How to Make a Commitment Phobic Man Commit

Dating a commitment phobic man can be a fairly stressful experience for a woman who sees herself married with children in the next five years. It’s an attractive prospect to you, and yet the guy who you want to marry seems to break out in a cold sweat whenever the subject comes up. When you find yourself in this position, it’s easy and understandable to worry about whether you’ll ever end up making him commit.

If you do find yourself in this situation then there is at least one piece of consolation that can make you feel better and that is to know that you are far from alone. In fact it’s fair to say that every man is really a commitment phobic on some level or another.

Why Are Men Commitment Phobic?

There is actually a genetic reason for this – guys are designed to spread their seed and their genetics and can do so many times over during a short space of time. Thus they need quantity slightly more than quantity when looking for women and from a genetic standpoint marriage doesn’t make that much sense to a man. However for a woman, the childbirth process takes much longer and can only be repeated several times. Meanwhile the woman will also want to have her man around long enough that he can help to support and protect both her and the baby. Thus the woman wants quality over quantity. It’s an age old struggle but fortunately one that women usually win (that’s the good news).

Another biological aspect to consider here is the fact that women have much more of a ‘time limit’ than men when it comes to these things. That is to say that women have the menopause when it’s too late for them to have children, whereas men can have children at any age, meaning that it’s far less pressing for them. However there are more factors involved than just the genetic ones and in the mind of a man it’s much more complicated – in a way almost coming down to pride.

For men it is highly important to live a good and successful life and to compare this to the lives of those other men around them as well as those even in the media and even those who are fictional. Men watch films like James Bond and see a character who can have any woman he wants and who journeys around the world fighting bad guys and making a difference. Every man has ambitions above his station as a rock star, an actor, a politician, a super hero or a secret agent and as they get older they find that the amount of time they have to complete these ambitions is slowly but surely running out.

The fear then for a lot of men is that they one day wake up 35 and having settled down and not achieved any of their ambitions. Their ‘number’ (the number of girls they had sex with) is low and makes them feel sexually inexperienced compared to friends and what the media portrays, and they haven’t travelled as much as they should have or had adventures. The minute a man gets married it is as though he is letting go of his true ambitions and any chance of a life of adventure. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, it just means he doesn’t want to have that mid life crisis when he finds out he didn’t live life.

The irony is though that he’s not going to leave you and if he’s not the cheating type then he won’t be unfaithful either. So he can’t sleep with lots of girls. And chances are he’s not travelling much or actively pursuing that dream career – so all he’s really doing is delaying the inevitable. An inevitability that he would enjoy just as much as you most likely. One of the other real reasons then is a lack of maturity – and on some level he recognises this too. But then at the same time some guys would argue that ‘maturity’ is over rated if it means selling out on your dreams and settling for less.

What You Can Do

If you want to change your man’s thinking and make him a lot less phobic of commitment then you need to understand these aspects and somehow make sure that you fit in to the future. You also need to make use of some other very male traits and tendencies.

For instance, he wants to have a good number so that deep down he knows he could have lots of women, so he can tell people, and so he feels like Bond. It’s entirely an ego driven desire. You can’t help him to increase his number, but what you can do is fulfil that ego and make yourself seem just as exciting and just as much of an ‘achievement’. If when his friends see you their jaws hit the flaw, then he doesn’t need a high number and he can feel like Bond, or some successful billionaire. Likewise if you are willing to mix things up in the bedroom, and to try out some different things then you’ll be able to make him feel as though he’s got everything he could need that way – that primal part of him will be satisfied. So if he likes you in short skirts and high heels then wear them, take the time to do your makeup and generally make the most of your looks. This way he’ll feel like he’s got the ultimate ‘catch’ so it won’t matter so much about the smaller fish in the sea. It sounds shallow, but it really taps into that innate need to feel like he’s ‘done well’.

At the same time if you’re looking so incredibly hot it will have other guys lusting after you and this then triggers another male trait – jealousy and insecurity. If he thinks there’s a chance of losing you, and he thinks you’re the perfect catch, then he’ll have a very strong motivation to make sure he keeps you – by making that commitment.

You also need to show him that you’re not an obstacle for him living his dreams, but rather an accessory to it. It’s easy to laugh and dismiss some of the ideas and intentions that a man says he has – to become an astronaut or a rock star when in reality he works as a bus driver – but they’re important to him and it’s important to be supportive in any relationship. This way he can see marrying you or having children or generally committing not as waving the white flag, but in fact helping his course – as they say behind every good man is a great woman.

What Not to Do

What you mustn’t do is to try and force your man into committing and drop lots of hints. Obviously this will start to feel threatening for him and will start to feel as though you are conspiring against him. If on the other hand you seem not particularly ready to commit then he might feel he needs to commit quickly in order to ‘secure’ you – and as though he’s making the commitment out of his own free will rather than because he feels he has to.

You also need to avoid becoming too comfortable and too complacent and stop making effort to look your best and to make things fun and exciting. If you are already living a very ‘homely’ lifestyle and spending your days eating pizza without any makeup on, then you won’t exactly be encouraging him to pop the question. Likewise if you seem too readily available at all times then you won’t be presenting him with any need to move forward in the relationship.

Finally

Finally talk to your guy about his commitment issues. Just because they have become something of a cliché and a joke in the media doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a legitimate right to be nervous and there might be more to it than that – perhaps he’s been through something with previous partners, or perhaps he doesn’t feel ready to commit until you’ve lived together first or until you both have a certain amount of money. You might not agree with his points of view, but at least this way you’ll understand where he’s coming from and you’ll better be able to put his mind at rest.