Quotes & Sayings About Fear Of Commitment

The fear of making permanent commitments can change the mutual love of husband and wife into two loves of self-two loves existing side by side, until they end in separation. — Pope John Paul II

Community as belonging ...
Each person with his or her history of being accepted or rejected, with his or her past history of inner pain and difficulties in relationships with parents, is different. But in each one there is a yearning for communion and belonging, but at the same time a fear of it. Love is what we want, yet it is what we fear the most. Love makes us vulnerable and open, but then we can be hurt through rejection and separation. We may crave for love, but then be frightened of losing our liberty and creativity. We want to belong to a group, but we fear a certain death in the group because we may not be seen as unique. We want love, but fear the dependence and commitment it implies; we fear being used, manipulated, smothered and spoiled. We are all so ambivalent toward love, communion and belonging. — Jean Vanier

You do NOT fear your OWN ability to COMMIT. Just think about your unwavering dedication to your career, your notion of sisterhood and friendship. You are tireless. That is why we all lean on you. Because you are totally committed to the lot of us. You do not have a "fear of commitment" that's just an easy way out of all of this. What you have dearest one, is a deep seated and totally understandable fear of OTHER people's commitment to YOU.
I totally wholeheartedly agree, you've never been in love. Until Zac, you've chosen chaps whom you've simply liked but who have loved you. so when it's over, it hasn't hurt you.
Why have you done this, over all these years? I'll tell you why, because what YOU actually fear is being left by someone YOU love.
Your fear of COMMITMENT centres solely on another's commitment to YOU'It makes — Freya North

Truth is, something that I thought was perfect was taken away from me, and I never wanted perfect again. I wanted middle of the road, stuff I didn't care about so that I couldn't lose anything I really loved ever again. — Cecelia Ahern

In his State of the Union speech in January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt declared America's commitment to Four Freedoms in the struggle against Nazi totalitarianism. Among them was the freedom from fear. — Robert Dallek

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us. — Timothy Keller

Your objective is to avoid being on a string.
The first step, I think, is to get over the fear of losing a man by confronting him. Just stop being afraid, already. The most successful people in this world recognize that taking chances to get what they want is much more productive than sitting around being too scared to take a shot. The same philosophy can be applied to dating: if putting your requirements on the table means you risk him walking away, it's a risk you have to take. Because that fear can trip you up every time; all too many of you let the guy get away with disrespecting you, putting in minimal effort and holding on to the commitment to you because you're afraid he's going to walk away and you'll be alone again. And we men? We recognize this and play on it, big time. — Steve Harvey

Godly fear is loving and trusting in Him. As we fear God more completely, we love Him more perfectly. And "perfect love casteth out all fear." I promise the bright light of godly fear will chase away the dark shadows of mortal fears as we look to the Savior, build upon Him as our foundation, and press forward on His covenant path with consecrated commitment. — David A. Bednar

As someone who struggles with anxiety and cowardice, as we all do, I'm profoundly inspired by ... full-on commitment to wonder, to wonder as a response to anguish or difficulty. It makes everything a puzzle, right? A catastrophe is nothing but a puzzle with the volume of drama turned up very high. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The very first thing I remember in my early childhood is a flame, a blue flame jumping off a gas stove somebody lit... I remember being shocked by the whoosh of the blue flame jumping off the burner, the suddenness of it... I saw that flame and felt that hotness of it close to my face. I felt fear, real fear, for the first time in my life. But I remember it also like some kind of adventure, some kind of weird joy, too. I guess that experience took me someplace in my head I hadn't been before... The fear I had was almost like an invitation, a challenge to go forward into something I knew nothing about. That's where I think my personal philosophy of life and my commitment to everything I believe in started... In my mind I have always believed and thought since then that my motion had to be forward, away from the heat of that flame. — Miles Davis

Fears and expectations that date back to earlier experiences of dependency, but that didn't arise during courtship or dating, are activated as commitment to the relationship increases. As a result, partners start to anticipate the worst, not the best from their relationship. — Stan Tatkin

If the people who said they loved you abused or neglected you, it can feel terrifying to love again ... Commitment or love with a family feeling can be scarier still. The child in you still equates commitment with being locked into a situation where there's no escape. So as you get closer, you may become paralyzed by all your old defenses & memories. — Ellen Bass

