How to Get Him to Commit Emotionally In 5 Simple Steps

Author: Sarah Meyer 

When it comes to relationships with men, emotional commitment is the real prize. 

You could be the sexiest girl he’s ever seen, or the smartest, or the one with the awesome group of friends, but if you don’t inspire his emotional commitment, you won’t get anywhere. 

Except probably ignored or given crumbs. 

You might be brought out for sex when he feels like it, or be briefly shown as something to brag about, to make him look good.

You may be kept quiet and satisfied, but never really seen, never really known, and never really taken care of. 

Or you may even just be abandoned after a while, once another woman comes along who does know how to get him to commit emotionally. 

How do I know this? 

I know because something like this happened to me - and the worst thing was, I didn’t even really notice.  

At that time in my life, I didn’t know what it was like to have a man who is emotionally committed to me. 

And by this I mean - a man who is in love with me, who is willing to make sort of crazy sacrifices for me, like packing up his life and moving halfway across the world and into a bunch of unknowns. 

I didn’t know that it was possible to have a man who would wake up at 2 a.m. every Saturday and talk to me for the whole night, because that was the only time we actually had to spend with each other. 

And he never once missed a call.  

Before I experienced that emotional commitment, I felt like things were going well just because my boyfriend at the time wasn’t cheating on me, or because we both enjoyed watching certain shows or taking trips together.

I didn’t realize how much was missing until I found out that when life gets hard, and we actually had to be responsible for each other in the face of suffering, all that comfort and convenience was worth absolutely nothing.

Related: If A Man Really Loves You, He Will Do These 17 Enviable Things.

If nothing really tests your relationship, it can be easy to just assume that you have a man’s emotional commitment. 

But when you look back, sometimes you realize it was never really there. 

By the way, if you’d like to learn ONE specific emotional trigger that makes any man commit, I have something very special for you: CLICK HERE to LEARN the One Specific Emotional Trigger Within Every Masculine Man That Inspires Him to Want to Take Care of You, Worship You and Deeply Commit to You.

Before we get into how to get him to commit emotionally, let’s look at a few signs of what emotional commitment actually looks like. 

This will vary depending on your man’s personality and your relationship circumstances, but some general pointers to look for include:

1. He is consistently and intensely focused on you (at least some of the time)
2. He actually wants to know you (and why you like that book/said that thing/cried at that movie) 
3. He listens to you and remembers what you say 
4. When you’re upset or sick, he tries to help you 
5. He’s happy when you’re happy 
6. He spends time with you without having or pursuing sex
7. He makes an effort to help you feel secure 
8. He can’t hold back his intense love and appreciation for you (as long as he believes you feel the same way)
9. He tries new things or considers new perspectives because you introduced him to them

Of course, all of this is a process. We aren’t going to be starting out with dramatic declarations of love and admiration - and if that is happening right away, it should be cause for concern, because it has to be proportional to how well your man knows you, and how you feel about him too. 

In a healthy relationship, the progression from interest and getting to know one another to the level of emotional commitment described above, would probably take at least a few months, depending on how much time you spend together. 

During this time, you want to feel like you and your man are roughly in sync, moving from feelings of fascination, excitement, and deep interest in one another, towards the powerful emotions of falling in love. 

Here’s a video from Renée on the 5 Unusual Signs He Is Madly In Love With You.

It is not hard to tell when a man is in love. But what makes all of this tricky is the fact that we don’t inspire a man to fall in love with us just by existing. 

There is a degree of skill to all of this - a skill unconsciously ingrained through the process of evolution and sexual selection for the most part.

But the skill is arguably also made conscious in the stories we tell ourselves about love and attraction, in the way we compete with other women for the men we want, and in the choices and beliefs we act out in our relationship. 

For some women, the skill of inspiring emotional commitment may come easily and naturally, without much thought. 

But for most of us, that’s just not the case.

Why? 

Because of all the bad advice out there and the devaluation of women with more traditionally ‘feminine’ life goals, (such as being loved by a man we truly respect and admire).

Because of this devaluation of women with more feminine goals, we don’t even know that emotional commitment is the thing that we want. 

And we certainly don’t know how to create it. 

I’m not going to tell you what you want in a relationship. 

Maybe you’re happy with something that feels a little different, a little calmer, a little more like a friendship. 

Those relationships can serve their purpose - although I would warn against them, from personal experience. 

But if you do want a man’s emotional commitment, and all the passion that comes along with that, let’s look at 5 simple steps on how to get him to commit emotionally, so that the two of you can share in the deepest connection there is! 

