Avoidants Who Say “I’m Committed To You”, Are They Really?

When you push an avoidant who loves you and genuinely wants to be with you to commit, they’ll sometimes say, “I’m committed to this relationship, or “I’ve done everything to show you I’m committed to you” or they’ll look at you so confused about what you are talking about. This is because to an avoidant, being “committed to the relationship” may mean something different.

According to research is published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the premier journal in social psychology, “When people say, ‘I’m committed to my relationship,’ they can mean two things. One thing they can mean is, ‘I really like this relationship and I want it to continue.’ However, commitment is more than just that”, said study co-author Benjamin Karney, a professor of psychology and co-director of the Relationship Institute at UCLA.

“It’s easy to be committed to your relationship when it’s going well. As a relationship changes, however, shouldn’t you say at some point something like, ‘I’m committed to this relationship, but it’s not going very well. I need to have some resolve, make some sacrifices and take the steps I need to take to keep this relationship moving forward.”

It’s not just that I like the relationship, which is true, but that I’m going to step up and take active steps to maintain this relationship, even if it means I’m not going to get my way in certain areas. “This,” Bradbury said, “is the other kind of commitment”.

This makes so much sense especially when dealing with an avoidant. Most avoidants don’t see the difference between “I like the relationship and want it to continue” and “I’m going to step up and take active steps to maintain this relationship”

An avoidant can be committed to you and want the relationship to continue, but when asked to step up and take active steps to maintain it, they feel pressured or trapped, and run away, take a break or breakup. Many anxiously attached conclude that an avoidant is not committed to the relationship and/or is afraid of commitment.

To give credit where credit is due, many fearful avoidants often step up and take active steps to maintain relationships, BUT it depends a lot on how they’re generally treated by a partner and how you ask them to “step up”. Even after the breakup, some fearful avoidants make effort to show an ex that they are doing their part to keep the lines of communication open, show that they still love you and care about you, and are committed to making the relationship work.

Even dismissive avoidants who usually see asking them to “step up” as “too many expectations”, every now and then do things that show you that they not only like the relationship and want it to continue, they’re also trying to do their part to make it work.

But here’s the problem, and why even despite both people wanting the relationship to continue and taking steps to make it work, many anxious and avoidant exes don’t get back together or get back together and immediately breakup again.

People with an anxious attachment have been conditioned to think and believe that avoidants are afraid of commitment, and every chance they get, they ask an avoidant for a commitment whatever a “commitment” means to them. They’re so convinced that they’re the more loving and caring attachment style and therefore are right and avoidants are wrong about just everything.

According to Bradbury, “What our data indicates is that committing to the relationship rather than committing to your own agenda and your own immediate needs is a far better strategy.”. He added, “We’re not saying it’s easy. But in a long-term relationship, both parties cannot always get their way.”

The defining moment in an anxious-avoidant relationship is not commitment

In my experience as a coach, contrary to what many believe, the defining moment in a relationship is not commitment, the defining moments in any relationship is when two people learn to work together for the good of the relationship.

You have many choices of how to respond when an avoidant says “I’m committed to this relationship, or “I’ve done everything to show you I’m committed to you” but is not stepping up or taking active steps to maintain the relationship.

One choice is keep criticizing an avoidant for being avoidant and point out all their shortcomings. Yes, that will surely make them want to want to step up. Not.

The problem with this approach to getting an avoidant to commit says says psychologists Karney is “If you dig your heels in, then I can dig my heels in too. If you say, ‘You’re wrong. Listen to me!’, I can say, ‘You’re wrong. Listen to me!’.

What is the goal? Is it to win the battle? Is it to preserve the relationship?

When the stakes are high, the relationship is vulnerable, and behaviour that might win an argument might not be best for the relationship. The people who think more about protecting the relationship over their own agenda and their own immediate needs are more able to shift their focus away from whether ‘I win’ or ‘you win’ to ‘how are we going to keep this relationship afloat?’.

They’re also more able to reframe the problem of commitment from “Are you committed to this relationship or not?”, to “What can we both do to make this relationship  work for both of us.”

“Find ways to compromise, or at least have the conversation that allows you and your partner to see things eye to eye,” Bradbury said. “Often, we don’t have the big conversations that we need in our relationship. The very act of communicating in difficult times can be as important as the outcome of the conversation”.

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