When you love a man, you want a life with him.

You want to commit to him. You want him to commit to you.

And you don’t understand why he keeps avoiding discussions about the future.

It’s clear that you’re good together. He’s clearly enjoying the relationship.

You’ve built a life together, and you want to know that it’s secure.

So why won’t he discuss marriage? He knows how much it means to you.

It’s almost as if he doesn’t feel the way he says he does.

He says he loves you, but how could you love someone and not want commitment?

What’s going through his head?

The answer might surprise you…

What Men Won’t Tell You

When a man hears the word commitment, he doesn’t think of the same things you do.

You think of love and knowing he’s the one and the happy future stretching out before you.

It sounds wonderful. If he associated commitment with those things, he’d want it as much as you do.

But many men think of different words when they think about commitment.

They think about risk and responsibility and failure.

Commitment makes them nervous. With everything they know about divorce rates, it seems like an incredibly risky bet. They’ve seen how badly divorce has impacted friends and family members. They’re not sure they can do any better.

Few men today are confident in their ability to stay married.

Most men worry. They never learned anything about how to make love last. They don’t know what they’d do if things went wrong.

Instead, they think about their past relationships, and they notice that in most cases the spark eventually died. Nothing lasts forever. The bitterness and pain of a breakup almost makes falling in love not worth the effort.

Men don’t like failing.

They don’t want another failed relationship.

They don’t want to pay a fortune for a wedding and make a public promise in front of all their friends and family that they’ll love this woman for a lifetime…

When they don’t think they’ll be able to make good on that promise.

As you can imagine, it’s this difference in meaning that makes conversations about commitment so difficult. You’re not talking about the same thing.

It’s time to get on the same page…

The Conversation You Haven’t Had Yet

For you, when you’re asking him why he won’t commit, what you’re really asking is whether he loves you as much as you love him.

Surely, if he loved you, he’d want a life with you. He doesn’t seem to want that, so that must mean he doesn’t love you enough.

For him, when he hears you asking him about commitment, he feels trapped between a rock and a hard place. He knows you want more. He knows that you deserve more.

But he is afraid of taking that step, because he’s afraid it’s a bad bet. Marriage changes things. It’s not so easy to get out if things fall apart. He can’t think of many married couples whose shoes he’d actually want to be in.

He has no confidence he won’t screw it up.

He worries you’ll end up hating each other.

How can he express that to you, when you’re looking at the future through rose-tinted glasses?

One place to start is by meeting each other halfway.

You know all the reasons that getting married is a good idea. You’ve probably listed them for him before.

Now it’s time to look at all the reasons marriage is a bad idea.

Ask him to help you see all the reasons it just wouldn’t work.

You might say something like:

“I love you and I love being together, so of course I want to be with you forever. But maybe there’s something I’m missing. I know you’re not sure about marriage. Why might it be a bad idea to get married? What could go wrong?”

When he answers, you listen and ask questions. You don’t argue or try to convince him otherwise. Then you say:

“Thanks for sharing. That’s good food for thought.”

And you give him a hug and a kiss.

By validating his perspective, you’re showing him that you’re open to a different point of view.

Surprisingly, this can make him even more devoted to you.

In his heart of hearts, he wants to feel confident that you’re in the relationship because you love him, not because you think you’ve found a husband.

This is why ultimatums don’t work. If you threaten to walk away if he won’t marry you, then he believes you wanted to be married more than you wanted to be with him.

If you’d like more tips on how to start a conversation about marriage, find out more in this special report.