What can you do if you want commitment and your partner doesn’t?
With Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Reid: Road ballads, ladies and gentlemen, that take us into relationship advice. This is Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: This is Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com.
Reid: I’m driving.
Cathy: We had someone write in and say, “Why won’t my boyfriend commit? He says he loves me and I’m the kind of person he would want to marry but he doesn’t want commitment, what do I do?”
Reid: I don’t know. Dump him. He’s not ready to commit but he’s still your boyfriend, like that’s some sort of commitment. If you mean marriage then maybe he’s just not ready to get married yet.
Cathy: I think it can be really useful to actually sit down and ask what commitment means to each of you because that can mean, sometimes we use words and we have different meaning for them and that can cause a lot of conflicts in a relationship. What would commitment feel like to you and how would you know that someone was committed and he can do the same thing, and then you can also talk about, Reid does this in his R 10X live event. He has people write down what their intentions are for a relationship, that’s really powerful.
Reid: Yeah, because sometimes if you have like, well, what’s your definition of commitment, what you find out is that that word is a trigger word, so the definition is not really going to be useful anyway, like you having a conversation about the different definitions of a commitment could feel like you’re trying to trap me by using other words into this thing I don’t want to do. What I would recommend is come out respective of what’s your intention, like what do you want to create in your relationship moving forward and to find out for yourself and for your boyfriend or your girlfriend whom you’re dating or married to even why are you in a relationship to begin with.
Not why your relationship was so and so, but what are the needs you’re trying to get met in being in a relationship.
Cathy: What needs would be met by being committed.
Reid: When you guys overlap in your needs and you’re like, “Oh, these are things I give freely because I want to be this and this and this in a relationship. I want and need to get this, this and this in a relationship.” You guys may find out that you’re already getting a lot of the needs met and the commitment is just some stamp or label or something that you’re using probably because culture told you to.
Cathy: Society teaches us, that if there’s not a ring on my finger it doesn’t matter.
Reid: Yeah, but if you guys are all getting a lot of your needs met and you guys are compatible in a lot of ways for a relationship, in some ways, why would you leave it, there’s no reason to leave. For people who were freaked out about tying themselves down or something like that, or buying the cow or whatever the fuck they say.
Cathy: Giving the sausage.
Reid: Then what you realize is you guys are actually committed to being these people in a relationship and the relationship that you have is a good relationship, so the commitment is just to be true to yourselves and you’re actually getting your needs met. From my perspective, why would I leave that relationship.
Cathy: We’d love to know what you think about that. Leave a comment below and let us know what commitment means to you and why it’s important to you.
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Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: If you don’t, don’t subscribe.
Cathy: Shall we block it out with some music?
Reid: We don’t know what’s playing.
Cathy: Commercials.
Reid: Commercials.