I want to talk about a misunderstood word that we use a lot in couples therapy — commitment.

Most people think of commitment as a status. You’re either committed or you’re not. Married or not. All in or halfway out the door. But after years of sitting with couples — and after two of my biggest influences, John Gottman and Terry Real, spent decades studying this from very different angles — I’ve come to understand that commitment isn’t a status at all. It’s a daily, repeated choice. And a lot of what we assume is commitment… actually isn’t.

Here’s what commitment is NOT

  • Staying because leaving feels too hard
  • Never having doubts or noticing other options
  • Doing your job, paying the bills, showing up to the school play
  • Avoiding conflict so you don’t rock the boat
  • Being married, engaged, domestic partners or living together

That’s not commitment, that’s endurance. And endurance without engagement is the slow fade that kills relationships.

So what IS commitment, really?

Gottman’s research gives us one half of the answer. He found that in stable, happy relationships, partners actively maintain a belief system that their relationship is better than any alternative. It’s not because partners are naive about other options, it’s because they consistently choose to invest in what they have rather than compare it to “the grass is always greener” – a fantasy of what they could have elsewhere. Commitment, in Gottman’s terms, is the ongoing practice of cherishing what is good in your partner and your relationship, and consciously not entertaining alternatives as an escape hatch. It’s an active behavior, not a passive state.

Terry Real gives us the other half, and it’s the piece I find myself leaning on more and more with high-achieving clients specifically. Real talks about the need to shift from what he calls “relational grandiosity”— the stance of I’m right, you’re wrong…my reality is the reality — to accepting equal partnership in the relationship. For a lot of accomplished, competent people, this is the hardest move there is. They’re used to being right and winning. Used to their perspective carrying the room. Real’s version of commitment asks something harder than loyalty: it asks you to give up being the center of your own story and truly make room for your partner’s separate, equally valid reality. That’s not weakness…It’s the whole game!

Put together, commitment looks like…

  • Maximizing your partner’s good qualities and minimizing their negative qualities, on purpose, especially when you’re irritated.
  • Actively closing the door on the “grass is greener” story your brain likes to tell you.
  • Stepping down from being right so your partner can be real with you.
  • Showing up for repair after a rupture, even when you’d rather be right.
  • Doing all of the above on the days you don’t feel like it

That last point matters most. Commitment isn’t the feeling you have on your wedding day. It’s what you do on a random Tuesday when you’re tired, annoyed, and would rather scroll your phone than turn toward your partner.

If you’re in a season in your relationship where “We’re fine” is doing a lot of heavy lifting — we’d love to talk with you and see if we can help.