Commitment is not for everyone, and every relationship should not graduate to that level. It depends on so many things. Yet many people assume that all relationships between men and women must evolve into a committed relationship and when they do not, the feelings of frustration, anger, fear, and hurt can cause people to push too hard. We have all been there, mainly because it is rare that two people arrive at the exact same point within the relationship at the same time. If you get there first, and feel that longing for your mate to acknowledge and commit to you it can be terrifying. The reason is because if you want a commitment it is usually the first indication that you are truly in love.
My experience has taught me that love is a hodgepodge of emotions, feelings, actions, and thoughts that result in behaviors between people who want to be together. Ideally, you care enough about the person to learn how to love them in the healthiest way possible for the two of you. The goal is a happy, fulfilling life that is interesting, funny, and peaceful, with pockets of excitement along the way. Realistically, most of us just wander through life hoping that love will find us and fantasizing about how wonderful it will be once we find the person of our dreams. The idea that love is hard work makes it feel less romantic to me. I don't want to believe that it takes so much effort to be with a person who says they love me. Yet, painful experience has taught me that love is not easy. Passion is easy. Love takes time and comes with a price.
Once you find a person whose company you enjoy, who turns you on, and feels the same, the hard work begins. That hard work is pushing past the sexual excitement and interesting activities to true intimacy. Figuring out if you have common goals, spiritual beliefs and determining if your locus of reasoning (your personal culture) is a help or a hindrance. If you believe women and men are equal and your partner believes the man should always make the decisions and have the final say, your interactions on important topics will be fractured and complicated because you don't value the same process for solving problems and making decisions. If you believe in open relationships and she believes in monogamy the relationship will likely be burdened with trust issues. Love is not about being exactly the same, but it is about compatibility.
I have a friend, let's call him Litchell. He is a funny guy. He can be gentle, thoughtful, amusing, charming or the biggest pain in the ass on the planet. He is constantly on the look-out for a female that is "committed" to him. But trust me his definition of commitment is not found on dictionary.com. He wants her to abdicate her common sense, her logic and skepticism and commit to him and his offerings. His true challenge is that he seeks intelligent, enlightened women of depth and quality. Those women generally do not walk blindly into relationships and bind themselves to men of questionable circumstances. For Litchell, his goal is to secure the relationship, not the person. The challenge is that he is not looking for commitment because he is in love, or in a position to offer love. He seeks commitment because it is the price of admission into his dating lifestyle. The need for this level of obligation is an indication of the pain he has suffered in past relationships, romantic and familial.
Another friend, let's call her Samantha, wants the passion and the companionship but not the commitment. The commitment scares her and makes her feel smothered so she flits from relationship to relationship like a pretty butterfly looking for nectar. What she is missing is the depth of relationship and interactions that differentiate relationships from hook-ups. Her fear of being hurt and hurting others stiffles her ability to open herself up to the real possibility of true love.
Nothing screws you up more in a relationship than other relationships. Past, present and future, the relationships you have had, are in and aspire to have clutter your mind and create confusion that can prevent you from getting the love most of us want in our lives. Old, failed, love affairs can impact our confidence, causing us to alienate people who want a future with us. Existing friendships and familial obligations can compete with the quality time necessary to create new, strong, healthy relationships. Our desire for perfection in our future love lives can prevent us from appreciating a person of quality today.
Our ability to move from dating to committed relationship hinges on many things, including our own personal readiness for such a serious transition. It is love not passion that paves the way for commitment and inspires people to embrace commitment as a privilege rather than a burden or solely an obligation. When you acknowledge the genuine feelings of respect, desire, interest and compatibility you have for another person and seek intimacy rather than sex, you are truly falling in love and ready to move beyond mere involvement to commitment. Your ability to give your partner the time they need to feel the same is an indication of the quality of the feelings you share and your maturity because real love does not have an expiration date, you should take your time.
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