Most of us have learned some controlling behaviors that are not obvious. For example, Sonia asked, "How can I help a man to share his fears of commitment with me without sounding like I am pressuring him?"

If I were working with Sonia, I would ask her to explore these questions: "Why do you want him to share? What is your agenda? What is your hope?"

If she were honest with herself, she might say, "I hope if he shares his fears with me, I can get him to see that they are unfounded, and then he can commit to me."

The irony here is that Sonia would be behaving in the very way that might trigger her boyfriend's fear of commitment – which is generally a fear of engulfment. Any attempts to control, even a covert attempt, will be felt energetically by the other person and may trigger their fears of losing themselves.

Any attempt to “help” this man would feel pressuring to him.

There are other, more above-board ways of dealing with this issue.

For example, you might say to him, “It seems to me like you might have some fear around commitment. This concerns me because I really want a committed relationship. Are you open to exploring looking this notion? If so, I’m wondering how you would go about doing that?” and possibly add, “I have some suggestions, if you are interested in hearing them.”

How he responds could give you a lot of information about how he sees himself relative to commitment.

What you are asking here is not why he is afraid of commitment, but if he is open to learning about and healing this fear. If he isn't, then as hard as it might be for you, if you want to be in a committed relationship, you would need to think about moving on. Fears of rejection or engulfment do not heal by themselves. Underneath the fear of commitment is generally the fear of engulfment, and under the fear of engulfment is the fear of rejection. These are deep fears, and they do not heal until a person does enough Inner Bonding work to develop a strong loving adult self who is willing to lose the other person rather than lose themselves.

It takes a lot of inner work to reach a place where a person is no longer rejecting themselves, and therefore no longer fearful of rejection. Once the fear of rejection is healed, then the fear of engulfment gets healed, because the person would no longer be available to giving themselves up to avoid rejection.

So the real issue is – is he open to learning about healing his fears?

Is he willing to learn and practice Inner Bonding and/or go into therapy and do the reading and learning that is necessary to heal? If he has old trauma, is he wiling to do some trauma therapy?

If he isn’t open to learning and healing, it might be very hard for Sonia to fully accept that. She likely wants to believe that, if only he would talk with her about it, there is something she can say or do that will change his mind. But this is a false belief. People do not change simply because of what someone else says – they change because they do their own inner healing work.

This is the central issue in all relationships: are you and your partner open to learning about your own fears and resulting controlling behaviors, or not? If not, then it is likely that the relationship will not work. However, if both of you are open to learning and healing, then there is a good chance that your relationship issues can be explored, healed and resolved.

Heal your relationship with Dr. Margaret’s 30-Day online video relationship course: Wildly, Deeply, Joyously in Love.

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay