It’s About Making Babies!

OK. NML has some very good insights, and writes well on Baggage Reclaim. Today is no different, on dealing with Commitment Phobia (his and hers).

Only, I think Commitment Phobia is a trite term, coined partly to explain something that appears to affect some people, partly as a derogatory war cry over social change. And I think that ‘commitment phobia’ is too simple an answer for what is going on.

Many decades ago, and still in many parts of the world today, marriage is an arrangement made by the parents. Back in the Dust Bowl and Depression era (between WWI and WWII, US) we started learning as a culture and a nation, that women work, suffer, and succeed much as men do. This was a great revelation, a soul-wrenching change to the concept of family at the time. Then came WWII, and vast numbers of women entered industry in their own right, and pressure for equality never really retreated from there. In the 1960′s there were the bra-burnings (that was before the Miracle Bra, I think, but about the time of the Playtex Cross-Your-Heart bra, maybe) that symbolized .. something. Looking back, it doesn’t seem to have been that vital an image, but the intent was clear — women were to be considered citizens, not just members-of-households.

So we had popular songs about ‘Don’t be sold on the very first one/ .. you gotta shop around’. We had the Playboy Philosophy (was that really anything more than ‘buy our magazine, look at the nekkid lady pictures, and don’t marry anyone you sleep with’? Oh, and drink a lot.) Single women in public, and rising divorce rates all signaled an end to *expectations* about what role women are expected to play in the home.

Now with gender sensitivity and gay and lesbian issue sensitivity, we don’t teach our kids about what a family is. There are a few that heard some gems of truth from their parents, and passed them on to their kids. But mostly Church fails to teach what used to be understood. And schools were never intended to teach what should have been taught at home.

But we have novels. TV. Movies, videos and plays. They all teach that ‘love’ occurs in one act, and a short time later marriage (if it happens) occurs. The transition to ‘in love’ is described as ‘romance’, or ‘magic’.

So no one ever taught many of our kids what a vow, a commitment is. We have the romance magazines demanding ‘commitment’ for sexually exclusive (mostly) relationships. They have tests and articles to describe it, use terms like ‘commitment phobia’ to sell more ads and magazines. If one allows that ‘magic’ or ‘fate’ brings two people together, then the door is open for either to walk away when the ‘magic’ doesn’t feel as strong.

I contend that love is a romantic term, fiction. There is a physical bonding of people that breathe the same air, sharing pheromones. This happens in a small home, a bar, a workplace, a church. This is one of reasons for an almost visceral sense of whether someone is a stranger or not. Another component is affection, joy at touching (non-sexual, please) someone, at pleasing them. Respect is an essential, without respect the rest will wither, respect and trust are essential. Discipline — this is where the commitment comes in — the will to complete a task. Gratitude, a humble joy that your partner chooses to gift you with their time, their trust, their affection, and their physical presence.

Before you start singing the ‘commitment phobia’ blues, then, here is a checklist of things to be completely sure of.

• Do you respect him, his decisions, his friends, his financial state, how he treats kids and pets?
• Affection — do you feel pleasure, most of the time, to see him, to hold hands?
• Do you look forward to time with him? Are you grateful that he allows you into his life?
• Discipline. Does he show in his life and his words a loyalty to others, a history of promises kept, a reluctance to make wild promises?
• Have you spend a lot of time – more than 50 hours, say – in each other’s close company? Time for your body to react chemically. The smaller the spaces the better, between the sheets counts but introduces other complications to getting to know someone. Remember, nothing said 30 minutes before or after an orgasm (or expected orgasm) is intended to be taken seriously. Except maybe ‘I want something to rub on, quick!’

On the one hand, trying to maintain a stable ‘relationship’ outside of hand-fasting, marriage, or whatever your culture calls it when you make a home for making babies, kind of begs the question, “What in the world is there to commit to?” A marriage license establishes a legal relationship between the individuals and the state. A religious marriage ceremony establishes a spiritual relationship. You don’t want to end your previous, single life to enter a married life, which the vows and the ceremony and legal protections of a marriage all establish.

I am not in favor of universal marriage, nor an end to marriage. I am not arguing for or against a chaste life. But if you want to understand why you or your ‘significant other’ has issues about committing to a relationship, I do have a few thoughts about where some of those issues might be coming from.

I like the ‘Resistance Free’ training methods of John Lyons. His book ‘Lyons on Horses’ is a good read, and can be quite useful. If you find yourself looking for a commitment and not getting one, then your task just changed from ‘getting a commitment’ to ‘training how to commit’. Do not assume that your partner understands how to meet the promises you want made — learn about them together.

This is another time in the relationship when any sort of ‘no’ means emphatically not. An ethical person won’t try to push, cajole, nag, or force or bully someone into going along with it.