Commitment-phobic men are masters at keeping you hooked on them in deceitful ways.

Almost every woman has dated at least one commitment-phobic man in her life. They are the ones who make you wait for the day when they will finally agree to live with you or marry you or commit exclusively to you. But they never do. When you meet them, they are hard to resist because they complement you and appeal to your vanity. And they lie. They lie about being in love with you, they lie about wanting to date you long-term, they lie about not wanting just one sexual fling. And they don’t care.

Here are examples of commitment-phobic male behavior:

• You go out one week and he tells you he loves you, the next week you don’t hear from him again
• You go out for a month and he tells you he just wants to go out with you, then you find out a friend saw him flirting at a party with someone else… the night he was too tired to go out with you.
• You live with him for 8 years and he is still not married to you.
• He still doesn’t call you his girlfriend and he sees his mom more than he sees you, after a year of dating.

Commitment-phobic men are men who cannot commit to the emotional intimacy of marriage or cohabitation with you because they are emotionally attached to someone or something else that makes emotional intimacy with you impossible.

I know you’re thinking right now, “But how can I avoid these men when I don’t know if a guy has a commitment phobia until after they’ve been out for weeks or months?

Actually, it’s easy to spot a commitment-phobic man when you first meet him, just by talking to him for a short period of time, even before going out with him. You just need to know what behavioral traits to look for. You should focus on certain signs that a guy gives you that are indications of commitment phobia issues. These “red flags” are obvious when you know what they are. But even if you know what they are, you must muster the inner strength to ignore a commitment-phobic man’s charismatic charm, the lure of his compliments, and her codependent desire to care for him.

Don’t even give a guy like this a chance by dating him even once, if possible. Once you date him, he will trap you in his bag of deceitful tricks and manipulate you into a comfortable, false sense of emotional intimacy by telling you “You are the woman I always dreamed of meeting.”

It is important to know the stratagems and manipulative behavior of these men. They have the ability to make a woman feel a “codependent” need to care for them by appealing to her need to feel special by caring for others. They paint themselves as helpless victims of past love affairs, past failed jobs, and parents who abused them; and this makes a woman feel vulnerable to wanting to “fix” her lives and be the one to ultimately make them happy.

If you were the only one in your family who catered to the emotional needs of your parents or siblings, you will easily be drawn into the world of a commitment-phobic man. I suggest you read codependency books by Melodie Beatty and learn what codependency is. It is important to know if you are susceptible to the allure of commitment-phobic men because of your codependent behavioral upbringing.

Commitment-phobic men hide behind a personality of charm and adulation towards women that completely camouflages how they really feel inside. Behind the charming facade of a commitment-phobic man’s outward personality is a man who wants to control, cheat, and abuse women. They are not happy with their lives and often blame a woman from her past for ruining it. Of course, this guilt started with his mother and has now been transferred to another woman in his life. But they usually don’t realize that the first seed of his hatred of women, and his desperate need for them, started with his mother.

These men don’t trust women, like women, they don’t respect women or admire women, they hate women. Many of these men are victims of verbal and sexual abuse as children. They have mothers who made their lives miserable, and now they will vent their anger and resentment on you.

When you first meet a man with a commitment phobia, he will have certain behavioral traits that slip into his fawning façade towards you. It’s important to view these traits as red flags of how potentially disastrous dating such a man can be. These initial behavioral traits may seem innocent enough, but they are telltale signs of bigger trouble to come. I call them Stage One Behavior Traits because this is the behavior you can spot when you first meet or date a phobic commitment.

Behavioral traits of the 1st stage of men with commitment phobia:

Behavior Trait #1: You will single out insecure women who need attention and compliments to feel good about their life. He will then say something to a woman that is slightly inappropriate about how attractive she looks sexually. This helps them find the woman who will put up with her problems because her self-esteem is tied to someone else’s opinion of her. This is the kind of woman they can control. The woman who doesn’t leave in disgust is his next victim.

Behavioral Trait #2 You will keep the truth about your past life, your finances, your past relationships, your relationship with your mother, and how you really feel about your commitment. The real him will be well hidden from your outside view. Most men with commitment phobia have deep feelings of shame about themselves and their life and will hide that shame by doing things to cover up the truth about their life.

