Commitment Phobia - Somethings" Gotta Give - LoveMovies! - Movie Author Match - Carter & Sokol
He’s hip. He’s successful. He’s rich. He’s the man! So, much so, Harry has a bevy of young and very attractive women, half his age and less, willing to be with him, just so they can say they have. What else could a guy like this possibly want? Nothing! At least, not until he confronts the need in himself for a deeper connection with love and life. That happens in Something’s Gotta Give, when Harry meets Erica.
Erica is intelligent, funny, wealthy, attractive and insightful. She is also in Harry’s age group of fifty-plus. At first Harry questions the bond that develops between them. She is not exactly his “type.” But his heart opens wider and he finds himself falling in love with her. Then he characteristically backs out of the relationship. Funny? Painful? Familiar? Sadly, many of us could answer affirmative to all three questions and proclaim “been there, done that.”
At first we might assume that Harry backs away from Erica because he prefers dating much younger, seemingly “uncomplicated” women. As Erica’s sister, Zoe, observes, our society often views men like Harry as “elusive, ungettable, a real catch.” Not only are younger women considered more attractive, but older women are considered unattractive. Zoe continues, “The whole over-50 dating scene is geared towards men leaving older women out. And as a result the women become more and more productive, and therefore, more and more interesting. Which in turn makes them even less desirable because as we know, men, especially older men, are threatened and deathly afraid of productive, and interesting older women.”
Prejudice against older women in the dating scene is not the only theme of <i.Something’s Gotta Give. The movie also confronts the strange and prevalent tendency to exit relationships just as they are starting to go well and have the potential to be deeply rewarding and compatible. This confusing phenomenon is best described in the book He’s Scared, She’s Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships. Authors Steven Carter and Julia Sokol explain in stunning detail about commitment-phobia, the tendency for even married partners to avoid real intimacy by running away from those they love. They write, “In short we both want and fear stable, permanent relationships. This can provoke amazingly contradictory feelings and behavior.” And, when it comes to developing relationships, all too often “our fears are dictating our choices and our behaviors.”
The end result? People with commitment wishes, but also with commitment fears, chronically pick unsuitable partners. This gives them a built in reason to leave whenever their fears of commitment start to emerge. Partners they tend to attract are unsuitable for them in many ways (age, interests, lifestyle, availability). This keeps the relationship at a superficial level, so deep work and insight into oneself and one’s partner can be avoided. According to Carter and Sokol when the relationship gets “serious” the commitment phobic heads for the hills in one of three characteristic ways:
Pick the other person apart. When all you have left is a list of their flaws, no matter how trivial, you can feel justified in leaving.
Have an affair. Create a new fantasy relationship with someone else so you don’t have to confront deeper levels of relating.
Do the Houdini act. Disappear, never to be heard from again.
As Harry and Erica interact, both realize the many ways they seem to be compatible. Potential emerges for a truly meaningful relationship. But, meaningful relationships require commitment. And not just a commitment to stay together through all the ups and downs any relationship encounters. Rather, it necessitates a deeper commitment of using the relationship to become more aware, more intimate not only with your partner, but also with yourself. Looked at this way, it is not really commitment-phobia, but intimacy-phobia, that is the major problem. Intimacy-phobia generates fear of looking more closely at the personal problems and issues that are being spotlighted in the relationship. It also prevents a sharing of these problems and issues with one’s partner in a healthy way, so insight and compassion can emerge.
Harry has avoided both commitment and intimacy by restricting his dating to women he feels confident will offer nothing more than brief superficial encounters. Erica has avoided these by not dating at all. “I really thought I was sort of closed-up for business, “ she relates. When fate unexpectedly throws Harry and Erica together, both must suddenly face their capacity, or incapacity, to relate at a whole new level. This requires they get more honest and intimate with each other, and with themselves as well.
Erica realizes that she is still open for business and that relationships can still bring meaning and joy to her life. When it looks like Harry and Erica are breaking up she puts her hands over heart and tells Harry, “You know…the life I had before you. I knew how to do that. I could do that forever. But now look at me. What am I going to do? What am I going to do with all this?” Despite her heartbreak, Erica learns that it is better to risk loving than to continue to “self-protect” as her daughter Marin advises her to do. She tells Marin, “Listen to me. You can’t hide from love for the rest of your life, because maybe it won’t work out, maybe you’ll become unglued. It’s just not a way to live.” Following her own advice, Erica begins dating other men, until Harry comes back into her life.
For Harry, his path to deeper understanding requires looking up every woman he has dated in order to get insights into himself and what he has done wrong in previous relationships. Understandably, he rarely likes what he hears. But this time, instead of running away, he remains open to learn. This helps him eventually actualize the deeper relationship potential he discovered with Erica, and this time, hopefully, he will continue to develop it.
As the film ends, we can’t accurately predict where their relationship might finally go. At least we know these words of Erica will be true, “I let someone in, and I had the time of my life.” Getting to this point may not be easy for a lot of us, but perhaps by having watched this movie we may be more receptive to how relationships can give us the time of our lives as well. We simply need to answer the question Erica poses to her daughter, Marin, when she says, “I say this from the deepest part of my heart, what are
you waiting for?”
