The Advantages of Having a Relationship Agreement When You're in a Monogamous Relationship

In my article, What is an Ethical Non-Monogamous Relationship?, I discussed the advantages of having a relationship agreement that is mutually agreed upon by the individuals in the relationship.  But relationship agreements aren't just for non-traditional relationships.  There are also advantages to having an agreement in a monogamous relationship.

Relationship Agreements For Monogamous Relationships

Although many people enter into monogamous relationships assuming they are both on the same page, this often turns out not to be the case (see my article: Telltale Signs You and Your Partner Aren't on the Same Page About Your Relationship).

Once they're in a committed relationship, couples often discover that each of them have different ideas about what it means to be monogamous because they haven't talked about it beforehand.

You might say, "But being monogamous means you've made a commitment to be with just one person!  Isn't that obvious?"  I would respond that it's often more complicated than that.  

Let's explore this further below.

People Are Living Longer: Monogamy Forever vs Monogamy For Right Now 

In her book, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, Dr. Esther Perel, relationship and sex therapist, says that, in the past, monogamy used to mean that you were with one person for the rest of your life.

But today people are living much longer than they did in the past, so monogamy often means something different today: For many people it means that they'll be monogamous with one person at a time, the person they're with right now, which might not be for the rest of their life.  

As compared to the past, many people no longer think in terms of a forever relationship because there is a recognition that relationships are more likely to end now than they did in your grandparents' day.  This doesn't mean that no relationship ever lasts.  Obviously, many relationships do last a lifetime, but half of them don't.

I don't think most people enter into a committed relationship or a marriage with the idea that it won't last. But, at the same time, most people know, even if it's way in the back of their minds, that about 50% of first-time marriages end in divorce.  And they know those aren't good odds.

Infidelity Has Increased

According to Kinsey sex researcher and social psychologist, Dr. Justin Lehmiller, about 20-25% of people admit to cheating on their spouse, and the rate is even higher among people who are in a relationship but not married.

There are also more opportunities to cheat on dating apps, including dating apps for people who are married but who want to have affairs. There can be additional cellphones with secret calls, emails and texts.  There are social media sites with messaging that make it convenient to cheat. And so on.

According to Dr. Lehmiller, people give various reasons for cheating on their spouse or significant other, including:

• Sexual desire
• Anger
• Lack of love
• Neglect
• Lack of commitment
• Situational factors, including alcohol or being away on vacation
• Ego/esteem boosting (see my article: Infidelity and the Need to Feel Desirable)
• A desire for variety

There is No "One-Size Fits All" Standard for Monogamy These Days

While it might have been clear what monogamy meant 40 or 50 years ago, today there are so many factors to take into consideration.  

When two people in a relationship don't discuss what monogamy means to each of them, there are often misunderstandings and hurt feelings when they encounter differences in how they each define monogamy, as we will see below.

Clinical Vignettes: Couples Who Agreed to Be Monogamous Discover They Define Monogamy Differently

The following vignettes are composites of many different cases with all identifying information removed:

Ann and Bill

Ann and Bill were in their early 40s.  Ten years into the marriage, Ann discovered Bill watching pornography one night when she woke up in the middle of the night and went into their living room to see what Bill was doing.  This upset Ann very much because she considered it a violation of their marriage vows.  Bill couldn't understand why Ann was so upset.  To him, watching porn was a meaningless diversion.  Although they argued about it for days, they couldn't reach an agreement.  Ann insisted that Bill seek help in therapy, but he refused.  So, instead they entered into sex therapy as a couple.

Relationship Agreements For Monogamous Relationships

While in sex therapy, they each realized that they had never talked about this issue before and each of them assumed the other was in agreement with him or her.  Ann accused Bill of being a "sex addict" during their sex therapy sessions, and Bill accused Ann of being a "prude."  Over time, they learned in therapy that Bill wasn't a sex addict and Ann wasn't a prude--they just saw things differently.  They were able to work on the underlying issues that were causing problems for them and they eventually reached a compromise.  They also worked on a relationship agreement together and they each had a written copy of it.  The process of working on the agreement helped them to understand each other, avoid problems and it brought them closer together.

