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I’m not sure if I’m aromantic/asexual or if I’m commitment phobic


Nickie461

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Hello everyone! :)

I’m not sure exactly what I am, and I am open for suggestions lol 

I’m 28 and ever since I can remember, I’ve always been afraid of commitment. I experience physical attraction, but I’ve never experienced sexual attraction, the only time I feel comfortable with sex is if I’ve had a few drinks and can be out of my head about it because sex gives me anxiety in general and I’ve never enjoyed it. I very much want a committed relationship, but any time I get into one, I basically have anxiety and it isn’t long until I leave. I often feel like I’d much rather spend time with my friends rather than the person I’m dating, and I always feel awful for that. I never like having to break up with someone because I don’t want to hurt them, but I always feel much more relieved and free as soon as I do. I sometimes think of commitment as feeling trapped and I wonder if I would do better in a relationship where I didn’t feel like that person loved me way more than I love them? Also, if I sense that they’re not going anywhere and they’re in it for the long haul, and it’s going to have to be up to me to end things, that just makes me want to run quicker. I’m tired of hearing things like “you just haven’t found the right one” because honestly, in my opinion I have multiple times, the issue is always with me and never them. In theory, I want a relationship and I don’t want to just live my life alone, but every time I get into one, I want out immediately and romance,sex, and the thought of getting married and having children has always freaked me out, they sound good in my head, but when I’m actually put in those situations it’s nothing but panic. Can any of these things be helped with therapy, or do I just have to accept that I’m aromantic and stop dating all together?  

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I feel very similarly to you on the subject of commitment. It could be simple commitment issues or perhaps you are somewhere on the aromantic spectrum. You can be arospec and feel warm and attracted to someone but feel uncomfortable at the idea of love. Usually attraction for arospec people can be very complex and confusing. I know I've been in a position where I was definitely in love, but I did not for the life of me want to be in a relationship with that person because there were so many cons for me due to my issues with commitment related to being ace and arospec. I also want to a relationship but feel freaked out by everything that implies once I'm actually in one. I also don't want to dig into your personal life, but if it is just commitment issues maybe there are things from your past that might be influencing your feelings of anxiety? I know that I could possibly have things that influence my anxiety but I've always had difficulties consistently feeling attraction towards someone so I figured it's not going away no matter how much I try. Even if you're aromantic it doesn't mean you HAVE to stop dating and I think it could be something to work through in therapy if it is causing you so much worry. Either way, in that process you will probably be more able to understand exactly what the root is whether it be trauma or your romantic/sexual orientation.

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Hi @Nickie461

 

Welcome

 

It's ok to be both aro ace and a commitment phobe.

I can be friends with a person, laugh and joke with them, but when the person asks for intimacy/sex or commitment, it's a no from me! Thank you, next! haha 

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Hey Nickie461,

thanks for sharing your story. I have never been in a romantic relationship but I can still relate to your feelings of being trapped. Whenever I fantasize about being in a relationship with a person that I like a lot in order to find out wether or not I'm romantically attracted to them and if a relationship could work, I also get these feeling of being trapped. I start to imagine situations where somebody would ask "Are you two together?" and where my natural response would be "Yes right now we are still together" as if I was already planning to break up. Because of this I've never asked anyone for a romantic relationship because my natural reaction would be to break up.

 

1 hour ago, Nickie461 said:

the only time I feel comfortable with sex is if I’ve had a few drinks and can be out of my head about it

I hope you have never been pressured into having sex and had to use alcohol to cope with it! It's not right to treat somebody like this.

 

1 hour ago, Nickie461 said:

Can any of these things be helped with therapy

To me it sounds more like you like something about committed relationships but you can't really say what it is, and therefore you get into a (committed) romantic relationship because you want the commitment, but that the romance aspect of it repulses you. But this might not be how you feel and I could be completely wrong here. If I'm right, it could help to imagine what your ideal committed relationship would look like and how it would differ from a romantic one. There are other forms of committed relationships out there, e.g. queerplatonic relationships (https://aromantic.wikia.org/wiki/Queerplatonic) that might be more appealing to you than a romantic relationship. At least for me a queerplatonic relationship sounds much more appealing.

 

Anyways, I hope I could help you a bit. Thanks for sharing your thoughts because I could really see myself in them. You are not alone with this!

Also WELCOME TO AVEN! Here is the promised cake for every new member 🙂.

vegan-chocolate-fudge-layer-cake-500x375

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3 hours ago, Nickie461 said:

ever since I can remember, I’ve always been afraid of commitment.

Are you able to identify where this might originate from? You need to know what 'it' is in order to work through it. 

 

3 hours ago, Nickie461 said:

. I experience physical attraction

Are you referring to aesthetic / sensual / both? 

 

3 hours ago, Nickie461 said:

the only time I feel comfortable with sex is if I’ve had a few drinks and can be out of my head about it because sex gives me anxiety in general and I’ve never enjoyed it.

If your body is screaming no, don't do it. If your mind is screaming no, don't do it. Assuming you communicate with your partner(s) about how you feel, how do they react & how does that make you feel? 

 

3 hours ago, Nickie461 said:

I’m tired of hearing things like “you just haven’t found the right one” because honestly, in my opinion I have multiple times,

There are many people we can be compatible with, give/take a few compromises so I can see your frustration. Sometimes people say this when they don't know what else to say - don't give it another thought. 

 

3 hours ago, Nickie461 said:

the thought of getting married and having children has always freaked me out, they sound good in my head, but when I’m actually put in those situations it’s nothing but panic.

These are the things we've been trained to work towards - a template that has been passed down. It's OK not to live a cookie-cutter life. 

 

3 hours ago, Nickie461 said:

do I just have to accept that I’m aromantic and stop dating all together?  

The people I know either date lots of people to work out what they like or don't date anyone until someone comes along who fits the picture in their head. It sounds like you've tried a lot of dating so if you're looking for a different result and/or better outcome, perhaps hold off dating for 1yr & see if you can identify what is it that you desire from a relationship. 

 

 

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ClaireDeLune

I feel the same way as everything you mentioned in your post! I am sure I'm asexual but I'm questioning whether I'm aromantic too. I like the idea of a relationship like you see in the movies, I even like the idea of sex, but when it comes down to actually doing it, I have to drink up or else I don't like sex at all. I look forward to spending time with my friends, even co-workers, and really look forward to my alone time, but in my last relationship, even when my partner was awesome and I usually had fun, I dreaded spending time with him instead of looking forward to it. It's just uncomfortable and gives me anxiety. I think that alloromantic people can experience anxiety around their partners for the sake of wanting to impress them, but the happy/excited type of nervousness, should noticeably exceed the dread/discomfort sort of nervousness. For me, the bad nervousness always exceeded the good nervousness, because romance just wasn't that exciting for me, so what I was getting out of it wasn't great enough to exceed the discomfort of the nerves. 

 

I think the important thing to ask yourself is whether you would still want a relationship if your friends could commit to you the way you'd ideally wish they could. I think that I only want a relationship because I imagine that my friends will find partners and I'll be pushed aside, or that I want a relationship because I want to be someone's #1 in priority. But if I didn't have a fear about getting my needs met through friendship alone, I might be perfectly happy with just friends and no romance. So that might be a distinction that might be helpful to consider. 

 

In psychology terms, if being commitment phobic were your issue, you would also hold your friends and family members at arm's length and try to act like people in general don't mean a lot to you. (Although, some people family members that are legitimately toxic and need to be cut off, and that's different. The difference there might be in whether your friends are telling you to cut them off or if they're saying that they wish they had a family like yours.) The point of holding people at arm's length here, is that people who are close are people who can hurt you. At the core is the fear of getting attached then getting abandoned. Therefore, being commitment phobic is actually rooted in fear of abandonment, which is not the same as getting close but feeling a queasy or nauseous about the closeness (the latter would be more aro/ace). 

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