Love-Solutions.Com Online Relationships - The Relationship Commitment Page

Should You Commit to Your Relationship?

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Is it important to make a commitment to your relationship or your partner? And if so, why? What does 'making a commitment' really involve or accomplish? Most couples struggle over issues of commitment, but few bother to consider two crucial questions: "Commitment to whom?" and "Commitment about what?"

No doubt I've alienated readers who have ended a relationship over a partner's "inability" to make (or keep) a commitment. These questions raise difficult issues we'd often rather ignore. "Commitment phobic" readers, on the other hand, may welcome this inquiry--not because they necessarily understand questions of "commitment to whom about what," but rather, because more questions may offer more time to avoid hard decisions. Examining what 'making a commitment' means serves everyone's interests because the answers greatly affect personal happiness, and relationship satisfaction and stability.

EXAMINE MOTIVES

It's not usually the best in us that pushes for a commitment from our partner, and the same holds true for the part of us that resists making one. Lots of people demand a commitment from their partner because they want some form of "security," be it financial, legal, or emotional. Protection from personal insecurities, inadequacies, and doubts tends to be the most common purpose and the least common outcome.

"No exit" contracts are not enforceable (you can punish your partner for leaving, but you can't make them stay). Commitments extracted to reduce vulnerabilities and soothe fears of rejection only pander to our limitations. So does some people's reflexive refusal to fully partake in their current relationship for fear of missing something "better" elsewhere.

UNCONDITIONAL COMMITMENT

There are those commitment-seekers to whom commitment means "You promise to take me any way I am--even when I refuse to confront my limitations that negatively impact you." If this is you, "no commitment" from your partner makes you feel insecure; "commitment" produces sloth. For some, "getting a commitment" means one partner must accommodate the other's insecurities, which can result in a shift in the relationship from monogamy to celibacy--a commitment they know their partner has no desire to make.

GRAY AREAS

People vary greatly in the commitments they want to receive or make. Monogamy?--with or without a sex frequency/quality clause? Till death do us part?--are natural causes of death required? Honor and respect?--even when your partner acts without integrity? Obey?--are we setting up a benevolent dictatorship, communism, or social responsibility in a democracy? In all fairness, commitment-phobics can be equally totalitarian while masquerading as champions of freedom, rugged individualism, and open relationships.

The real question isn't commitment vs. no commitment, it's "commitment to whom about what?" Many couples have "difficulty with commitment" because they presume the important commitment issue is something one partner gives to the other (or both make to each other). They think commitment involves restricting their own personal freedom or options in ways that benefit their partner.

In practice, this creates a mutual deprivation pact: It makes your partner your jailer because they hold your commitment--which now constrains you. The key to successful emotionally committed relationships is you must become your own "keeper," a responsible enforcer of your own commitments--a job we readily relinquish to our partner and then complain how poorly they do it.

THE COMMITMENT THAT COUNTS

If monogamy, relationship longevity, and long-term passion are your goals, the most important commitment is the one you make to yourself. Your partner's only real security with you is knowing that you don't lie to yourself or violate your own integrity. Without that, commitments made to your partner are worthless.

Perceived "commitments" made to each other are usually null and void when one partner feels the other has defaulted on the deal. These commitments encourage reciprocal withholding and retaliatory indiscretions. Commitments made to yourself still apply even when your partner violates himself/herself or treats you unfairly. That doesn't mean you tolerate your partner's behavior, regardless. It means you don't tolerate or excuse your own poor behavior when your partner treats you poorly.

When we value the commitments our partner makes to himself/herself, we love him/her the way he/she is. When we extract commitments from him/her, we seek promises that we think he/she doesn't really want to make. Only a fool or a perpetual victim relies on commitments begrudgingly made by their partner.

Two partners who make parallel unilateral commitments to themselves always produce a stronger relationship than those who make reciprocal quid pro quo promises to each other. Extracting commitments, like getting your partner to love you, is a fruitless task that destroys love and romance. Real commitment, like love, involves willing investment in our current life, frequently re-evaluated and reaffirmed, which helps transcend the frustrations and limitations of human relationships.

Dr. David Schnarch brings a learned and compassionate voice to the Third Age Community's discussion of love, passion, and sex and intimacy in marriage and other emotionally-committed relationships. A clinical psychologist with 20 years' experience providing therapy to couples, Dr. Schnarch is one of the nation's leading sex therapists and the author of two books, "Passionate Marriage," for lay persons and "The Sexual Crucible," a landmark work for practitioners. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Michigan State University and, as professor of urology at Louisiana State University Medical Center from 1981 to 1995, Dr. Schnarch trained medical doctors in the communication skills appropriate to screening patients with sexual dysfunction.

His landmark contributions to the field of sex therapy and couples counseling are drawn directly from the busy practice which he and his wife, Dr. Ruth Morehouse, also a clinical psychologist, pursue at their clinic, the Marriage and Family Health Center in Evergreen, Colorado. In workshops across the country, Dr. Morehouse and Dr. Schnarch counsel couples who wish to take advantage of what Dr. Schnarch calls "the people-growing machinery of marriage." This unique approach to couples counseling, which includes innovative practices like "eyes-open sex," has been recognized as a milestone at the leading edge of marriage and family therapy. Best of all, Dr. Schnarch recognizes that men and women become better lovers as they mature. Here's an interview that explains Dr. Schnarch's point of view on sex in maturity.