Gary and Ina

Gary and Ina dated for two years before they moved in together when Gary's New York City apartment lease was up.  They both agreed to be monogamous.  One day, when he was out with colleagues, Gary went to a local bar and saw Ina having drinks with a very attractive man.  They were sitting close together talking and laughing, which upset Gary. She told Gary earlier in the day that she was having drinks with a colleague, but she never mentioned her colleague was a man and that he was very handsome. Gary was also disturbed to see how close they were sitting and how their body language signaled an intimacy between them. After he calmed himself down, he walked over to Ina and the man she was with and she seemed surprised to see him.  She introduced Gary to Mike and told Gary that she was just about to leave and Mike agreed to drive her home.  

Relationship Agreements For Monogamous Relationships

Later that night, when they were home together, Gary told Ina how upset he was to see her with Mike.  Ina immediately took offense to Gary's words because she felt he was accusing her of cheating.  After many arguments, they entered into couples therapy where they talked about their differences.  Ina admitted that there had been other nights when she and Mike had drinks together, but they kept it strictly platonic. She said she just enjoyed his company.  At first, she didn't see anything wrong with being with Mike.  But over time, Ina realized that, even though she and Mike weren't having sex, they were having an an emotional affair where there was emotional intimacy.  She realized this wasn't healthy for her relationship with Gary. She also realized it could complicate issues at work, so she stopped seeing Mike outside the office.  Eventually, Ina and Gary worked out a written relationship agreement about this issue and other issues, which helped to bring them closer together.

Bob and Joe

Five years into their marriage, Bob realized that Joe was seeing other men for casual sex. He found emails from several men that were sexually explicit with pictures and links to hotels where Joe was meeting them.  This was something they had never talked about before, and Bob now realized that he had avoided the issue before because he was afraid of a verbal confrontation. He wasn't seeing anyone else, but he knew many of his gay male friends who were in relationships were non-monogamous.  Some of them hadn't worked out any agreement about these other relationships. They somewhat knew there were other men, but they didn't discuss it.  Some were in consensual non-monogamous relationships where they worked out an agreement between them.  And others were supposed to be monogamous but they were cheating on each other.  When he worked up the courage to talk to Joe, Bob told him about the emails he found and he expressed his hurt and anger.  

Relationship Agreements For Monogamish Relationships

In response, Joe expressed surprised. He assumed they had a "don't ask, don't tell" agreement where they were basically "monogamish" (monogamish is a term coined by Dan Savage, a gay sex columnist, which means that a couple is committed to each other but they have sex with other people).  Joe said they thought their unspoken agreement was that they could see other people as long as they practiced safe sex and didn't develop an emotional attachment to anyone else.   A few weeks later, they were in couples therapy working out their differences.  Eventually, they worked out a written relationship agreement that they both could live with where they would practice consensual non-monogamy.  They agreed to be each other's primary partner, but they could have occasional sexual affairs with other people as long as everything was above board and out in the open.

Nina and Jill

After dating for two years, Nina and Jill decided to move in together.  They planned to get married in a year.  One day Nina met Jill at a local lesbian bar in Manhattan where Jill often met friends.  As soon as she arrived, Nina saw Jill dancing and flirting with another woman.  When the dance was over, Nina asked Jill to step outside to talk and she told Jill how upset she was to see her flirting with another woman.  Jill responded defensively.  She couldn't understand why Nina was upset because she considered flirting to be harmless.  She said she enjoyed flirting because it was an ego boost for her and for the other person.  Nina told her she considered flirting to be cheating or, at the very least, micro-cheating, and she wasn't going to stand for it.  Soon after that, they went home and they had a big argument.  

Relationship Agreements For Monogamous Couples

In the heat of the moment, Nina told Jill she wasn't sure she wanted to get married to someone who was going to flirt with other people.  Jill was hurt when she heard this and she responded by saying she wasn't sure she wanted to marry someone who was so petty and jealous.  

A few weeks later, when they couldn't work things out on their own, they sought help in couples therapy.  Being able to talk things out in an emotionally safe environment helped each of them to open up.  They soon realized they had never discussed this issue before.  Although each of them thought their opinion was the "correct" one, they also wanted to come to a mutual agreement.  

Over time, Jill realized that even though she had no intention of developing a sexual or emotional relationship with anyone else, she enjoyed the variety she experienced when she flirted with other women.  She also liked feeling desirable when other women responded by flirting back. In addition, she said, with some hesitation, she and Nina had not had sex in several months, and she felt neglected. But since she knew it was hurtful to Nina, Jill agreed to stop flirting.  And, as part of their written relationship agreement, which they worked out over time, they agreed to find ways to bring novelty and sexual desire back into their relationship (see my article: The Power of Novelty to Enhance Sexual Desire in Your Relationship).

The Benefits of Working Out a Relationship Agreement

Although no agreement can resolve every problem in a relationship, there are advantages to these agreements, including:

• It Sets the Tone For the Relationship: Since both people have worked on it together (as opposed to one person dictating the terms of the agreement), it sets the tone for the relationship.  

• It Creates an Honest Framework: When the written agreement is thorough and both people have agreed to it, there's no reason to wonder how your partner might feel about the issues you both discussed and no reason to hide anything.  There can be honesty and transparency in the relationship.

• It Can Be the Basis For Revisions Over Time: Although both people agree to follow it, a written relationship agreement isn't carved in stone.  Individuals can change.  The relationship can change.  Circumstances can change.  In addition, no matter how thorough an agreement is, there might be new issues that neither person thought about when the agreement was first negotiated.

Relationship Agreements Can't Guarantee the Relationship Will Work Out

Relationship agreements aren't guarantees.

It's possible that one person is more invested in the agreement than the other.  Sometimes this is because one person in the relationship isn't accustomed to conceptualizing and communicating on this level.  

Other times one person agrees to go along with the agreement just to appease the other partner, and they might be ambivalent about having an agreement at all.  But they want to just get it over with or they don't want to appear to be difficult.

In other cases, unfortunately, the person who is going along with it has no intention of following the agreement and they hope their partner won't find out they are continuing to engage in the same old behavior that caused problems in the first place.  This might include an attitude like: What my partner doesn't know won't hurt her (or him).

Having a Relationship Agreement Can Save a Relationship

Although it's not a panacea and one or both people might feel a relationship agreement is too time consuming to work out, in the long run, it's better to have an agreement than not to have one.  

Ideally, it's better to have an agreement before making a commitment to enter into a monogamous relationship and before problems begin.  This can save a lot of heartache in the long run.  But most people don't see a reason to work on an agreement until there are problems.

A relationship agreement allows each person to think about issues they might not have thought about before, to communicate their needs to their partner, and to learn about their partner's needs.

As part of the process, there might be some trial and error as each person gets to live with the established agreement, but a relationship agreement can save a relationship.

Seeking Help in Couples Therapy

Relationship agreements can be tricky for a couple to work out on their own, especially since there are emotional issues at stake and the possibility of hurt or angry feelings as well as emotional triggers related to unresolved trauma.

Couples Therapy Can Help Save Your Relationship

Working with a couples therapist can help to identify each of your needs, understand the underlying emotional issues involved, compromise if necessary, and renegotiate as things change (see my article: What is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) For Couples?)

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I am a sex positive therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

What Are the Characteristics of a Healthy Family?

Articles about family dynamics are mostly focused on dysfunctional families (see my articles: Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families). But, of course, there are also healthy, functional families, and I think it's also worth discussing the characteristics of a healthy family, which is the focus of this article.

What Are the Characteristics of a Healthy Family?

There's no such thing as the "perfect family" and the concepts related to functional and dysfunctional families are really on a spectrum with many families falling somewhere in between (see my article: A "Happy Family" Doesn't Mean a Perfect Family and Happy Families: A Strong Family Narrative Can Help to Build Resilience).

Characteristics of Functional Families:
The following characteristics describe a functional family:

• A Safe Home Environment:  All family members feel emotionally and physically safe in the family home.  Each member of the family can express his or her feelings respectfully without fear of being ridiculed, criticized, dismissed or belittled.  There is no emotional, physical, sexual or abuse of any kind.  There is no substance abuse or addiction of any kind.

• Parents Work Together to Co-Parent:  In a healthy family, parents work together as a team. A parent doesn't try to undermine the other parent or try to get children to take his/her side.  Parents work together to co-parent the children, even if they are divorced (see my article:  Co-Parenting After the Divorce).

• Children Are Allowed to Be Children: As opposed to a dysfunctional family where children are often put into various rigid roles, like the family scapegoat or the "golden child," in a healthy family, children are allowed to be children in an age-appropriate way. They are not expected to over-function for the parents or take on parental roles (see my articles: The Role of the Family Scapegoat in Dysfunctional Families, How Psychotherapy Can Help Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families: The Golden Child and Role Reversal in Mother-Daughter Relationships).

• Siblings Are Encouraged to Cooperate With Each Other: In a healthy family, siblings are encouraged to help one another and cooperate with one another (as opposed to a dysfunctional family where children are often pitted against each other). This doesn't mean that there isn't sibling rivalry or that siblings won't argue.  Basically, it means that the children have each other's back.

• Personal Boundaries Are Respected:  Family members respect each other's personal boundaries and function in a healthy way.  Parents function as mature adults without crossing boundaries by trying to be their children's friend.  They allow the children to have privacy and the children respect their parents' privacy.  Parents don't interfere in their adult children's relationships, and adult children don't overstep boundaries in their parents relationship (see my articles: Why Your Child Can't Be Your Best Friend, Learn to Stop Interfering in Your Adult Child's Relationship and Ambivalence and Codependency in Mother-Daughter Relationships).

• Healthy Values Are Instilled: Parents who instill healthy values, including respect for others who are different from you, are helping their children to grow into healthy individuals.  These values might be spiritual, a formal religion or an overall ethical view of life.  At the very least healthy values include living by the "Golden Rule" of treating others as you would want to be treated (see my article: Living Authentically - Aligned With Your Values and Becoming Your True Self).

• Coping Skills Are Taught: As part of their natural development, very young children have low frustration tolerance and very little in the way of coping skills.  As children mature, it's the parents' responsibility to teach children healthy coping skills in an age-appropriate way.  By learning healthy coping skills, children grow into adults who can cope with small and large crises that are a normal part of life.

• Promises and Commitments Are Honored: For children to have a sense of security, it's important for family members to honor their promises and commitments.  While this might not always be possible, placing a high value on keeping promises and commitments will go a long way to fostering a healthy family environment (see my article: Keeping or Your Breaking Your Promises).

• Mistakes Are Acknowledged: Whether it's the parents or the children who make a mistake, family members acknowledge, take responsibility and make amends (see my article: The Courage to Admit You Made a Mistake).  In addition, parents raise children who are not afraid to make mistakes--as long as the mistakes aren't harmful to others (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Making Mistakes).

• Healthy Communication is Modeled and Encouraged: Parents model healthy communication with each other.  They encourage their children to talk to them about whatever is bothering them, and children feel safe enough to come to their parents without fear of being belittled or ridiculed.  Parents also communicate to children about changes in the family in an age-appropriate manner (see my article: Talking to Your Young Child About Your Divorce).

• Disagreements Are Settled in a Respectful Way: All families have times when there are disagreements between family members.  What is most important is how these disagreements are handled and how relationships within the family are repaired if there is a disagreement.  Parents and children respect one another even when they disagree.

• Time Together is Valued: Family time is valued, including eating meals together as a family as much as possible, celebrating holidays and birthdays together, creating family traditions, and so on.  As children become adolescents, they will want to spend more time with their friends, which is a natural part of being a teenager and wanting more age-appropriate autonomy.  Family time could also include telling stories about extended family and prior generations so that children develop a healthy sense that they are part of a larger family network.

• Change and Autonomy Are Respected: In a healthy family, parents recognize that their children have their own minds.  As children get older, children might develop values and opinions that are different.  Parents in a healthy family also allow for age-appropriate change and autonomy.  Differences are respected (see my article:  Being the "Different One" in Your Family).

Conclusion:
The concept of a healthy, functional family is on a continuum rather than it being an all-or-nothing issue of being functional or dysfunctional.

In most cases, rather than worrying to be the "perfect parent," it's important to realize that, to paraphrase Donald Winnicott, a British psychoanalyst and pediatrician, you just need to be "good enough."

I have included the characteristics of a healthy family in this article.  You might think of other characteristics and, if you do, you can drop me a line at the email listed below.

Getting Help in Therapy
Whether you're struggling with unresolved childhood issues that are affecting you now or other problems that you've been unable to resolve on your own, you could benefit from attending psychotherapy (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A licensed mental health professional can help you to resolve your problems so you can lead a more meaningful and fulfilling life (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Keeping Your Promises

In a prior article, Freeing Yourself From Family Expectations and Beliefs That Are Harmful to You, I discussed how family expectations and beliefs that are unhealthy can lead to an individual making a promise that can't be kept.

Keeping Your Promises

In the fictionalized vignette in that article, a young girl makes a promise to her grandmother and her mother that, when she becomes an adult, she will follow the family legacy of being the adult daughter who takes care of her mother when her mother becomes unable to take care of herself.

Keeping Your Promises

Part of that promise is that she won't place her mother in a nursing home no matter what happens.  But, eventually, when she becomes an adult, she is unable to keep this promise because she can no longer maintain her mother at home, as per her mother's doctor's recommendations.  It has become impossible in terms of what the mother needs medically as well as the toll that it is taking on her and her husband.

One of the points of that vignette is to demonstrate how challenging it can be to come up against certain family legacies that have been maintained for generations.  In the case of this vignette, the expectation is that the adult daughter takes care of the elderly mother until the end of the mother's life without complaining or calling on their brothers for help.

Another important point is that these family dynamics are so ingrained that they are often out of the awareness of the individual.  They are often unconscious until a person comes to therapy and the therapist helps the individual to discover these unconscious beliefs which are at the root of the problem.

In the case of this vignette, the adult daughter's unconscious belief were that she would be a "bad daughter" and a "bad person" if she broke her promise to her mother and grandmother by breaking with  a longstanding tradition in her family.

In this type of situation, even when a person understands logically that it would be detrimental to a loved one's health to keep this kind of promise, the unconscious belief can be so powerful that the person can still feel, on an emotional level, that they're "bad."  So, this is why it's so important for the therapist to work in an experiential way gets to the unconscious dynamics.

Most people would agree that, as in the case of this vignette, young children should never be put in the position of being asked to make such a promise.  Not only do they lack the capacity to understand at such a young age what they're agreeing to, but it also places a terrible burden on them.  And, as in the vignette discussed in the last article, it was a promise that eventually couldn't be kept because to do so would have been detrimental to everyone involved, especially the elderly mother.

What is a Promise?
On the most basic level, according to Merriam-Webster, the definition of a promise is "a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified."

What is a Promise?

When you make a promise, you're giving your word that you will keep your commitment.

Promises range from the ordinary, like making a promise to meet someone for dinner, to life changing events like pledging lifelong fidelity during a marriage ceremony.

Keeping or Breaking Your Promises
As an adult, before you make a promise it's important to consider beforehand whether you'll be able to keep that promise.

Of course, you can only work with the information that you have at hand, things change and there might be times when you're unable to keep your promise.  Most people will understand if, for example, occasionally, you have to cancel a dinner because you have an emergency at home.  But, generally speaking, when you make a promise, the other person expects you to maintain your commitment, so it's important to think first before making promises.

If you're in the habit of breaking promises, you might want to look at some of the questions below and consider these issues before making a promise.

What to Consider Before Making a Promise:

• Ask yourself why you're considering making a promise.  
• Are you doing it for yourself or primarily for the other person?  
• If you're not sure, it might be better to figure this out before making the promise, especially if it's a situation where the other person is really depending upon you in a critical matter. For instance, if you make a hasty promise to get the other person off your back, you and s/he might come to regret it when you're unable to fulfill your commitment.
• Are you taking into consideration all your other commitments?  
• Is it realistic for you to make this promise in light of the other obligations that you have in your life?  
• Are you over-committed already?
• Is this a promise that you're likely to keep?  
• There are some promises that are unlikely to be kept because we're human and we make mistakes.  For instance, if a husband promises his wife, "I'll never hurt you," can he really say that he'll never say or do anything in their marriage that will never hurt his wife?  Hopefully, there won't be anything that's big, like infidelity, but just about everyone in a long-term relationship, at some point, says or does something hurtful, even if it's only an angry look or a snarky comment made without thinking.  In most relationships, these issues are usually overcome if everything else is going well.  But no one can promise to be perfect in this way.

