Mental Health Corner

Mental Health Corner Commitment Phobia

By Rabbi Azriel Hauptman

As with all matters of life, marriage has many rewards that you can only achieve through a lifetime of focus and attention. It also requires a commitment. If you have a fear of commitment, a suitable spouse might come your way and you will turn him or her down. Many years can go by before you realize that you are dealing with what is colloquially known as commitment phobia. Not everyone who has not found the right one suffers from an aversion to commitment, but if you are dealing with this marital obstacle, the path to the Chupah can be virtually blocked.

Here are some of the possible causes of commitment phobia.

Excitement anxiety – Some people are very sensitive to anxious feelings. This can be problematic as the physical feeling of excitement is very similar to what you feel in your body when you have anxiety. As the prospect of a new relationship develops, one will start feeling excited. If your brain confuses this feeling with anxiety, you will start feeling fear and dread. If your body sends you those signals, you will have a hard time committing due to the gut feeling you have that this is a bad choice, even though in reality it is only a false alarm.

Low self-worth – For a variety of reasons, some people suffer from low self-worth. In order to get married, both parties need to be interested in spending their life with the other person. If you have low self-worth, you will have a hard time believing that someone out there is interested in you. You will think to yourself, “Why should I bother trying to connect with someone who will surely not reciprocate?”

Choice overload –Choice overload is the difficulty making a decision when faced with other options. Similarly, in regards to marriage, it can be very hard to marry someone if you have a gnawing thought that maybe you will find something better. Even if you rationally understand that this kind of fear is foolish and counterproductive, the subconscious irrational brain can still consume you with feelings of dread.

Fear of trusting – A marriage can only be fulfilling if husband and wife trust each other. If you have experienced a betrayal of trust, you might have a very hard time committing to marriage out of fear that your trust will be betrayed again. As you grow up, there are people who you assume that you can trust, such as your parents, siblings, relatives, friends, and mentors. When an adult who should have been trustworthy betrays that trust through abuse or neglect, your ability to trust becomes greatly affected.

Enmeshment with a parent – In a healthy parent-child relationship, the goal of the parents is to mold children into emotionally independent adults. When an adult child achieves emotional independence from his or her parents, the child can now build emotional interdependence with their spouse. When a parent has emotional needs that are not met, that parent might keep the child emotionally connected to the degree that the child feels guilty abandoning the parent by getting married.

If you are faced with commitment phobia, an experienced therapist can be an invaluable to resource to help you understand the root of your issue and how to “take the plunge” into a healthy, fulfilling, and committed relationship

This is a service of Relief Resources. Relief is an organization that provides mental health referrals, education, and support to the frum community. Rabbi Yisrael Slansky is director of the Baltimore branch of Relief. He can be contacted at 410-448-8356 or at yslansky@reliefhelp.org