16 Big Reasons Why SOME Men Are Afraid Of Commitment

Get expert help understanding a guy’s reluctance to commit and advice on what you should do. Click here to chat online to someone right now.

Let’s make one thing clear: not all men fear commitment.

In fact, even those who do will probably commit to someone at some point.

So why, you may be wondering, can’t he commit to you right now?

Well, timing is very important in relationships, and maybe he’s not ready yet. There are many reasons why some men fear commitment that have nothing to do with you as a person.

So, if you want to know why he’s not ready yet, here are some of the reasons why some men are scared of commitment:

1. They are afraid of losing their freedom.

Men value their freedom and independence and fear a woman will take that away from them.

If they commit to a woman, they believe she’d have to be informed of every move they make. They fear they’d have to ask for permission to do things that they can now freely do.

A man in a committed relationship will naturally need to include his partner when making decisions. Some men don’t like this and prefer to have their independence.

They want to be able to go out with their friends and party until the morning without anyone getting upset. They want to be able to leave the toilet seat up and do all the little things that would probably annoy their partner.

While a person can have a life outside of the relationship when they commit to someone, it’s really not the same life they had. They don’t enjoy the same freedom as when they can do whatever they please.

And being able to do whatever you want means a lot to a man.

Some men keep behaving the same way when they commit. They don’t consider their partner’s feelings and don’t ask for their opinion. This is not healthy for a relationship. But what’s the alternative?

Well, they could truly commit and change some things, or they could refuse to commit and stay the same. Some men choose the latter because freedom sometimes matters more than love.

2. They have trust issues.

A man must trust the woman that he’ll commit to. If he notices deceitfulness and dishonesty, he will not want that in his future. He could be worried that the woman won’t be loyal to him, and that’s a good enough reason not to commit.

If he can’t trust her, he can’t open up to her. And what’s the point in being with someone you can’t open up to?

Sure, a man can have a casual relationship with a woman he doesn’t trust. But when it’s time to commit to someone, he’ll search for someone honest and loyal.

However, problems with trust might not have anything to do with the woman in question. Many men have trust issues because they’ve been hurt in the past.

A woman could be loyal and honest, and a man still won’t be able to trust her if he has trust issues.

Maybe he thought his ex-girlfriend was honest and loyal, but she betrayed him and cheated on him. When this happens, it can take a while until a man can trust any woman again.

3. They’ve been burned before.

Speaking of ex-girlfriends, trust issues are only one of the problems men could develop.

Past relationships leave us with baggage, whether we’re male or female. Men who have been burned before will be afraid of getting into another serious relationship.

After all, they’ve already been in one, and it didn’t go well. If they were deeply hurt, they’re not going to want to get hurt again.

However, this is one of the easiest reasons to solve. If your man can’t commit because of his past relationships, he probably just needs some time to get over them.

Breakups hurt, but not every relationship can last forever, only one can. Maybe your man thought he was in that one relationship, but it turned out differently. After some time, he should realize that he can have that forever love with someone else.

It’s not easy to trust again, but he should eventually be able to get over his fears.

4. They still want to see other women.

Sometimes, the simplest explanation is the only true one.

Some men don’t want to commit because they’re still not done with other women.

They want to have casual sex or several relationships before settling down.

They could be with an amazing woman but still not want to commit to her. If they do, they’ll lose their chance to get involved with any other woman. And no matter how great one woman is, she is still only one woman.

We often judge men because of this, but we shouldn’t. It’s common to want to be with several people before settling with one. Most people want that experience so that they don’t settle down too soon and later end things because they want someone new.

There’s no right or wrong number of partners that a person should have before settling down with one. Some want hundreds, some want two, and some are even ready for ‘the one’ right away.

But this is something that everyone gets to decide for themselves.

If your man is not done with other women, it’s better to let him enjoy his life now than make him commit and lose him for the same reason later on.

Eventually, almost everyone wants to settle down with one person. However, they want to have enough new experiences before having the one that will last forever. How much is enough is only up to them to decide.

5. They are not mature enough.

When someone is young and full of lust for life, they’re often not ready to get married and have kids. They’re not mature enough for that, and that’s okay.

However, being mature doesn’t have to have anything to do with age. Yes, younger guys are more likely to fear commitment than older ones, but this is not a rule. Maturity and age don’t always go hand in hand. You can be 40 and still not be mature enough for a committed relationship.

A man has to grow up and let go of a lot of childish things, habits, and thoughts to be ready to commit. Some men are never mature enough, and you can’t force them to grow up.

If your man is still a teenager at heart, regardless of his age, you should find someone mature enough for a relationship. Eventually, he might grow up, but it might take a long time, and some never do.

Kids having kids is never a good idea, and no woman needs an immature boy as a husband. And, unfortunately, being mature is not just something he could decide and simply do.

Everyone matures at their own pace, and some take longer than others, a lot longer. In addition, women tend to mature sooner than men.