The merits of leadership are so ingrained that it's natural to say, "I'll take the lead."
Sometimes, though, it may make more sense to take the follow. Leading when you don't know where to go, when you don't have the commitment or the passion, or worst of all, when you can't overcome your fear- that sort of leading is worse than none at all.
It takes guts to acknowledge that perhaps this time, right now, you can't lead. So get out of the way and take the follow instead. — Seth Godin

No, being too busy isn't your reason for keeping clutter in your life. Uncomfortable though it may be to have so much unfinished work surrounding you, you keep those magazines and broken antiques because all that potential feels nice. Now take one more step in your thinking and what you'll find is a tiny but powerful fear of commitment. — Barbara Sher

Over commitment in business is usually due to a lack of faith, which results in fear - specifically, the fear of failure. But if we really believe God is in control, then we also should believe He's able to make us successful while we are keeping our lives in balance. — Larry Burkett

Network Marketing is a flexible, credible and exciting way to build a business and change your life. But it isn't a get rich quick scheme that will transform your life overnight with no effort or commitment on your part. People fail in Network Marketing just as they do in every part of life because they fear their own dreams, they fail to plan and they allow apathy and self-doubt to keep them firmly stuck in their comfort zone. — Dave O'Connor

When women hold off from marrying men, we call it independence. When men hold off from marrying women, we call it fear of commitment. — Warren Farrell

The way out then is personal responsibility, new operating systems downloaded from outside of culture, which means from the deeper wisdom of the psychedelic plants and then a commitment to community and a motto of "To the future, without fear!" Without fear! — Terence McKenna

The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating -- in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around like rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. — Anne Morris

We are witnessing the total collapse of a bad idea. Obamaism, a quasi-socialist commitment to a more powerful government at home and an abdication of American leadership around the world, is being exposed as a historic calamity. It is fueling domestic fear and global disorder and may well lead to a world war. — Michael Patrick Goodwin

For the first time I realized that my life was just full of brokenness. I worked in a broken system of justice. My clients were broken by mental illness, poverty, and racism. They were torn apart by disease, drugs and alcohol, pride, fear, and anger. I thought of Joe Sullivan and of Trina, Antonio, Ian, and dozens of other broken children we worked with, struggling to survive in prison. I thought of people broken by war, like Herbert Richardson; people broken by poverty, like Marsha Colbey; people broken by disability, like Avery Jenkins. In their broken state, they were judged and condemned by people whose commitment to fairness had been broken by cynicism, hopelessness, and prejudice. — Bryan Stevenson

The degree to which we openly express our feelings should be governed, not by fear of reprisal, but by our commitment to loving others. — Larry Crabb

They all told me I had a fear of intimacy, but I vehemently disagreed; I craved intimacy like a crack addict.
The problem was that I craved intimacy to the same burning degree that I detested commitment.
Being a statue was such a perfect job. — Amanda Palmer

The superior weapon of choice to fight ineffective, unwarranted distrust and fear, is a commitment to believing in others, coupled with a charitable heart; it is then that logic and intellect can be most successfully employed to deal with such negative emotions. — Connie Kerbs

Quit? Quit? We keep score in life because it matters. It counts. Too many people opt out and never discover their own abilities, because they fear failure. They don't understand commitment. When you learn to keep fighting in the face of potential failure, it gives you a larger skill set to do what you want to do in — Pat Summitt

Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is a commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause
the cause of liberation. — Paulo Freire

When I started studying the issue and issues related to fatherlessness, I realized I had all of them. Fear of intimacy, fear of commitment, poor work ethic, just stuff that you don't have when you don't have a man in your life to look you in the eye and say, "You're good," or "Good job." — Donald Miller

Mutual commitment helps overcome the fear of failure - especially when people are part of a team sharing and achieving goals. It also sets the stage for open dialogue and honest conversation. — Mike Krzyzewski

I acknowledge that a wife does (and should) exercise a degree of control in the family and home; but what I present is not a constructive form aimed at supporting a healthy relationship, but a destructive form that - whether intended or not - destroys a relationship through the invocation of fear and flight rather than love and commitment. I also propose that this method or "device" (as I have called it) was learned in part from a very young age from her parents. — H. Kirk Rainer