QUIZ TIME: Are you truly living in your feminine energy? CLICK HERE to find out with my specially crafted 9 Question Quiz!

A commitment is not a one-sided thing. 

It is something that you and your man build together, that you both invest in and receive value from. 

This might sound simple, but it’s actually incredibly easy to overlook. 

It’s extremely likely that at some point, we will deceive ourselves and deceive men about what we think we want, only to find out that all along, we were chasing something quite superficial and trivial and trying to call it love. 

If you want a quality relationship, you have to be prepared to question what is easy. What does that mean?

• It means that the things we say we want aren’t always what we truly want deep down; and
• Just because we want to demand something from a man, or have our needs fulfilled, doesn’t mean that that desire is going to bring us real emotional commitment

So when we think about how to get him to commit, it’s important to be aware that if you are just going into a relationship with a man to get yourself:

• A romantic proposal story
• A fancy ring
• A perfect wedding; or 
• Even the perfect family

All you are actually doing is using him. 

Using him in the same way that a man who pursues you to fulfill all his sexual fantasies about you would be using you. 

These are the things that we as men and women do primarily to earn the respect of other members of our own gender - although they can also get us approval from the opposite sex in certain situations. 

We seek them, consciously or unconsciously, to prove that we are worthy - that we are better than those losers with their ordinary, boring relationships, that we have earned the maximum possible value from our mate. 

The problem with thinking this way is not that it’s wrong to want these things. 

All of them - rings, romantic moments, and sexual fantasies, are worth something, and have a lot to add to our lives in the right context. 

But in focusing on how our relationship “measures up” to others, or against the ideal we’re fixated with, we end up limiting our relationship and how deep it can actually go. 

Why is this?

Because we are not going to the relationship to connect and to give. Instead we are there to be enough, and to have enough. 

If you want a genuine emotional commitment from a man, the first thing you need to do is to connect with the part of yourself that actually wants the emotional commitment. 

The part of yourself that actually wants to feel the joy and the passion of being close with this man. 

The part of yourself that wants to experience the kind of deep loyalty and belonging that cannot be broken, even when your man seems to be hitting obstacle after obstacle in his life, has barely any energy left for romance, and can’t pay the bills on time. 

You’ll also need to connect with the part of yourself that wants to be there for him in his life, when he gets that promotion, when his parents pass away, or when he stands up for something he believes in and gets judged and ostracized for it. 

The part of yourself that actually wants him to know you - and not just all the desirable qualities that are going to make him feel lucky to have you in his life. 

The part of yourself that wants him to be there with you when you:

• Don’t know what to do anymore
• When you’re scared or sick
• When you’re making a mistake or treating people badly and you need someone to point it out

And ultimately, the hardest part of you that you’ll need to connect with is the part of yourself that can’t pretend to be in any kind of control anymore.

MORE: Should I Control My Emotions To Be High Value?

When you connect with that part of yourself, and that part of your man, that is when you are investing in an emotional commitment. 

Anything else - anything beyond you and him, is not what we want to orient ourselves with. 

Assuming your man is the kind of man who has some options in his life, (and if he doesn’t, that’s not a good sign) why would he commit to you? 

Because you are the sexiest and most successful woman he can get right now? 

Because his friends are getting married and his mom wants some grand-kids and he thinks this is what he should do with his life?

It’s very easy to believe these things, because these are some of the reasons we as women are motivated to commit. 

But these things are never the things that inspire a true emotional commitment from a man. 

Instead, the reason he’d commit to you is because he just can’t help himself. 

1. Because he loves you too much to do anything else, and because he doesn’t want to envision a future without you in it 
2. Because he is devoted to you and to all the little things that make you special and unique
3. Because he is invested in your happiness and wants to see you fulfill your dreams
4. Because you make him feel like he matters, like his thoughts and his ideas and his hard work are valuable and important
5. Because the things he loves are even better with you 

How do we get to this place where a man cannot help but give his emotional commitment? 

Well, we don’t get there by hiding ourselves away. 

We get there by being open, by being everything that we are, and sharing that with him. 

Because there is actually more within one person, if we go deep enough, than there is in all the superficial interactions we could have with other people. 

And that depth is the thing worth sacrificing for. 

If we don’t offer our whole selves, what is there to commit to? 

For a man, there would be no reason to turn down other opportunities with other women - opportunities that come without the cost of a committed relationship. 

It is only the power of one complex, flawed, multidimensional woman who needs him, and specifically him, that can overcome his natural tendency to conserve his resources and remain detached. 