6. They’re afraid of rejection.

If you don’t commit, you can’t get rejected. For some men, it’s as simple as that.

A lot of people fear rejection, especially men. For them, it makes sense not to get into a committed relationship to avoid getting rejected.

When someone enters a serious relationship, they’re taking the leap of faith and getting attached. If they’re going to do it right, they’ll go all in. Just the thought of someone pulling the rug from under them at that point is enough for some men to give up on the whole idea.

Is there anything worse than a guy proposing to a girl just so she could say no?

The fear of rejection is not only related to dating; it applies to serious relationships as well. You can reject someone at any point in the dating process as well as in a relationship.

To prevent this from happening, some guys simply refuse to commit. Getting rejected when you’re just hitting on someone and getting rejected when you love someone are different things. Some guys could survive the first, but the second would destroy them. So, they protect themselves by refusing to commit.

7. They’re afraid of being exposed.

Everyone has secrets. And some people are so terrified of anyone finding out their secret that they won’t get close to anyone.

In a committed relationship, couples get to know each other for who they truly are. They discover all the skeletons in the closet, dark secrets, fears, insecurities, and a person’s past.

While some people enjoy sharing this part of themselves, some people are terrified of it. They don’t want anyone to get to know the real them, so they avoid serious relationships.

When a person doesn’t want anyone to get to know them on a deeper level, they’ll avoid getting too involved with them.

They would have to open up entirely and share their life with their partner. Even if they trust their partner, they might not want them to know everything about them. So, they keep their distance, which makes it impossible to be in a committed relationship.

8. They have other priorities.

A lot of things can be going on in a man’s life that make it impossible for him to focus on his love life.

After all, maintaining a relationship requires a lot of time and effort. With work, school, family, and other responsibilities, it can be difficult to balance everything. It can seem impossible to find the time and the energy necessary for a serious relationship.

Maybe your man has some goals that he needs to achieve before being ready to settle down. This is especially true if he’s yet to finish high school or college or find a steady job.

Maybe he’s working on his career or helping his sick parents instead. There are a lot of things that your man might need to do before being ready to commit.

Timing is crucial in relationships. While you might have your life all sorted out, if your partner doesn’t, he won’t be as ready as you are.

Sometimes, people are simply too young or not done with things they wanted to do before getting married. If your man’s not where he wants to be in life, you need to let him work on the life that he wants. If that leaves him with little to no time for you, you’ll have to wait or find someone ready.

9. They feel pressured.

Let’s admit it, we women can put a tremendous amount of pressure on a man.

We can picture a white picket fence and a golden retriever as soon as we hook up with a man.

We can start coming up with kids’ names on the second date.

Honestly, we can get a little crazy when we’re into someone.

And this makes us put tremendous pressure on a man. We can come off looking desperate, needy, clingy, possessive, and controlling just because we’re crazy in love.

Women tend to move at a faster pace than men when it comes to relationships. We are often ready much sooner than a man is, and we try to move the relationship forward at a pace.

So, we pressure the man to keep up with us even when we know that he’s in no way ready for that. Sadly, pressuring a man to commit will only push him away.

In addition, you don’t want him to commit just because he was pressured to do it.

Try to slow down and think like a man. Their biological clocks are not ticking in the same ways yours is, and they think that they have all the time in the world to get married and have kids.

This can be frustrating but try not to move too fast for your own sake too. There’s enough time for everything.

10. They’re afraid of change.

Things change in a committed relationship. A person must grow up and change, but the relationship itself changes too.

Some men are afraid of changing who they are, but some are afraid of the way the relationship will change.

When two people are just dating, it’s a lot different than when they’re sharing a life together. And while your man might enjoy dating you, committing to you might make him afraid because of how things will change between you.

He could also be afraid of the changes he’d have to make in his behavior and personality. These changes aren’t bad, but they are different, and some men simply don’t want things to be different.

Going on dates with you and having fun is a lot different than splitting house chores with you and discussing responsibilities.

A serious relationship means that things will go from fun to serious. That’s what some men think, and it’s the very reason why they avoid committing to a woman.

They are also afraid that the woman will change. While you make them laugh now, you might nag them later, or so they think. They want to know you as the smiling, fun, attractive woman that you are while you’re dating. They don’t want you to turn into a cranky, tired wife who nags them to wash the dishes.

11. They don’t want to waste their time.

A failed relationship can seem like a huge waste of time. People often need assurance that the relationship will really last forever before they commit to it.

If a relationship lasts for a few years and ends, we feel like we wasted a lot of our time for nothing. So, some guys need to be entirely sure that they’ve found the woman they want to spend the rest of their life with before they commit to her.

If they have doubts and don’t think that the relationship will last forever, they’ll rather choose not to spend too much time on it.

