaining options affects every single thing he does in life. “This is why I work for myself. I’ve had wonderful offers for jobs that I turned down because I didn’t want to get stuck in a job that might dead-end in a few years.

“It even affects the way I behave in restaurants. I have a tough time choosing a restaurant and then I have a tough time ordering, although I don’t make an obviously big deal about it. It’s just that every decision is limiting. About appointments? If someone wants to make an appointment with me and they say how about ten o’clock, the first thing I think is,
Is that going to get in the way of something better that might come along?
I think,
Which choice will leave me the most options?
I hate when somebody says to me, ‘What time is good for you?’ That’s hard.”

When questioned about it, Carl said that yes, he did feel claustrophobic about decision making. Each yes or no made him feel stuck. This is particularly true of relationships.

“I worry about whether I get out of relationships because it’s the right thing to do or because I feel claustrophobic, which I almost always do. Until I was about twenty-three, it was easy going out with women and it was easy making decisions about them, because everyone took it for granted that it was just kid stuff and temporary. But now the stakes have changed. It’s a whole different ball game, and that can be paralyzing.

“In college I never felt as though I was closing doors. But now I’m trying to find a person I want to stick with. So I’m thinking,
If I go out with her and we start kissing, what will she think? Will she think we’re all wrapped up? And then next week if I meet somebody else, how will
I deal with that?
Now every time I’m with a woman, I’m conscious of whether I’m moving too fast. I feel that I’m closing doors. If I decide to go out with someone, I’m closing the door a little bit. If we kiss at the end of the date, I’m closing the door a little more. We go out more, I’m closing it more. We got to bed, I’m closing it a lot. And if I fall in love with her? Slam! It’s locked.”

Listening to Carl’s attitude, it’s difficult to believe that he would ever allow a woman to cross his barriers. But in truth he has formed several intense romantic attachments with women who expected things to continue and who were very disappointed when they didn’t. He says:

“Last week I went out to dinner with a friend, and I couldn’t decide between the grilled fish, which came with a medley of vegetables, or the fish ’n’ chips, which came with a salad. No substitutions allowed. My friend said, ‘Don’t worry, if you get the wrong one, you can always change your mind the next time.’ But that wasn’t a good enough answer. The same thing keeps happening with women. I want to pick the right one—the first time. With dinner, the second I ordered, I had regrets. I enjoyed the salad but was disappointed with the chips. So far with women, I’ve never chosen right either.”