I asked my boyfriend for a commitment and he said we don’t know what the future holds
I often hear from women who are with a man with whom they would happily spend the rest of their lives. Often they know right away that he might be “the one.” Unfortunately, sometimes a man doesn’t have that type of security. He often wants to slow down and just see what happens.
Understandably, the woman will often do her best to wait patiently for him to come to this decision. Sometimes weeks, months or even years start to drag on and on. Sometimes she starts dropping little hints that he doesn’t understand. When that doesn’t work, she will often start dancing around the problem. She may begin to worry that he is not as devoted to her as she is to him. She may begin to think that she loves him more than he loves her. And that’s usually when she just comes and asks if there’s a future on the horizon. And sometimes she gets an answer that not only doesn’t reassure her, but confuses her even more.
I heard from a woman who said, “I love the man I’m with right now. We were blissfully happy for about thirteen months. We have cupboards and drawers in our homes because we often stay. Sometimes I feel like we almost live together. And while I’m happy that he wants to spend so much time with me, I also know that I want more. I want a real future with this man. I want to be engaged and possibly married. But every time I bring up the subject, he changes the subject. I was really hoping he’d pull out a ring at my birthday dinner, but that didn’t happen. And he hasn’t given me any reason to think it might happen in the future. So last night I couldn’t take it anymore and asked him what future he saw with me. I was hoping he would say that he sees weddings, children and a white picket fence in the very near future. But he didn’t say that. Instead, his exact words were “I don’t know what the future holds.” Needless to say, this did not satisfy me. I pressed on and asked him what that meant. He was very disappointed and replied that he meant exactly what he said – that none of us knew what tomorrow would bring and that he just wanted to enjoy today and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes. My girlfriend said it was a dumb excuse and that it was code for the fact that he didn’t want to marry me. Is this correct? What do his words really mean?” I will try to answer that in the next article.
Just because he doesn’t know what the future holds doesn’t mean he doesn’t want (or see) a future with you: I didn’t think this woman’s friend was necessarily right. Although some men may use this as an excuse, this is certainly not always the case. Sometimes he means exactly what he says, that he’s either not at the point in his life where he wants to think too far into the future, or he’s not at the point in the relationship where he’s thinking in those terms.
Sometimes it has nothing to do with you or your relationship. It has more to do with his place in life or his current attitude towards commitment and marriage. Other times, he may have some concerns about the relationship that make him just wait and see how things play out. Panicking about it or crushing it to demand an explanation will usually only make things worse. There is generally a better way to play it, which I will discuss right now.
How best to handle this situation: You probably already know this deep in your heart, but if you confront him or pressure him, you only make it more likely that he will continue to back away. Stop and ask yourself if his hesitation has anything to do with you or the relationship and if any part of it is within your control. If his concern is about his fate in life or the commitment itself, then the best course of action is to strengthen your relationship as much as you can and be patient.
If he has specific concerns about your relationship, then your focus should be to correct or overcome his concerns by making the necessary genuine changes that offer him confidence. You probably have a better handle on what’s behind his hesitation than anyone else.
So to answer the question asked, usually this statement either means exactly what he says or is meant to ask you to be patient while he either works out concerns about his own life or concerns about the relationship.
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