“How do I get him to commit?”

This question arrived in my inbox this week, and I am probably going to “question the question” a bit here, so please forgive me if it seems I am taking the long way around. 😉

First off, let’s define commitment.  (Commitment is a topic I’ve addressed before in the shortest blog post ever, here.)

Before we move any further, it would be a good idea to get really clear on what commitment means to you… does it mean marriage?  monogamy? living together? what exactly?

Secondly, I’m curious about why this question gets asked.  I can only guess at the situation, and it may or may not be something like this…

You’ve been dating for a certain amount of time and he still wants to “take it slow” and “date other people”, while you want to be exclusive…

OR, maybe you are exclusive and monogamous but you want to live together and he is completely fine living in his own space…

OR, maybe you’ve been living together for a while and you want to be married but he isn’t asking…

The common denominator in all of these scenarios is that you want something you don’t have, and he is content with things the way they are.

Although there may be some “how to get him to commit” action or strategy out there, to me that seems like manipulation, and manipulation is not okay in my book.

My take is if HE isn’t bringing it up (“it” being monogamy, living together, marriage, whatever) then he is not ready, or not interested.

So, I think that we’re attempting to answer the wrong question here.  Maybe the right question is “How do I find a man that wants to be in a committed relationship?”

That’s a question we’ll tackle next week.  Stay tuned…

Until then…

Love & Magic,

Cindie