When you spend years of your life with someone and go back to being strangers, you haven’t made progress. You can end up feeling like you gave them the best years of your life just to end up brokenhearted and alone.

Some men avoid committing to avoid that.

12. They’re afraid of getting hurt.

It’s not just about the waste of time. When you spend years with someone and it ends, it hurts. Some men don’t want to commit because they’re afraid of getting hurt. If it doesn’t last forever, it’s going to end in heartbreak.

To test whether it can last forever, you need to open up and go all in. But what if it doesn’t work out after that?

Some people believe that it’s better to steer clear of serious relationships to avoid getting hurt. They don’t want to let themselves fall for someone because they know how much it will hurt if it ends.

And, they believe that it’s probably going to end eventually. So, they don’t want to get attached in the first place, even if they like someone.

Love hurts, and it’s a pity that some people avoid love just because it might hurt at some point.

Better safe than sorry, at least according to some men.

13. They’re afraid of monotony.

We all know that serious, long-term relationships tend to fall into a rut. Things get ‘samey,’ and men fear getting bored in the relationship.

They especially fear a boring sex life, but not just that. When you spend too much time with someone, monotony is going to knock on the door at some point.

You might run out of things to do and say, and the passion could fade. This is why some men don’t like the idea of being in a serious relationship.

When you’re dating someone new for the first time, everything is fun and exciting. Even when you’re in a relationship, there’s the honeymoon phase that makes you feel like you’re on cloud nine.

But what happens after the honeymoon phase is what makes some men fear commitment.

It won’t be quite so fun and exciting anymore. It will be more about chores and responsibilities and taking care of each other when you’re not well.

That’s how some men picture long-term relationships and why they avoid getting serious with a woman. When the passion is gone from the relationship, a man wants to be gone from the relationship too.

14. They’re not sure about the relationship.

This is not what you want to hear, but a man might be ready to commit, just not to you.

However, this doesn’t have to be about you in any way. If he is not sure about the relationship, it could be for many reasons.

Maybe the two of you are too different, and he thinks you’ll run out of things to talk about. Maybe he always pictured his wife with green eyes, and you have brown. Yes, it could even be something as trivial as that!

When a man is not sure about you, it’s better to let him go. However, sometimes it just takes time for him to decide whether you’re the woman he wants to settle down with.

He might not be sure because of the other fears that we mentioned so far. Maybe he’s afraid that you’ll cheat on him because he has trust issues. Whatever his reasons are for his doubts about the relationship, he might never be ready.

So, wait for him, but only for a reasonable amount of time. Don’t wait forever for a guy who isn’t sure about you when there could be a guy who’d know right away that you’re his future wife.

15. They don’t think that they could have a future with you.

Maybe he likes you, but he doesn’t think that the relationship can have a future.

This is similar to the previous point. Maybe you want different things in life, or you’re not the best match.

A man can like you and want to be with you but still give up on a committed relationship because he thinks that it will end at some point.

Pretty much no one wants to end up alone forever. Most people are searching for someone to commit to at some point. But, just like women look for partners they can have a future with, so do men.

Two people can be a great match in the present but realize that they can’t have a future together. A man can like you but not consider you wife-material.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about this. If your man thinks you can’t have a future together, consider whether he’s right. Your feelings for him might be tempting you to commit to him even though you, too, know that the future is not likely.

Don’t forget that it doesn’t have to last forever to be real love. A relationship can be meaningful even if it ends, or never begins in the first place.

16. They are not done with the single lifestyle.

Drinking, partying, dating, sleeping around, and doing whatever you want whenever you want. There are many reasons why some men believe that it’s better to be single.

A man can like you and even think that you’re wife-material and still choose his single lifestyle over you. Some men are just not done being single. They eventually might be, but you can’t wait forever.

A man might want to sleep with more women, but not just that. He wants to enjoy his freedom and independence. They like being single because it gives them the freedom to do whatever they want. And, as mentioned before, this freedom means the world to a man.

So, if your man doesn’t want to commit to you, try to understand his reasons. Don’t pressure him into it if he’s not ready for it. Let him go, or enjoy a short-term romance with him.

You can learn about the ways to get a man to commit to you, and they might work, but keep in mind that you can’t control him. You can’t cast a spell on him and make him ready to settle down.

All you can do is try your best to show him that he’s not going to lose his freedom when he commits to you. Respect his independence and let him have a life outside of the relationship. Don’t be needy, controlling, or possessive.

Show him love and hope that he’ll realize that losing someone’s love is worse than losing a little freedom.

Still not sure why a particular guy is afraid of commitment? If this man is your partner, someone you’re dating, or someone you’d like to date, you need to get to the root of his concerns so that you can know what your next step should be. To do this, you could probably use some expert knowledge, experience, and guidance from someone who helps people like you deal with this sort of situation for a living. So why not chat online to one of the experts from Relationship Hero who can help you figure things out. Simply click here to chat.

You may also like: