RELATIONSHIPS

9 Signs You Are Commitment Phobic

How to tell if you’re counter-dependent

Commitment phobia arises from fear of depending on other people. Someone who is counter-dependent is likely to avoid asking for help as they don’t want to appear to feel in need. They also despise authority — their self-identity is often dependent on personal autonomy and acts of defiance. Such behaviour patterns are due to a profound fear of intimacy. In a committed relationship, counter-dependents feel trapped and exhibit approach-avoidance repetition compulsion. They may hesitantly approach but become avoidant when there is a trigger.¹

Here are 9 ways to spot counter-dependency in someone:

1- Defiant Promiscuity

Promiscuity is defined as having multiple sexual partners. For counter-dependents, promiscuity is often experienced as an empowering lifestyle choice and they do not tend to perceive their promiscuity as a negative.

The role of promiscuity for counter-dependents is to alleviate the feeling of being trapped and suffocated in a relationship. Everyone has a need for intimacy but because counter-dependents have a fear of intimacy, instead of getting close to one person, having multiple people in their lives they don’t get as close to helps them compensate. Having multiple casual sexual relationships as opposed to having a sexual relationship with only one partner gives them a sense of freedom. Their promiscuity helps them not feel restrained or controlled by one person, which is what they perceive commitment as.

2- Lack of Long-Term Relationships

Not having long-term relationships, including friendships is a major sign that someone has issues with commitment. Being unable to maintain such relationships is because counter-dependents consider love and affection as threatening and therefore avoid them. They often deny and repress their need for trust and intimacy and instead become extremely independent.

In other words, they prefer to rely on themselves instead of other people, which makes them dismissive of close attachments. For them, dependency, trust and love are traps. They seek painless freedom from emotional attachments and this search is a defence against the feelings of helplessness brought on by being vulnerable.

If we are indifferent to others or dislike them we disarm them of any power to hurt us. Now this indifference was absolutely the characteristic of every one of these children. They neither showed affection nor appeared to care they got it. ‘Whatever we do,’ we might imagine them saying ‘do not let us care too much for anyone. At all costs let us avoid any risk of allowing our hearts to be broken again.’ This, I think, is the explanation of much of their hardboiledness and apparent indifference, traits which puzzle and irritate almost everyone who has to deal with them. It is a policy of self-protection against the slings and arrows of their own turbulent feelings.²

3- Dismissive Avoidant Attachment Style

Dismissive Avoidant Attachment style is when you possess a positive view of yourself and a negative view of others. When you, for example, hold other people in contempt. When you devalue others and consider them inferior to you. These kinds of people say;

“I’m comfortable without close emotional relationships. It is important for me to feel independent and self-sufficient. I prefer to not depend on others or have others depend on me.”

And these people desire a high level of independence — they are fiercely independent. Independence is their self-autonomy, self-agency, and self-efficacy. It is their religion and ideology. And the desire to attain this goal of independence it translates into avoidance of attachment. They avoid all types of attachment whatsoever. We’re not talking only in romantic relationships but for example, they can’t hold a job. They are itinerant — they don’t live in one place for long. They move around. They are rootless and they are ruthless in pursuit of rootlessness.

They view themselves as self-sufficient, and invulnerable and this blends into, sustains and buttresses their grandiosity. Their grandiosity is founded on self-containment, self-sufficiency, independence, autonomy, and self-efficacy — the ability to extract by force if needed beneficial outcomes from the environment.

Because they want to remain invulnerable, they perceive attachment as a weakness, as a vulnerability, as a chink in the armour and they don’t want to be closely associated with others. They deny that they need close relationships and they view close relationships as unimportant in the best case, if not outright weak and stupid. And they seek less intimacy with attachment figures — they often view their intimate partners less positively than they view themselves. They tend to devalue others, including their intimate partners.

And they have a defensive character — it’s actually a defense. The dismissive-avoidant are not really heroic or victorious or impermeable or invulnerable — they are suppressing and hiding their feelings. They can’t afford to get in touch with their emotions — they can’t afford to know what had really happened to them. They tend to deal with rejection by distancing themselves from the sources of rejection. And they do this not only when actual rejection is happening but also when they predict or anticipate rejection — when they misinterpret some behaviours as rejection.³

4- Frequent Change of Jobs

People who struggle with commitment tend to change their life goals regularly and are vague about their plans for the future. They prefer to keep their options open and look for the next best thing as opposed to settling down in one place for too long. This can often lead them to change jobs frequently as they may feel suffocated in one place/work setting rather quickly.