A commitment-phobic guy I dated didn’t have a decent car, so he used his mom’s car to impress me, but he never told me he was using her car until a month after I dated him. Another guy I dated took me to an expensive restaurant on a first blind date and was constantly tipping the waiters with big bills. Then I realized on the second date that he really couldn’t afford to be that extravagant when I saw his “down and out” lifestyle. He had to give me the false impression that he had a lot of money, as if tonight it would cloud my ability to see his dingy apartment.

There’s nothing wrong with a guy wanting to impress you on a date by taking you to a nice restaurant or driving his parents’ car. But there’s something wrong with a guy deliberately presenting himself as someone who isn’t just to keep you from meeting the real him. If he has to hide facts about his life from you, he’s not being honest, regardless of why he’s doing it. Unfortunately, many women who date commitment-phobic men for the first time pick up on a delusion and then make excuses as to why she did it. They don’t realize that once you accept any deception, you’ll be dealing with lies and bigger secrets to come.

Behavioral Trait #3: You can never have a conversation with him about what the goals of your relationship are. He will act awkward and sometimes visibly upset. If you feel like he’s not open to a future that includes the kind of commitment you’re looking for from a man, don’t consider dating him. Men who are not committed in relationships will show you by their facial expression and demeanor, when you bring up the subject of commitment, that it is a topic they are not interested in discussing. You need to realize that he has commitment issues when he freezes when you talk about what you’re looking for in a long-term relationship. And if he tells you that he never wants to get married, he’s doing you a big favor. Believe him and don’t think you can change him, no matter how much he tells you “you’re the woman of his dreams”. Don’t even consider being the one to be that loving wife he never found. Remember this: With commitment-phobic men, it’s not just what they say that matters; it is their attitude on certain issues and what you feel they are hiding from you. It’s that uneasy feeling in your gut that this guy isn’t being totally honest with you.

If you continue to date a guy like that, you have accepted behavior that already sets the tone for how he will continue to treat you, that he will focus on what matters to him. Many women feel that they have no right to talk about their relationship needs when they meet a guy for the first time. They feel that they will scare the boy because he will immediately think that they want to marry him. Wrong! This is the time when you should talk about what you want in life. If you don’t tell a guy that you want to get married and have kids one day, you’ll be giving up your right to expect everything to be okay where he’s concerned. Commitment-phobic men don’t waste time with women who confidently declare that they want to get married and have children. It is the safest way to see them disappear.

Behavioral Trait #4: Another surefire sign that a guy has a commitment phobia is when he will never get anything done on time and will always change the time and day of your date or be late for your date. He will never agree with your date suggestion either. If you make a decision about which movie to watch or which restaurant to go to, he’ll want to try a different one. If you accept this behavior, he will continue to act controlling with you, never focusing on pleasing YOU in the relationship. Of course, he may not notice these early signs when he keeps telling you how beautiful you are and how he can’t wait to make love to you. He won’t mind that he’s always late when he compliments you all the time, will he? He is establishing control in the relationship; one that gives you the right to dictate what the terms of the relationship will be. And those terms will not include committing to you.

Behavior Trait #5: He will make you feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet. He will fill you with his desire for you and will compliment you to the extreme. He will tell you that you are the only woman who understands him, that makes him feel such an intense attraction, and that he knows that he will fall in love with you because you are the woman of his dreams (if he is not in love with you already). . All of this is to distract you from knowing the real person behind those accolades, seeing all those disappointments and false pretenses.

Behavior Trait #6: He will have a dependent personality, which means he will need you to take care of him and will only appreciate you when you do things for him. He will paint himself as a victim of life with bad luck and mean and cruel women. “Thank God he has finally found you” will be his motto. That is, until he gets bored of you and moves on to someone else. And even if he doesn’t, he will never commit to you or fill you up emotionally. He will include you in the pile of all those other cruel women who never understand or care about him. And all you will feel when he moves on is how much you were used and not appreciated.

It’s easy to spot a commitment-phobic man when you look at these behavioral traits. The first behavioral trait is usually hard to spot until you’ve dated him for a while and realized the truth about his life and his past. But the other behavioral traits show up immediately: his constant barrage of compliments and making you feel like you’re the woman of his dreams; his first comment to you being inappropriate about his physical appearance (or inappropriate touching); her victim mentality about past relationships; the reluctant attitude of him, almost angry to talk about commitment in a relationship, his constant control of how the two of you spend your time together always being late and wanting to change plans and never letting you decide what to do on a date.

These behavioral traits may seem harmless and insignificant, but they are red flags of serious trouble ahead.

Watch for the signs, and when you do, close the door on his chance to date you. You deserve a man who offers you much more.