In committing to this one woman though, he finds more fulfillment and purpose than he ever would have had in a casual relationship. 

A man getting to know us in all of our depth is only one half of the equation, however. 

We also need to be curious about him. 

And this means that we need to bring his inner self to light, to get past his defenses and the persona he might be projecting to the world, and invite the parts of him that haven’t been noticed to surface. 

The best way to do this is to first remove our own guards and to stop pretending we are something we are not. 

And instead, to relax into all the things that people judge about us, so that he can feel safe to do the same. 

We want to tell those embarrassing stories and do those weird things and get crazy excited when that one song comes on and tell bad jokes and spill food on ourselves and do all the things that you really shouldn’t do in front of someone you’re attracted to. 

If he doesn’t like it, you find out sooner rather than later that maybe he isn’t that interested in actually getting to know you. 

Recommended: 8 Signs An Avoidant Loves You & How to Inspire More Of It.

What also helps to inspire a man to emotionally commit to us? 

What also helps is if we do the following: 

• Spend time really noticing and paying attention to him
• When he expresses an opinion that might be a little politically incorrect, we want to get curious and figure out how he came to that opinion, by asking neutral questions about his thought process and experiences 
• When he talks about work, we want to find out why he chose that particular field, and whether he’s secretly dreaming of doing something else 
• When he talks about something that he’s passionate about, we want to explore that and understand the feeling that he gets when he does that thing

MORE: Understanding Men In Relationships: 5 Things You NEED To Know.

The bottom line:

Leading with your own openness, and approaching him with non-judgmental curiosity, is the best way to find out who a man truly is, and what he truly wants. 

It’s also the best way to establish a strong emotional connection with him - an essential factor when we think about how to get him to commit. 

QUIZ TIME: Is your man serious about committing to you? CLICK HERE to find out with this specially crafted quiz!

I understand that as women, we sometimes enjoy the experience of our man leading us, and feeling his direction, purpose, and intent for our relationship. 

And this is something that definitely comes with emotional commitment. 

But there’s also a kind of leadership that we as women should still aspire to, if we are wanting to build a relationship that he can’t help but commit to. 

And that kind of leadership entails creating the emotional conditions that help you and your man move in the right direction, towards a place of strength and mutual generosity. 

To do this, someone has to be willing to go first. 

Not only as the connection develops between the two of you, but later down the track, when you experience conflict, adversity, and misunderstanding. 

If that person is you, and you take responsibility in these moments at least some of the time, you will have immense power in your relationship. 

So what kinds of emotional conditions are we talking about? You want to set up a relationship where you: 

• Pay attention to how your man might be feeling/what he might be afraid of
• Care about him and what life is like for him
• Don’t judge and criticize each other, but try to understand and empathize
• Celebrate and appreciate each other, even for little things and even when things feel strained or tense
• Stay loyal no matter what happens
• Openly express your feelings without blaming and withdrawing
• Give trust, even when it’s hard 

In this environment, you and your man can experience a closeness and a freedom that neither one of you may have experienced before.

(Because you aren’t stuck in defensiveness, and because you value these other things more). 

If you’d like to fast-track your journey to getting his full commitment, I invite you to join our home study program, Commitment Control 2.0. 

(The promise of this premium course is for you to experience the freedom and joy of going from “not knowing where your relationship is going”, to a deeply committed life long relationship without any resistance, withdrawal or heartache…)

Although commitment can be every bit as wonderful for men as it is for women, it does come with some stress and fear for men. 

This stress and fear can be quite unconscious, and may come from thousands of years of evolution where men sometimes paid a huge price for committing to a woman. 

This is not to say that historically, women have hurt men more than men have hurt women. 

That doesn’t seem to be true at all, even if we feel like we could make that kind of statement. 

But when it comes to commitment, men may be uniquely vulnerable to abuse and mistreatment by women, in much the same way that men have hurt women by using them for sex and then leaving them alone with a baby to raise. 

Let’s think about some of the ways in which men could have suffered for committing to a woman. 

Let’s start with a primal environment (some of these may seem unrelated to the present day, but try to empathise with them):

• What if someone kills him because they want his woman?
• What if he spends his whole life providing for a child, only to find out that the child was never his?
• What if he works hard all his life for a woman who treats him badly?
• What if the woman is demanding, and leaves him with nothing for himself?
• What if the woman is disloyal and takes his resources while cheating on him with another man?
• What if he loses the respect of his fellow tribesmen?
• What if he doesn’t get to decide what to do with his time anymore?
• What if he loses all of his focus and can’t make anything of himself because he’s too much in love?

