Whenever some people hear the word commitment, they freak. They feel they would lose their freedom—they view marriage as a life imprisonment and so try to fight all their married life in order to maintain their freedom.  

On the other hand, there are some who want to control and manipulate the other partner so they don’t enjoy their freedom in marriage. 

But marriage is about balancing individual freedom and a commitment to the relationship.

According to Perry and James Vaughan in their book, Making Love Stay, to give your best in a relationship and to get the greatest benefit from your commitment, the commitment needs to be freely chosen.

Forcing it will only lead to negative consequences and will eventually diminish the relationship. 

Commitment comes with some deep psychological and spiritual benefits. It brings with it security in marriage.

But many people still have a strong desire for the freedom they feel they have lost by making this commitment.

This is one of the greatest paradoxes in life. All of life involves trade-offs, and so does marriage. You cannot have your cake and eat it.

You must constantly remind yourself that you must choose what is most important and be willing to forgo other desires that undermine that choice.

Thus, your desire for freedom should not undermine your commitment to each other. 

Even in a committed relationship, there is always a tendency to focus more on the drawbacks of commitment while fantasising about the advantages of freedom.

How many married people have sometimes wished they were not married or have wanted the freedom to do whatever they felt like doing?

What we don’t realise is that too much freedom in life can sometimes be dangerous to even ourselves. We need freedom within certain boundaries, and in marriage—that boundary is commitment.  

Since both commitment and freedom are desirable, we need to strike a balance. Trying to balance your needs for both is not easy. 

It’s important to recognise there is no perfect, permanent resolution to the dilemma posed by freedom and commitment, but you need to avoid getting so far out of balance that you overact in an irresponsible way.