How to Handle a Broken Promise Under Ordinary Circumstances
There are times when you're not going to be able to keep your promise.  For example, I'm referring to an ordinary commitment that you've made to see a friend for dinner.  I'm not referring in this section to big important promises, like a promise to be faithful in your relationship, which I'll deal with in a future article.

Take Responsibility and Give as Much Notice as Possible

As I mentioned, most people will understand if, on occasion, you have to reschedule a dinner, as long as you don't have a pattern of breaking these commitments.

The important thing is to be as considerate as you can to the person that you made a commitment with by:

• Taking responsibility for breaking the commitment, even if it's unavoidable.  Acknowledging that you're breaking a promise shows that you understand that, even under unavoidable circumstances, you are aware that it's an inconvenience for the other person.
• Giving that person as much advanced notice as possible so s/he can make other plans or adjust their schedules accordingly.
• If possible, make an attempt to reschedule with your friend.
• Keep these broken commitments to a minimum by taking into account the questions outlined above before you make the commitment.

Feeling Good About Yourself By Keeping Your Promises and Commitments
When you can fulfill your promises and commitments, not only does it help you to strengthen and maintain your relationships with others, it also makes you feel good about yourself.

Keeping Your Promises Strengthens Your Relationships and Helps You to Feel Good About Yourself

When you keep your promises, you feel like a confident and trustworthy person.

Making it habit to keep your promises also helps you to continue developing your skill to keep your commitments in the future.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have worked with many individuals and couples to help them with their commitments in their personal life as well as in their career.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Are You Dating Someone Who Has Problems Making a Commitment to a Relationship?

There comes a time in any dating relationship when you and the person you're dating decide if you're going to take it to the next level--making a commitment to be in a monogamous relationship or deciding that you're not going to pursue a serious relationship.

Are You Dating Someone Who Has Problems Making a Commitment to a Relationship?

Under ideal circumstances, you and your dating partner talk about it and mutually agree either that you're going to be in a relationship, you're going to remain in a casual dating situation or you're going to stop seeing each other.

But, often, both people don't see eye-to-eye about it.  One person might want to remain casual while the other might want to be in a more committed relationship.  This can put an emotional strain on each of you as you try to work out this situation.

If you're the person who wants a committed relationship and your dating partner wants to remain in a non-monogamous dating situation, what do you do?

Of course, there are no easy answers and it depends on many factors.  For instance, if the two of  you have been dating for a year and you're a woman in your late 30s who wants to have children soon, you might have different feelings about it compared to a woman in her early 20s who is not in a hurry to have children.

And, if you're dating partner has a long history of avoiding making commitments to relationships, you would probably want to consider this if it has been a lifelong pattern.

It can be a very hurtful situation to discover that you've fallen in love with someone and you want to take your relationship to the next level, but your dating partner is ambivalent.  You might decide to give the situation more time.

Are You Dating Someone Who Has Problems Making a Commitment to a Relationship?

But if you're someone who wants to get married and have children one day or you just want to settle down with one person, you'll want to ask yourself some hard questions about how long you want to wait to see if the person you love wants to make a commitment to you:

How long are you willing to wait and what is the downside of waiting?  Will it be eroding to your sense of self?  Will there be increasing pressure and tension between the two of you?

Are you being honest with yourself about this person and if you're both suited for each other?  Are you allowing the head-over-heels feeling of being in love blind you to certain problems between you?

Are you staying with this person because you're too afraid to be alone?  Are you afraid you won't meet anyone else?

These are tough but necessary questions to confront.

I think many people know deep down when it's time to end a dating relationship with someone who has problems making a commitment, but they often don't want to break up because they don't want to go through the heartache.

What's even more heartbreaking is to look back on time that has passed and realize that, all along, the person you're dating would never be able to make a romantic commitment no matter how long you wait.

If you're in a dating relationship with someone who has problems with making a commitment, you owe it to yourself to be honest about your feelings with yourself and your dating partner.   You have a right to be happy and so does your dating partner.  You might feel that you won't be able to tolerate the loss, but most people are a lot more resilient than they realize and they overcome these losses.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also, see my article:
Dating vs Being in a Relationship