“Is he afraid of commitment or just not into me?” – 8 questions to ask yourself

Commitment. It’s a big word, isn’t it?

Dating is fun and easy – you find someone you enjoy being with, and you slowly but surely build your life with that person.

But commitment is something else entirely: it’s the promise of staying with that person for the foreseeable future, making huge life decisions with them, and building a home and family with that person.

The idea of commitment is usually a much bigger struggle for men than it is for women.

So many women find themselves wondering – why won’t their man commit?

Does he have commitment issues, or is he simply not interested in a serious relationship with them?

Here are 8 questions to ask yourself to help you understand whether your man is afraid of commitment, or afraid of you:

1) Do you know his normal pace?

One of the biggest reasons why couples fight or argue is that they don’t have the same relationship “pace”.

We all have different understandings of how quickly a relationship should develop and evolve from milestone to milestone.

Some people like to take things incredibly slow, while others can go from first date to marriage in all of a few months.

If you’re worried that your man is struggling with commitment because he hasn’t made certain steps in the relationship yet, ask yourself: is your man generally fast-paced or slow-paced?

Does he like to process things quickly so that he can move on to the next thing as soon as possible, or does he stop and smell the flowers?

Once you get a sense of his natural pace, you can then try to understand whether you’re simply rushing his pace too quickly and expecting too much of him too soon.

But if his pace is quicker than the speed at which your relationship has developed, then the problem might not be commitment at all, but his questions about you.

2) How is he with your friends and family?

Relationships can be so isolating, to the point that you blind yourself to things that are obvious to everyone around you.

A man who is just playing games with you and isn’t intending to take you seriously understands that.

This is why he’ll always try to be with you and you alone, which is when you’re at your most vulnerable.

When you’re around other people, he might change into a completely different person.

But if a man really loves you – and his only hang-up is the act of long-term commitment – he’ll still be the same man he is with you as he is when he’s with your loved ones.

He knows he has nothing to hide so he has nothing to worry about.

So instead of shying away from your loved ones and trying to keep you from them, he’ll instead dive headfirst into them and treat them as he treats his own friends and family.

3) Does he fight for the relationship when things get tough?

All relationships have problems, and one easy way to see whether your man is in it for the long-haul or is just playing games with you is to analyze how he acts when things get tough.

A man who really loves you but is afraid of commitment will still take every opportunity to save the relationship and fight for it.

He’ll always make sure you know that he loves you and that he loves what he has with you.

Not only that, but he will also want to protect you at all costs.

You see, for guys, it’s all about triggering their inner hero.

I learned about this from the hero instinct. Coined by relationship expert James Bauer, this fascinating concept is about what really drives men in relationships, which is ingrained in their DNA.

And it’s something most women don’t know anything about.

Once triggered, these drivers make men into the heroes of their own lives. They feel better, love harder, and commit stronger when they find someone who knows how to trigger it.

Now, you may be wondering why it’s called “the hero instinct”? Do guys really need to feel like superheroes to commit to a woman?

Not at all. Forget about Marvel. You won’t need to play the damsel in distress or buy your man a cape.

The easiest thing to do is to check out James Bauer’s excellent free video here. He shares some easy tips to get you started, such as sending him a 12 word text that will trigger his hero instinct right away.

Because that’s the beauty of the hero instinct.

It’s only a matter of knowing the right things to say to make him realize that he wants you and only you.

Click here to watch the free video

But if a man just isn’t as interested in you as it seems, then he won’t fight as much as you would expect and he won’t have that instinct to protect you.

Sure, he may put up some resistance to the idea of losing you, but overall the effort and enthusiasm just won’t be there.

4) Does he act like a long-term partner in every way?

Being commitment-phobic doesn’t make a person relationship-phobic.

In most cases, men who are afraid of commitment are still perfectly happy in healthy, positive, long-term relationships.

It’s more about the idea of being shackled to one person for the rest of their life that bothers them.

They feel that they aren’t ready to make that decision, even if they would be perfectly happy to see their lives go down that path.

