Andrew Colliver
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Who would you be if you didn’t believe your stories of hurt and
fear?
_ HOW WOULD YOU LIVE IF YOU COULD TRUST LOVE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE? _
ANDREW COLLIVER
DO THESE SCENARIOS SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU?
* A man who changes addresses so often that friends keep a page in
their address book just for him.
* A man whose resume reads like a gig guide.
* A man who pursues a new woman in his life ardently, but no sooner
has he declared his love for her than he is suddenly unavailable to
her.
* A man who has tried many women but never quite found “the right
one”.
* A man who continually speaks of his need for “space” or
“privacy” away from the woman.
All these behaviours are signs of a person who has a fear of
commitment in relationships.
The fear of commitment is a state of anxiety produced in a person at
the prospect of being intensely or intimately involved with any one
person, group of people or life situation over an extended period of
time.
Choosing to Love examines the impact that a fear of commitment has
upon intimate relationships. It sets out patterns of relating that
typically play out where one partner is afraid to give fully to the
other.
It provides concrete steps through which a person can deal with the
fear, and choose more conscious and satisfying ways of being in a
relationship.
It also addresses the confusion and hurt experienced by the other
partner as they seek to understand the changes in attitude and
affection by the one shying away from deeper contact.
The book outlines the stages that a relationship goes through when
one partner has a distinct fear of committing. I call this the
predictable plot:
* Hot pursuit of the woman, often characterised by the rapidity of
the man’s advances;
* The turning of the tide, where the previously enthusiastic
approach begins to fade, and the man’s expressed need for distance
begins to emerge;
* The yo-yo phase, where the man alternates between being attentive
and avoidant;
* The end, where it is usually the man who breaks off the
relationship;
* Encores, where – after the stated close of the relationship,
the man returns seeking re-engagement, and a repeat performance of
involvement.
The book then identifies and examines the triggers for a man’s
fear, and the features of a fear-dominated relationship. A man afraid
of commitment will avoid as much as possible anything that seems to
him to represent long-term intimacy.
The most common of these triggers are:
* Sexual contact, where after courting the woman and “winning”
her, he is finished with that conquest and must move onto the next.
* The waning of romantic love, where a man is addicted to the
sensations of falling in love, but once this fades and reality settles
in, he is off again to seek those sensations.
* Marriage, clearly because it is asking for commitment.
* Pregnancy and the arrival of children.
* Buying a house or doing significant renovations – such
“nesting” behaviour is a sure sign that things are getting
committed and permanent.
* Work pressures, where a man feels stressed and burdened, and the
relationship is one more item that the man feels bound by.
A fear-dominated relationship is typically characterised by the
following features:
* Ambivalence, where the man’s level of involvement in the
relationship fluctuates and he is unsure how much he wants to be fully
in it.
* The duration of fear-dominated tends to be fairly short – how
short or long being determined by his partner’s patience and
capacity to tolerate his distance and uncertainty.
* Prohibited areas – emotional or physical - where the man will
not allow the presence of the woman.
* Caveats on closeness – the reasons he gives for not being able
to participate more fully in the relationship (for instance, work or
unfinished business with a previous marriage or partner).
* Unreliability, or being difficult to pin down, is a message from
the man that he is unwilling to give his all to the relationship.
* Flimsy excuses are the deficiencies in the woman which he gives
as his rationale for leaving or limiting the relationship.
The emotional toll of successive involvements in short-term and/or
superficial relationships can be very high for a man with at least
some integrity and some insight into the hurt his actions cause the
women he has been with. There are four things a person needs to change
their habitual patterns:
* Dissatisfaction with the outcome of his past behaviour.
* Awareness of what the problem really is – he will have been
telling himself that it is that he has not yet met the “right”
woman.
* Choice – he will have to have some options for alternative
approaches or courses of action, if he is to do something different.
* A decision to do things differently is necessary if any change is
to occur.
The book then outlines eleven steps to developing more enduring and
functional ways of relating in an intimate relationship, and leads the
reader through these in a pragmatic and effective manner.
[8]
(c) Andrew Colliver [9]
