Romantic Misfits: An Impulse to Run for the Hills
We’re all secretly hoping that in the great dating lottery of fate, we get to avoid all the major short straws typically on the table. Naturally, we hope we don’t run into someone who plays with our feelings, or intentionally hurts us. We hope we don’t run into addiction, or even worse, fear of commitment (because at least addicts can commit to one thing, right?).
But what if that someone, that much feared and avoided person, is us? The Internet is filled to the brim with articles on how to deal with partners [mostly men] with commitment issues, but far less literature on how to deal with your own closet skeletons.
First things first, is it fear of commitment, or just the wrong partner?
It’s fair to assume that, if you’re second-guessing your future with a person, it might not be the right person for you. We live in an age where it’s trendy to have an issue, so some of us will automatically leap at the label “I have commitment issues”. Or Daddy issues. Or abandonment issues. Or all three. Fuck it, treat yourself, you know?
But in many cases, it’s not you that’s messed up, it’s just that you’re not in the right relationship, and your gut knows that. This ties into another common dating pitfall — the overwhelming need to belong, which is human, though not always healthy.
This is the inner voice that says “okay, we’ve found someone fairly safe, let’s stay here”. The longer you linger in a relationship, it’ll breed familiarity and routine, which can anchor us to the wrong people. Through them, even if the relationship itself is not stellar, we stay in relationships because we’re used to the person (and not having someone to text you “good morning” seems like too much of a hassle). Throw in the fear of getting your heart broken, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a long, if not particularly satisfying relationship.
Now, if this is you, and yet you find yourself getting panicky about your future with your partner, that might just be your gut telling you this isn’t right for you. So first of all, ask yourself, do I have commitment issues generally, or just with this one person?
A hard question to answer. To do so, you’d need to objectively look back at your past relationships, as well as your current one, which is next to impossible. But helpful, if we’re going for accuracy.
This is where we might begin glimpsing an answer. If your retrospect reveals a general tendency to panic and run when issues like long-term, settling down, or having kids pop up, then the problem is probably more deeply rooted. We could be looking at commitment issues, in that case.
For extra proof, broaden your search. Don’t just look at your romantic past, but also at your friendships. At your career. Basically, at everything else in your life. Because fear of commitment often splashes over into other areas of your life. Common symptoms include an inability to stay put, constant search for new thrills, inability to hold down a job, etc. Loyalty to a company or place is still loyalty, after all.
Why am I scared of commitment?
Infamously, that often stems from a difficult early life, in most cases. If you experienced abandonment, abuse, or were forced to navigate tricky family dynamics as a child, it’s likely that bred a lack of trust. If your kin can (and will) hurt you, how could you trust that anyone else won’t?
Unfortunately, this coincides with our childish need to see our parents as good people. Even when they’re not. Especially when they’re not. Because they’re our parents, and we don’t get another set of those, right? So it’s often difficult to identify, and much less to address such issues.
While latter failed (romantic) relationships might also lead to commitment issues, that’s a rare incidence. Simply put, we’re no longer so easily impacted by disappointment and/or abandonment. Yes, if you get your heart broken, you’ll have a harder time getting involved in a new relationship, but ultimately, you will.
With childhood trauma, however, you started with the idea that you’re not worthy of love from the get-go. It’s much harder to change and relearn the game’s rules mid-play.
But what if your parents were not particularly bad people?
While it’s unpleasant to accept that your parents abused or majorly mistreated you in some way, coming to terms with your trauma can be even more difficult when they didn’t. Why do we function wrong, if no one fucked us up visibly? And why are we romantic misfits, if Mommy and Daddy loved each other? Or, even worse, loved us?
This propels us into Denial Territory. Your guide for the trip? Guilt Complex. The truth is, it’s much harder to accept that, despite having a relatively normal, uneventful, and undamaging childhood, we’re still damaged.
Seriously, what is up with that?
We just seem ungrateful, if we later fail to form meaningful connections of our own, or follow certain relationship patterns, when ours was a happy life.
What baffles me about this conundrum is that, regardless whether we grew up well or not, the symptoms are still there:
Some of us are still scared of commitment.
Some of us still get into hard drugs. Or drink. Or both, at the same time, because life’s short.
Most of us still end up confused, and hurting, trapped between the urge to scream and run for the hills, and smile and get in touch with nature.
Which throws serious doubt on our earlier theory — that childhood trauma leads to fuck-uppery in adulthood. Because if the destination’s the same, can we really claim it was our parents who led us there? What if we were destined to be crazy before, and we simply got dealt an extra shitty hand?
Maybe it’s tempting to look back and say “Oh, I would’ve been normal, if only this hadn’t happened”. But maybe that normal’s just a comforting lie we tell ourselves, in order to trick ourselves that the Right Path exists. As long as the Path exists, there’s hope that we’ll eventually walk it. However, if we’re just carving our way as we go along, there’s the implication that we may never find our way out of the forest.
Ultimately, as in any game, what matters most is how you play that hand. Maybe you experienced atrocity. Maybe you didn’t, but are messed up anyway.
Question is, how much longer are you gonna let that define you?