... each woman is a wonderful world unto herself. And monogamy? It's like choosing to live in a single town and never traveling to experience the beauty, history, and enchantment of all the other unique, wonderful places in the world. Why does love have to limit us?
Perhaps it doesn't. Only fear is restrictive. Love is expansive. And I wonder, since fear of enmeshment impels us to avoid commitment and fear of abandonment makes us possessive, what type of evolved relationship can emerge once those wounds are healed? — Neil Strauss

When I was younger, I thought that the key to success was just hard work. But the real foundation is faith. Faith - the idea that 'I can do it' - is the opposite of fear ('What if I fail?'). And faith creates motivation which in turn leads to commitment, hard work, preparation ... and eventually success. — Howard Twilley

Never feel lonely with you," said Bean when they stopped kissing. "I keep expecting to feel lonely or shut out or irritated, but the more we are together, the more right it feels, the more we seem to belong together." Isadora felt the same, but she feared admitting it. She feared the commitment it implied, she feared the heartbreak, the entanglement that leads to bitter loss. Bean waited for her to pledge herself to him in turn, but she remained silent through fear and the recentness of her heartbreak. — Erica Jong

The inner experience of fallure is totally different than failure. Going to fallure means 100% commitment - you leave nothing in reserve, no mental or physical resource untapped, you never give yourself a psychological out. Failure means making a decision to let go, to be less than 100% committed, when confronted by fear, pain and uncertainty. — James C. Collins

We will understand the depth of our vision when at some point we are finally faced with the price we must pay to achieve it. And when the price comes calling, most visions end up falling. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

That common cold of the male psyche, fear of commitment. — Richard Schickel

Love is a commitment to cherish another's heart as if it were your own, it is an adventure to seek into all that creates them, it is laying under the stars and dreaming far and wide, it is seeing fear and grabbing each others to face it anyway, it is allowing another to be themselves with out your consent, it is knowing when darkness fills them you don't carry their burden; you just lighten their load. And if your love isn't as beautiful as this, why have you been loving the wrong one for so long? — Nikki Rowe

Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction, homelessness, a weapon of mass destruction ... racism, a weapon of mass destruction, fear, a weapon of mass destruction. We must disarm these weapons and renew our commitment to quality public schools and dedicated teachers and good housing and quality health care and decent jobs and stronger neighborhoods. — Dennis Kucinich

Fear of commitment lies behind the fear of writing. — Hilary Mantel

I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am - for just an example - self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests, and feel like I'm not one of the good ones; but then I countenance the fact that here at least I am worrying about it; so then I feel better about myself (I mean, at least this stuff is on my mind, at least I'm dissatisfied with my level of integrity and commitment); but this soon becomes a vehicle for feeling superior to (imagined) Others ... It has to do with God and gods and a basic sense of trust in the universe v. fear that the universe must be held at bay and micromanaged into giving me some smidgen of some gratification I feel I simply can't live without. It's all very confusing. I think I'm very honest and candid, but I'm also proud of how honest and candid I am - so where does that put me. — D.T. Max

Netball is great for people with a fear of commitment. — Shane Rodgers

A marriage bound together by commitments to exploit the other for filling one's own needs (and I fear that most marriages are built on such a basis) can legitimately be described as a "tic on a dog" relationship. Just as a hungry tic clamps on to a nourishing host in anticipation of a meal, so each partner unites with the other in the expectation of finding what his or her personal nature demands. The rather frustrating dilemma, of course, is that in such a marriage there are two tics and no dog! — Larry Crabb

When I write, I don't allow the fear of consequences to interfere with the writing process. I have in the past paid for my commitment to the truth and the way I live my life. I am prepared to pay more if I have to. — Taslima Nasrin

Monogamous relationships can be based on fear: fear of losing my partner because he might fall in love with another woman, or fear that she may find a more secure man with a deeper purpose than my own to guide and protect her.
"Nevertheless it also can be based on love where our commitment to open and be opened by one intimate partner becomes our way to express love for him or her, our children, friends, and ultimately the whole world and Source. — Nityananda Das

There are certain fundamental requisites for wise and resolute democratic leadership. It must build on hope, not on fear; on honesty, not on falsehood; on justice, not on injustice; on public tranquility, not on violence; on freedom, not on enslavement. It must weave a social fabric in which the most important strands are a devotion to truth and a commitment to righteousness. These are essential ingredients of the American way of life. They are the necessary conditions for the achievement of freedom and human progress the world over. — Edmund Ezra Day

People that say I have a 'fear of commitment' don't understand my relationship with popcorn. — Dov Davidoff