Commitment uncertainty is one of the major challenges couples may present with in couples therapy. Commitment is typically a fundamental part of an exclusive romantic relationship. It influences how partners invest in the relationship, identify with one another, and engage with their shared life. Yet, partners may become unsure whether they want to remain committed, whether the relationship will continue, or whether they want to keep investing in it. This is referred to as commitment uncertainty. Understanding this uncertainty is important because a lack of commitment is strongly associated with separation and divorce.
Commitment uncertainty emerges after partners have formed a mutually agreed-upon relationship, such as an exclusive monogamous relationship, and it differs from the uncertainty that can occur during early dating, when the relationship status has not yet been defined.
What Is Commitment?
Several theoretical models describe two broad aspects of commitment. The first concerns wanting to be in the relationship, while the second concerns forces that encourage a person to remain in the relationship.
Research distinguishes these as dedication commitment and constraint commitment. Dedication includes a strong sense of couple identity, a desire for the relationship to continue long term, giving the relationship priority, and a willingness to sacrifice for it. As partners experience their relationship as meaningful and meeting their needs, they tend to pay less attention to alternatives. Constraint commitment refers to difficulties that bind partners together. These can include investments in the relationship, concerns about the well-being of a partner or children, financial circumstances, and social pressure. Constraints can encourage partners to remain together and may also encourage them to work on their relationship. However, constraint commitment alone is unlikely to be sufficient for a functional and healthy relationship in the long term.
How Commitment Uncertainty Develops
Supported by research findings, my experience as a licensed psychologist counselling individuals and couples from all over the world revealed several ways in which commitment uncertainty can emerge in an intimate relationship.
A Significant Relationship Event
Uncertainty may begin with an event that becomes a
turning point in the relationship. Such an event can lead partners to reevaluate their relationship and its future.
A Gradual Deterioration
Commitment uncertainty may also develop slowly as connection and engagement between partners deteriorate. At the same time, partners may avoid confronting their uncertainty. Existing constraints, such as living together or having children, can help sustain the relationship and make it possible for partners to resist the growing uncertainty.
Recognition of Compatibility Issues
In other cases, commitment uncertainty may become apparent without a specific event. Partners may recognise fundamental compatibility problems and realise that critical issues in the relationship were not adequately considered earlier.
Uncertainty From the Beginning
For some couples, uncertainty may have been present from the beginning of the relationship. A relationship may begin with low levels of adjustment and remain consistently low in adjustment.
Commitment Uncertainty Due to Attachment Insecurity
Furthermore, there is a critical factor associated with commitment uncertainty: attachment insecurity, comprised of two dimensions, attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Relationship uncertainty is known to mediate the association between both attachment dimensions and commitment.
However, the two attachment dimensions are associated with uncertainty in different ways.
Attachment anxiety involves a strong desire for intimacy and protection alongside concerns about a partner's availability and commitment, fear of abandonment, and concerns about one's own value to the partner. Increasing attachment anxiety is also associated with jealousy and greater emotional ups and downs.
Attachment avoidance, on the other hand, involves discomfort with closeness and dependence, less reliance on relationship partners for care, and a preference for distance. Lower trust in partners and perceptions of others as negative or unreliable are seen as factors associated with increased doubts about the relationship.
Relationships Essential Reads
The indirect association with commitments was stronger for attachment anxiety than for attachment avoidance.
Why Can Commitment Uncertainty Persist?
Both external and internal factors can contribute to the persistence of commitment uncertainty.
External constraints can make it difficult to act on uncertainty. Concern about children, for example, may encourage partners to remain together and attempt to work through their difficulties. Financial constraints may have a similar effect. These pressures can help couples remain together while facing uncertainty, but they can also result in partners staying together without addressing the underlying uncertainty, potentially contributing to increasing negativity in the long term.
Internal processes can also interfere with fully addressing uncertainty. Denial, dissociation, and avoidance may reduce contact with the emotional turmoil associated with uncertainty. Such processes may also be expressed behaviourally, including through an affair.
Assessing Commitment Uncertainty in Couples Therapy
First of all, commitment uncertainty can concern either a person’s own commitment to the relationship or their perception of their partner’s commitment.
Secondly, it is useful to consider dedication and constraint commitment, as these different aspects can help clarify the nature of the couple's commitment and how it developed.
For example, a feeling of having been trapped by circumstances may indicate that commitment was not fully established initially and may contribute to continuing uncertainty.
During a course of my integrative couples therapy, online or in person, I tend to discuss commitment uncertainty during joint sessions and explore it further in individual sessions, while establishing clear boundaries and explicit confidentiality arrangements from the outset.
Chicken or Egg Dilemma: Commitment or Relationship Change?
A particularly difficult situation arises when couples describe their position as: “I would be more committed if things improved.” The “things” may include communication, intimacy, or other difficulties within the relationship.
This creates a “chicken-and-egg” dilemma. A partner may say that commitment will follow improvement, while the lack of commitment itself reduces motivation to change relationship behaviour.
There may be two possible ways of addressing this dilemma. The couple may directly address whether the relationship should continue, or they may temporarily put the question of commitment aside and work on other relationship difficulties.
Some couples may agree to set aside questions about continuing the relationship for a set period. This can provide stability while they work on the relationship and prevent the possibility of separation from becoming a bargaining tool during everyday disagreements.
If the purpose of couples therapy is instead to clarify the future of the relationship, commitment itself needs to remain central to the work. The process involves examining the factors influencing the decision, considering the consequences of staying or leaving, and distinguishing relationship distress from a desire to end the relationship.
What Is the Goal of Couples Therapy That Addresses Commitment Uncertainty?
Traditional measures of successful couples therapy often focus on improved relationship functioning or avoiding separation or divorce. However, for couples experiencing commitment uncertainty, remaining together is not necessarily the only possible outcome of therapy. The outcome may include separating well or achieving satisfactory individual well-being.
I find it important to focus couples therapy on reducing avoidance and increasing positive engagement with the question of commitment.
In addition, couples therapy should not rush towards a decision. A demand for certainty may itself represent avoidance; thus, space for thoughtful decision-making needs to be allowed.
To sum up, for couples experiencing commitment uncertainty, therapy may involve exploring how that uncertainty developed, what maintains it, and what they want the outcome of therapy to be.