They also show a desire to work for themselves and avoid the standard 9–5 jobs since they don’t like to work around a schedule someone else has decided for them. Working for oneself gives a higher degree of freedom and flexibility, which makes it very attractive for counterdependents.

5- Fear of Being Controlled (Enmeshment)

Counter-dependents tend to be territorial when it comes to their personal space because they fear being controlled or dominated as well as losing themselves in a relationship. This fear of engulfment typically stems from overprotective parenting, where the parents are very controlling of the child. Feeling smothered by the parents, the child gradually develops a need for distance between himself and those around him as being trapped again becomes a terrifying thought.

This can be observed in the behaviours of counter-dependents such as when they are hesitant to introduce you to their family and friends. They prefer compartmentalizing different areas of their life and keeping things separate to prevent enmeshment.

For someone who fears intimacy, the problem often begins when they sense the relationship is becoming too close, which is when they start implementing distancing strategies. They may refuse to make commitments, avoid saying “I love you”, devalue their partners and sabotage the relationship when things are going well on purpose to have and excuse to end it so they can feel free and independent again.

6- Prone to Devaluation

Counter-dependents often look for faults in their partners so they can convince themselves that the relationship won’t work out anyway and that’s why they need to end it as soon as possible. They might make assumptions about their partners’ future behaviour — for instance, if the partner wants to have a phone call every day, this might be perceived as them being controlled by the counter-dependent and they may decide to part ways because they expect the partner to start demanding more from them.

Projective identification also plays an important part in their relationships; counter-dependents tend to make their partners feel insecure by being distant and not showing affection, and because the partners feel anxious and become controlling as a result, they can go on to devalue them.

Once they devalue the partner, they end up discarding them because they feel that they are not a good match, without realising they also played a part in their partner’s dysfunctional behaviours. They might also be afraid that their relationships won’t last, and that’s why end up self-sabotaging to make the relationship fail and avoid getting hurt more in the future.

7- Distaste for Labels or Future Plans in Relationships

Counter-dependents avoid commitment. They often hesitate to use the word “love” and define relationships through terms such as boyfriend or girlfriend. They may act like they are in an intimate relationship with you without wanting to make things official. They feel suffocated by the idea of being in a long-term relationship and making plans for the future as this induces anxiety.

Alternatively, they may want to have an open relationship to feel free and not controlled by or committed to a single person. They may push the partner into such an arrangement even when the partner is reluctant to accept this. Such behaviour is not because counter-dependents don’t want to be in a relationship at all.

It has to do with feeling torn between wanting a relationship and wanting freedom and space. If they do end up in a long-term relationship or marriage, they always have to create a sense of distance in the relationship either emotionally or physically.

8- Rigid Boundaries

Counter-dependents tend to be closed off to stop people from getting close to them. The reason for this is because they had been physically, emotionally or psychologically abused in their childhood. Their rigid boundaries may present in a few different ways;

• Cutting oneself off: They may be prone to isolating themselves from others even when they could use the support and try to handle things on their own.
• Avoidance of conflict: They are likely to withdraw when there is an argument by refusing to communicate, shutting the other person off for extended periods of time and using silent treatment in general, especially as a means of punishment.
• Strict rules within relationships: They may have rigid rules around when a partner can call, text, or schedule time to hang out with them, for instance by limiting how many times they can see each other to only once per week because anything more feels suffocating to them.

9- Cheating

There are many reasons counter-dependents are more prone to cheat. Defiance is one of them. Invalidating the agreement for sexual exclusivity the counter-dependent has with their partner can be used to assert that they are a free person, have free will and no one can tell them what to do.

Cheating can alleviate engulfment anxiety as it may make someone feel not attached to only a single person. It can also be a way to avoid intimacy and emotional vulnerability as cheating would allow the counter-dependent to maintain distance.

Another reason for cheating is using it as a means of self-sabotage, in other words, to push the partner away before the counter-dependent becomes emotionally invested as they fear their own emotions. They may also cheat to maintain control in a relationship by ensuring that they are not the one who becomes too attached.

In general, for individuals with commitment issues, cheating may be seen as less of a big deal than it would be for others, which makes them more likely to engage in it. To them, cheating may seem inconsequential compared with what they view as bigger threats such as being controlled, enmeshed or trapped in a relationship.

References:

[1]: Vaknin, S. (2015). Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited. Independently Published.

[2]: Meloy, J. R. (2001). The Mark of Cain: Psychoanalytic Insight and the Psychopath. Routledge.

[3]: Vaknin, S. [Prof. Sam Vaknin]. (2020, August 14). Insecure Attachment Styles (YOU as Dead Mother) in Narcissists, Borderlines, Psychopaths [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J51ncHP_BrY

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