In a modern environment, these things may no longer be a matter of life and death, but there are still real concerns for men, such as unfavorable divorce laws. 

And all that fear and that ancient wiring does not just disappear. 

It’s a little bit like our tendency as women to look for evidence that man truly loves us and will take care of us. 

As I try to remind myself when this stuff comes up in my own relationship, he sometimes needs reassurance that I will uphold: 

1. His autonomy
2. His freedom; and 
3. His purpose in life

Just like I need reassurance that he isn’t going to leave me. 

So as you think about how to get him to commit emotionally, it’s important to have an understanding of these fears. 

This will help you avoid some of the scenarios that could unintentionally terrify your man. 

It will also help you to focus on the characteristics that will help your man feel safe committing to you, such as: 

• Loyalty
• Respect; and 
• Generosity 

When we are able to anticipate and answer a man’s intuitive fear of commitment, we are able to melt that fear and give him the gift of committing to us from a place of strength and freedom. 

The final thing we can do to inspire a man to commit is to embrace our own need for commitment. 

Commitment is something that has kept women (and our babies) alive and safe for generations - through the struggle of bearing and raising children. 

As humans evolved, women and children who had a committed man in their lives were more likely to survive, so we are genetically predisposed as women to seek and find fulfillment in commitment from men. 

There is no need to be ashamed of the fact that we want commitment, that it helps us to feel safe, to trust, to enjoy sex, to achieve more, and to raise happy and healthy children. 

This is not neediness - this is something that offers immense value, both to us and to the man we love. 

But in order to pursue commitment from a genuine place, we first need to make sure that we truly embrace and own what that commitment means to us. 

And this means letting go of: 

• The fear that we shouldn’t want commitment
• The belief that true commitment, lifelong love, and monogamy are just fairytales
• The fear that we will drive men away if we admit that we want commitment 
• The worry that we are not enough to keep a man interested in us in the long term
• The fear that as we truly open up to a man, we may have to confront a whole lot of uncomfortable feelings

Instead, we want to focus on the things that make commitment so meaningful for us. Things like:

• The wonderful feeling of safety and comfort that we get when a man deeply cares about us, protects us, and helps us
• The freedom that we have to explore ourselves and all of life with him by our side
• The wisdom and strength that we can experience together and in each other
• The peace of surrendering to aging and death together 
• The lifelong process of getting to know each other 
• The beauty a man can show us in ourselves
• The unique place we get to occupy in our man’s life
• The power and responsibility we have to help him see and fulfill his own potential 

When you truly acknowledge and express your longing for these experiences, a man who loves you will respond. 

He will see that commitment has immense value, both for you and for him, and he will, with some help from you, take the necessary steps to give it to you. 

You don’t need to nag him. You just need to: 

1. Feel what it is that you truly need
2. Create an environment that nurtures the bond between the two of you; and 
3. Be patient with his fear and wariness

If you can do that, inspiring a commitment from your man will be a relatively natural and simple process. 

What you want to do from here is to trust the process and power of emotional connection and emotional attraction.

All the advice we gave you above will help you know how to get him to commit, but ultimately, you need to trust that taking such authentic steps will work.

Most women tend to want to choose a different path: the path of pressure and appealing to a man’s sense of obligation (which makes commitment feel bad for him).

You don’t need to force a commitment from him, especially not if he is truly in love with you.

If he’s in love with you, he’s likely already emotionally committed to you, you just need to deepen that and express your authentic need for a little bit more from him (ie: marriage and children). 

If instead you have a gut feeling that this man is never going to commit or that you aren’t really his one and only, perhaps it’s time to heed that feeling.

If you need any help establishing whether your man is worth the effort, I recommend taking our quiz on “how commitment friendly is he?” 

This quiz will give you an idea of whether the effort of getting him to commit will be worth it (and your time well spent). 

If you would like help with your personal situation or to get coaching with Sarah, CLICK HERE.

Now over to you. Do you have any questions or concerns? Leave us a comment below sharing your experiences and feelings!

Sarah Meyer

Sarah is a Shen Wade Media Certified Coach.
She has a Masters in psychology and works as a special education advisor in early childhood. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her partner and two children. 

She has a passion for evolutionary psychology, attachment theory, and personality psychology.

CLICK HERE to get coaching with Sarah.

Renée Shen

Author & Editor For National Council for Research on Women. Founder of the popular women's dating & relationship advice website, The Feminine Woman and co-founder of NCRW.

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