So if you’re wondering if your man has a problem with commitment or has a problem with his interest in you, just ask yourself:

How much does he actually act like your long-term partner?

If he’s already your fiance in every way aside from the ring, then chances are he’s definitely interested in you, and he’s just worried about making that final leap.

But if he’s distant from you in multiple ways in the relationship, then the problem might be his interest.

If he disappears on you from time to time, or if he has gaps in his time that he can’t explain to you, or if he still keeps parts of his life hidden from you, then it might not actually be commitment.

The question on his mind is whether you’re the right woman to finally share all that with.

5) How does he react when you two get particularly close?

When a man really isn’t interested in developing something serious with a woman, he’ll often shy away whenever she starts to get too clingy or intimate with him.

After a particularly romantic date, he might not call or message for a few days, or he might start being too “busy” to see you for a while.

This is his way of telling you that he doesn’t really want to mislead you, but he still wants to continue whatever fling you’ve got going on.

But when his problem is commitment rather than interest, he won’t push you away so aggressively.

Instead, you’ll sense a level of inner turmoil within him, as if he’s struggling with an important choice in his heart (which he is).

Upon confronting him, he won’t treat you like you mean nothing to him; he’ll just find it difficult to put together two sentences.

6) Have you asked him how he feels about commitment?

So many relationships blow up simply because one or both partners didn’t do the simplest thing possible: communicate.

If you think that your man might be commitment-phobic, or simply just not into you, then ask.

You might not like the answer you get, but one way or another, you’re going to get an answer.

If his issue is with commitment, you’ll realize what he’s missing from the relationship to cross the bridge from where he is now to being seriously committed with you.

Men often find it difficult to express their emotions, mostly because they feel like they aren’t going to be heard or understood in the first place.

By asking this question, you show him that you’re willing to hear him out, whatever his hang-ups regarding commitment may be.

7) Does he have any past trauma?

It can be extremely frustrating being with a man who checks all the boxes you want in a boyfriend and husband, but whenever you get too close to him, he seems to withdraw.

While this can definitely be a sign that he’s not truly interested in you, it could also be a sign of something else you haven’t considered: past trauma.

So does your man have any past trauma?

It might not be something either of you has ever acknowledged to be actually traumatic; not all trauma is recognizable.

But even events in our past that we thought had little to no impact on us can stay with us for years or decades to come, especially if you never look them head-on.

Perhaps he came from a broken family, with parents who divorced or were constantly fighting one another.

Perhaps he’s had previous relationships where he exposed himself too much, only to be left wanting.

And now he’s left as a man who has difficulty committing because he’s been burned so many times in the past.

In cases such as these, it would be your job to guide him back towards that place of commitment vulnerability, showing him that he can do it safely with you.

8) How attentive is he with you?

No matter what stage in a relationship two people are in – from newly dating to married for 20 years – you can always see a spark of attention between them if they truly love each other.

Both partners know how to capture and captivate each other, which is partly why they love each other and love spending time together.

But if a man seems bored, distracted, or restless when he’s with you most of the time, then his problem probably isn’t commitment.

His problem might be that he’s not really into you, and perhaps he doesn’t know it or he hasn’t accepted it yet.

Attention can be one of the most difficult things to fake in a relationship because you can always tell when someone is genuinely giving you their attention or just forcing it.

And remember: you deserve someone who gives you his fullest attention without you begging for it.

By now you should have a better idea of whether this guy wants commitment or not. 

But if he doesn’t, then the key now is getting through to your man in a way that empowers both him and you. 

I mentioned the concept of the hero instinct earlier — by appealing directly to his primal instincts, you won’t only solve this issue, but you’ll take your relationship further than ever before.

And since this free video reveals exactly how to trigger your man’s hero instinct, you could make this change from as early as today. 

With James Bauer’s incredible concept, he’ll see you as the only woman for him. So if you’re ready to take that plunge,be sure to check out the video now. 

Here’s a link to his excellent free video again