Getting a man to commit to a love relationship, is like trying to get a lion to act like a water buffalo.
The above statement was given to number one best-selling author, counselor and life coach David Essel by one of his female clients, during a Skype session discussing her desire to find a committable man for a long-term relationship.
While David was laughing at the time, and his client was laughing right along with him, she was dead serious.
Every man she had ever dated in her life, had been the “man of her dreams“ for the first 6 to 9 months and then the relationship would fizzle.
Below, David talks about the facts and the fallacies about men and commitment in love.
“I remember in the late 1980s, there was a very popular article that was “man-bashing“, almost all men, because of their inability to commit to a love relationship.
You guessed it, it was written by a woman.
And she was filled with rage, anger, and disappointment in the male gender in general.
As I read that article, I started to think that some of the things she was saying were dead on, but some of the other accusations she was making were just from a jilted woman’s perspective, an angry woman, a jaded woman, and many of her comments had no basis in reality.
Let’s look below, at the reasons why some men might shy away from committing to any woman at all for a long-term love relationship.
Number one.
They had no female role model growing up. In other words, maybe their biological mother died, or after giving birth gave her son away via adoption, or in some cases, as one of my male clients that I worked with a number of years ago, upon birth his mother gave him to her sister and told her sister to tell him that she was the biological mother.
A number of years later, this whole scene unraveled as he found out the truth and became enraged at women in general.
In other examples, maybe a man’s mother was an alcoholic, never emotionally available, or maybe she worked six jobs and was not emotionally available because of that either.
Some men will grow up afraid of commitment because it could lead to abandonment or rejection by women in general. The same abandonment and rejection they faced as a child.
Some men are raised with a female household that is overly critical, men can do nothing right, and the son gets swept up into the mom’s rage against men in general.
For a very good reason, he might be afraid to commit to a woman because of his deepest fear, that she will criticize him constantly.
Number two.
If a man’s earlier relationships are filled with chaos and drama, he just might not trust women at all.
A few years ago I worked with a guy who’s first love interest had cheated on him with his best male friend. He had never gotten over it.
So he attracted women that were not trustworthy.
His first wife, cleaned out his bank account, left him with almost no money as she rode away into the sunset with another man.
Even in the divorce hearings, he could not get any consolation, as the judge actually sided with his wife and the money was never to be returned.
Number three.
Here’s a shocker, some men, and women as well, are not here to be long-term love partners. It’s just not in their interest. It could be because of something negative that happened to a man in the past with his mom and or woman… Or it could just be that he has no interest in a long-term relationship.
This could be a very healthy man, who realizes that his outside interests, maybe it’s a career or hobbies, or maybe he just loves living alone and living on his own schedule.
There’s nothing psychologically wrong with him, he’s not emotionally damaged, he just has made a decision that he’d rather date and have fun then be in a long-term committed relationship.
He’s what we would call a sane human being, that knows what works for him, is not going to bow down to the pressures of society and get into a relationship just so that Everyone around him can say that he’s a “normal” guy.
He’s normal, he’s so normal as a matter of fact that he’s not going to follow the leader, he’s not going to be a sheep in the herd, he’s going to do his own thing and be really happy as a single man for his entire life.
It doesn’t mean he won’t date, he may have multiple relationships over his lifetime, but no interest whatsoever in having someone in his life 24 seven.
He’s not psychologically damaged, or emotionally damaged, he just knows what works and what doesn’t work for him and he’s going to follow his own drum, he doesn’t have to be in anyone else’s band, following anyone else’s lead. He’s perfectly fine as he is today.
Number four.
Some men, make a commitment to a life of service, to a career, and they truly don’t have time or interest in long term relationships.
I remember reading about Mother Teresa when asked about did she ever miss being in a love relationship, she smiled and said “I’m in a loving relationship every day. I am married to Jesus Christ, I go to bed with him every night and wake up with him every morning. “
There could be ministers, of course, priests cannot have relationships with women, but there also might be people that have chosen a certain vocation, maybe they run a large corporation and it fills them at every level, maybe they run a nonprofit organization that fills them at every level…
Maybe they have work and outside of work they are committed to little league sports or intercity boxing for teenagers… they have found a way to fulfill so many of their desires in life without being in a relationship with a woman.
In the first two instances, if a man wants to work through his fear of abandonment, criticism, rejection that he received from his own biological mother, or lack of a mother, or from previous relationships with women that have truly screwed him over, he can actually overcome these emotional challenges by committing to long-term counseling and end up on the other side, in a beautiful deep relationship with a woman if he so chooses.
And for the second examples, there’s no need to call them commitment-phobic, because these men have another plan in life, a different path, and they’re quite happy being who they are.
If you want to clear up the past, you can do so.
If you want to stay on the path you’re on that does not include a romantic relationship, good for you.
It’s important to know who you are, why you do what you do, in order to be truly happy and at peace in life.
David Essel‘s work is highly endorsed by individuals like the late Wayne Dyer, and celebrity Jenny McCarthy says “David Essel is the new leader of the positive thinking movement.“
His 10th book, another number one bestseller is called “focus! Slay your goals… The proven guide to huge success, a powerful attitude and profound love.“
His work as a counselor and life coach has been verified by psychology today, and marriage.com verifies David as one of the top relationship counselors and experts in the world.
Do you want to talk about how to have richer, more mindful, and enduring relationships?
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