IMPORTANT NOTE
This article is Copyrighted as of 2009 by LoveMovies! All Rights Reserved.
Written by Dr. Lisa Love.
VISIT THE LOVEMOVIES! WEBSITE!
Free gifts when you become a member!
http://www.lovemoviesonline.com
Erica is intelligent, funny, wealthy, attractive and insightful. She is also in Harry’s age group of fifty-plus. At first Harry questions the bond that develops between them. She is not exactly his “type.” But his heart opens wider and he finds himself falling in love with her. Then he characteristically backs out of the relationship. Funny? Painful? Familiar? Sadly, many of us could answer affirmative to all three questions and proclaim “been there, done that.”
At first we might assume that Harry backs away from Erica because he prefers dating much younger, seemingly “uncomplicated” women. As Erica’s sister, Zoe, observes, our society often views men like Harry as “elusive, ungettable, a real catch.” Not only are younger women considered more attractive, but older women are considered unattractive. Zoe continues, “The whole over-50 dating scene is geared towards men leaving older women out. And as a result the women become more and more productive, and therefore, more and more interesting. Which in turn makes them even less desirable because as we know, men, especially older men, are threatened and deathly afraid of productive, and interesting older women.”
Prejudice against older women in the dating scene is not the only theme of <i.Something’s Gotta Give. The movie also confronts the strange and prevalent tendency to exit relationships just as they are starting to go well and have the potential to be deeply rewarding and compatible. This confusing phenomenon is best described in the book He’s Scared, She’s Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships. Authors Steven Carter and Julia Sokol explain in stunning detail about commitment-phobia, the tendency for even married partners to avoid real intimacy by running away from those they love. They write, “In short we both want and fear stable, permanent relationships. This can provoke amazingly contradictory feelings and behavior.” And, when it comes to developing relationships, all too often “our fears are dictating our choices and our behaviors.”
The end result? People with commitment wishes, but also with commitment fears, chronically pick unsuitable partners. This gives them a built in reason to leave whenever their fears of commitment start to emerge. Partners they tend to attract are unsuitable for them in many ways (age, interests, lifestyle, availability). This keeps the relationship at a superficial level, so deep work and insight into oneself and one’s partner can be avoided. According to Carter and Sokol when the relationship gets “serious” the commitment phobic heads for the hills in one of three characteristic ways:
Pick the other person apart. When all you have left is a list of their flaws, no matter how trivial, you can feel justified in leaving.
Have an affair. Create a new fantasy relationship with someone else so you don’t have to confront deeper levels of relating.
Do the Houdini act. Disappear, never to be heard from again.
As Harry and Erica interact, both realize the many ways they seem to be compatible. Potential emerges for a truly meaningful relationship. But, meaningful relationships require commitment. And not just a commitment to stay together through all the ups and downs any relationship encounters. Rather, it necessitates a deeper commitment of using the relationship to become more aware, more intimate not only with your partner, but also with yourself. Looked at this way, it is not really commitment-phobia, but intimacy-phobia, that is the major problem. Intimacy-phobia generates fear of looking more closely at the personal problems and issues that are being spotlighted in the relationship. It also prevents a sharing of these problems and issues with one’s partner in a healthy way, so insight and compassion can emerge.
Harry has avoided both commitment and intimacy by restricting his dating to women he feels confident will offer nothing more than brief superficial encounters. Erica has avoided these by not dating at all. “I really thought I was sort of closed-up for business, “ she relates. When fate unexpectedly throws Harry and Erica together, both must suddenly face their capacity, or incapacity, to relate at a whole new level. This requires they get more honest and intimate with each other, and with themselves as well.
Erica realizes that she is still open for business and that relationships can still bring meaning and joy to her life. When it looks like Harry and Erica are breaking up she puts her hands over heart and tells Harry, “You know…the life I had before you. I knew how to do that. I could do that forever. But now look at me. What am I going to do? What am I going to do with all this?” Despite her heartbreak, Erica learns that it is better to risk loving than to continue to “self-protect” as her daughter Marin advises her to do. She tells Marin, “Listen to me. You can’t hide from love for the rest of your life, because maybe it won’t work out, maybe you’ll become unglued. It’s just not a way to live.” Following her own advice, Erica begins dating other men, until Harry comes back into her life.
For Harry, his path to deeper understanding requires looking up every woman he has dated in order to get insights into himself and what he has done wrong in previous relationships. Understandably, he rarely likes what he hears. But this time, instead of running away, he remains open to learn. This helps him eventually actualize the deeper relationship potential he discovered with Erica, and this time, hopefully, he will continue to develop it.
As the film ends, we can’t accurately predict where their relationship might finally go. At least we know these words of Erica will be true, “I let someone in, and I had the time of my life.” Getting to this point may not be easy for a lot of us, but perhaps by having watched this movie we may be more receptive to how relationships can give us the time of our lives as well. We simply need to answer the question Erica poses to her daughter, Marin, when she says, “I say this from the deepest part of my heart, what are
you waiting for?”
IMPORTANT NOTE
This article is Copyrighted as of 2009 by LoveMovies! All Rights Reserved.
Written by Dr. Lisa Love.
VISIT THE LOVEMOVIES! WEBSITE!
Free gifts when you become a member!
http://www.lovemoviesonline.com
