Why it’s so hard to commit in a relationship after being single for more than a decade

There’s a strange thing that happens when you’ve been single for a long time. At first, it feels like freedom. Like you’ve escaped something. The expectations, the disappointments, the awkward negotiations of space and need and timing. You start to stretch out into your life. You design your days the way you want them. You cultivate solitude like a garden. At some point, it even becomes a kind of quiet pride—how self-contained you’ve become, how unbothered, how peaceful.

But then something shifts. A person appears. Not a fantasy or a fling, but someone who makes you consider the possibility of sharing all this space you’ve created. Someone you don’t want to swipe past. And that’s when something very unexpected kicks in—not excitement or clarity, but resistance. A kind of tightness in the chest. A voice that whispers, “Don’t lose yourself.” And suddenly, the thing you’ve joked about or dreamed of or said you were open to—love, connection, commitment—feels impossibly hard to reach.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Not as an abstract idea, but as something I’m living through. I’ve been single for over a decade, apart from a few brief chapters. And now, as I find myself in the early stages of seeing someone new, I’m realizing that the hardest part isn’t about them at all. It’s about the internal recalibration required to even make space for someone else. As I said in my recent video on why it’s so hard to commit after years of being single (see below), this isn’t just about fear of settling. It goes deeper.

Modern single life isn’t the same as it was thirty years ago. It’s no longer a holding pattern before marriage, or a phase you pass through. For many people—myself included—it becomes a full, complex lifestyle. It’s structured around autonomy. We learn to enjoy our own company. We cultivate hobbies, career focus, micro-rituals, and meaning on our terms. And maybe most powerfully, we learn to manage our emotional states on our own. Not in the self-denying way of stoics, but in the self-authoring way of those who’ve built resilience. You feel low, you take a walk, hit the gym, call a friend, get some sun. You regulate. You recalibrate. You move on.

In a relationship, that system gets interrupted. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but in a vulnerable one. Suddenly someone else’s mood matters. Someone else’s needs enter the room. You find yourself opening parts of yourself you haven’t touched in years. And the danger isn’t that you’ll lose control. It’s that you might actually care. That you might start depending. And if you’ve built your identity around not needing anyone, that can feel like a kind of death.

That’s one layer of it.

Another is harder to admit. It has to do with how our brains are now wired. Dating apps, social media, even the constant novelty of online life—they’ve rewired how we experience connection. Every new match, every like, every flirtatious message gives a small dopamine hit. It’s not deep. It’s not even that satisfying. But it’s frequent. Predictable. Just enough to keep you checking back in.

This is the treadmill effect I spoke about in the video. The never-ending loop of micro-validations that feel like potential but rarely become anything real. When you do this for long enough, it becomes hard to sit with the slower, quieter rhythm of actual intimacy. The dopamine stops coming in fast, and instead you have to choose presence. You have to lean into silence. Into boredom. Into the uncomfortable truth that real connection requires discomfort, patience, and staying when the novelty fades.

For me, commitment after years of being single feels like walking into a still room after living in a casino. At first, it’s jarring. You miss the buzz. The constant stimulation. The feeling of being “in the mix.” But then, slowly, you begin to notice things you never could before. The subtle cues. The shared glances. The slow unfolding of trust. And you realize how much of your nervous system has been shaped by chaos. How hard it is to receive calm without questioning it.

There’s also the question of identity. When you’ve been single for a long time, you build an entire life architecture around being your own center of gravity. You learn what energizes you, what drains you, how to protect your time, your mind, your sense of self. And you might even start to feel a kind of superiority in that independence. A belief that maybe you’ve evolved beyond the messiness of relationships. That you’re too wise for drama, too grounded for compromise.

But that’s just another illusion. It’s spiritual ego in disguise. A form of self-protection that tells itself it’s enlightenment. And while there’s truth in honoring your sovereignty, there’s also a trap in mistaking emotional avoidance for mastery.

The truth is, long-term singleness teaches you to be incredibly good at meeting your own needs. But it can also dull your capacity to receive. To let someone else in. To ask for help. To soften. These aren’t weaknesses. They’re just muscles that haven’t been used. And like any underused muscle, when you first stretch them again, they hurt. They feel unnatural. You want to stop. But something deeper inside you knows: this is growth.

I’ve been noticing how even small things feel huge now. Letting someone leave their toothbrush at my place. Sharing food from my plate. Making plans beyond next week. There’s no logical reason these things should feel threatening. But logic has nothing to do with it. These are psychic permissions. They signal a shift from “my life” to “our life.” And when your nervous system is used to total self-control, that shift can feel terrifying.

But here’s what I’m discovering. Commitment isn’t about losing freedom. It’s about choosing a new kind. The freedom to go deep. To be seen in the mundane and the sacred. To build something slowly, with roots. Not the kind of freedom that keeps all options open forever, but the kind that says, “I choose this, and I’ll keep choosing it, even when it’s uncomfortable.”

The irony is that after years of avoiding commitment in order to preserve freedom, I’m starting to realize that depth is the freedom I’ve been looking for. Not being free from people, but free with someone. Free to explore the territory of intimacy without a map. Free to surrender some control and trust that I’ll still be myself.

And that’s not easy. Sometimes I still want to reach for the app. Not to cheat or flirt, but to feel that hit of possibility. That sensation of being wanted. But then I remember: none of those micro-hits ever led anywhere meaningful. They were snacks. This—what I’m building now—is nourishment. And nourishment takes time.

I don’t have guarantees. I don’t know how this relationship will unfold. But I know that I’m showing up differently. I’m noticing when I want to run. I’m naming the fear instead of letting it drive. I’m practicing presence, even when it’s awkward. I’m choosing the person in front of me, not the fantasy in my head.

And maybe that’s what commitment is, ultimately. Not a declaration. Not a status change. But a daily practice of choosing presence over escape. Depth over distraction. Reality over fantasy.

So if you’ve been single for a long time and find yourself struggling to commit, know this: there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken. You’ve just adapted to a culture that rewards speed, novelty, and surface. And now, you’re trying to shift into a different frequency—a slower, deeper one. That’s hard. That’s brave. And that’s exactly why it’s worth doing.

Because in a world built for short attention spans and endless options, showing up for one person—fully, vulnerably, patiently—isn’t just a romantic act. It’s a radical one.