Men who struggle to commit

20 October 2026

One of the reasons a man finds it hard to commit in his romantic relationships is because he both longs for and yet fears intimacy. 

He may enter into a new relationship with enthusiasm and excitement, hoping that ‘this is the one’. Yet after a few months, or even weeks, he finds himself noticing flaws in his partner and questioning if they are right for each other. In this post I’m focusing primarily on men in heterosexual relationships although some of the dynamics may also apply to same sex relationships.

Sometimes the ‘flaws’ he begins to notice in the other person may seem trivial. But the seriousness, or not, of the flaws isn’t the issue. The deeper problem is that he is seeking a perfect partner, which of course doesn’t exist, so any imperfection even trivial can be seized upon in his mind as a reason to look for someone else. 

Questioning the causes

When he experiences this relationship breakdown a few times, in his youth, he may be able to explain it away as ‘they weren’t right for me’. But as he ages and still finds it hard to achieve a fulfilling relationship he may begin to realise that the causes may lie in him rather than in the people he dates. 

So, what is going on? Why do some men find it so difficult to commit to relationships? 

Fundamentally, one of the reasons is fear of intimacy and what that actually means in practice. These men may say they want closeness and intimacy, and a part of them genuinely does seek that. But at the same time, and often less consciously, they fear feeling too close.

Childhood wounds

One of the reasons for this fearing too much closeness may lie in his childhood. Some men, as children, had ‘enmeshed’ relationships with their mothers.  By ‘enmeshed’ I mean that healthy boundaries were not always in place. The boy may have felt that he was the ‘special’ child, his mother’s favourite. 

Perhaps she was disappointed with her husband and confided in her son, or she was separated from her partner and brought up her son alone. There may have been other siblings but the boy felt, at some level, that he was ‘special’.  He may have felt that he had a particular responsibility for his mother’s happiness, by listening to her or winning her approval.

What this can result in is a boy who didn’t feel his life was his own, that he was free to be himself. Instead he had to become very sensitive to his mother’s needs and feelings. He may have felt he needed to be a ‘good’ boy, in line with mother’s wants, and to feel it was somehow wrong to have his own needs and wants.

This experience of somehow being ‘used’ by his mother can lead to profound anger in the boy. This anger is often not fully felt because it is taboo, but may remain when he has grown up and become an anger that exists towards women more generally.

Not fully 'separated'

In some sense this kind of man has often not fully ‘separated’ psychologically from his mother. So, when he is in adult romantic relationships with women there may still be a part of him that is in some way still overly attached to his mother. This may look like spending significant time listening to his mother and/or spending time with her.

These men have been described as ‘mother-enmeshed men” by psychologist and author Kenneth Adams. He describes how men that have excessive emotional ties to their mothers can feel ‘trapped, guilty and disloyal when attempting to follow their own wishes and lead their lives.’ At the beginning of a relationship these men can seem to considerate and loving but then, over time, their partner discovers that the man cannot seem to commit.

Feeling suffocated

For the man the problem is often not that he won’t commit but rather that he doesn’t feel able to commit. He has been raised in an environment where the mother’s needs were either overtly or subtly put above his needs. He therefore feels responsible for women’s needs and this can feel suffocating.

A variation of this idea is that of the puer aeternus, or eternal boy in Latin. A bit like Peter Pan the puer aeternus is the man who can be charming, creative and seemingly easy going. He may have an attractive youthful quality. But when it comes to commitment this kind of man struggles. He hates any kind of limitation or boundary and may also find it difficult to commit to his career or other areas of his life. He would rather flit around, dabbling in this and that and relying on his charm to carry him through. 

Like the mother-enmeshed man the puer aeternus’s behaviour stems from a relationship with his mother in which he somehow had to take on responsibility for his mother’s emotional needs, while his own needs had to be sacrificed.

Anger

While he may appear relaxed and easy going the puer aeternus can have a deeper anger towards women, as it was a woman who originally imposed on him, inappropriately, her own emotional demands. While it may not be fully conscious this anger can feed into his adult relationships with women and prevent closeness and commitment.

It’s important to recognise that, while I’m holding the mother responsible for imposing her emotional needs onto her son, that will have been caused by her own emotional wounds from childhood. It will also have been due to a feeling of loneliness in her own primary relationship or even being abandoned by the boy’s father. Often the fathers in these families, if they are present physically, are often emotionally absent to both the mother and son. This may be due to excessive work or just not showing up for their family. I wrote about this in a previous post, Too much mother, not enough father.

That mother’s turning to the son will often be due to a feeling of disappointment or disconnection from her partner, although this will not be a conscious decision but more something that simply seems to happen until if feels like the norm.