The question of when a relationship is committed is a source of much confusion and debate. We live in a time when the marriage rate is going down, the co-habitation rate is going up, and the majority of first-born children are now born to unmarried parents.

In this article I hope to shed some light on this question to facilitate your work with couples and individuals challenged by different perceptions of the status of their relationships.

COMMITMENT VS. PROMISE

I recently had a conversation with a woman who told me she had just broken off a "committed" relationship. A few questions later I learned that she had been dating this person for a year, they were not living together, and the reason she broke it off is that he "cheated."

We talked about pre-committed vs. committed relationships, and she agreed that it was a pre-committed relationship, but insisted that they had made a "commitment" to each other.

OK, things are getting clearer. On the one hand is the status of the relationship- pre-committed vs. committed, and on the other hand are commitments made within the relationship. Macro vs. micro. Two different things, right?

In our conversation, it occurred to me to make a distinction between a "Commitment" vs. a "Promise." They made a promise to each other within the context of a relationship that was not committed. That distinction seemed to help her make more sense of things.

When I asked the RCI coaches for feedback on the "commitment vs. promise" distinction, most felt that it was just semantics and there is not much of a difference. The general consensus was that when you make a promise you are making a commitment.

Well, I agree that it is a question of semantics, and here is my definition of terms:

PROMISE: Verbally stated future intention to perform a specific act.

- I promise to pick up your dry cleaning and not forget this time - I promise to be exclusive in our relationship

COMMITMENT: Both a FACT demonstrated by behavior, and an ATTITUDE consisting of thoughts and beliefs.

- I am committed to keeping my promises - I am committed to our relationship

In short, a promise is something you say, and a commitment is something you do. A promise is situation-specific. A commitment is contextual.

A promise is a small commitment. If a potential partner doesn't keep promises, I would question their ability to keep commitments, as they are definitely related.

CONFUSION ABOUT COMMITMENT

Whether or not you agree with my semantics, the distinction I made between a commitment and a promise was helpful for the above conversation.

The larger picture though, is that I see a lot of confusion about the status of today's relationships. Some years ago when I coined the term "pre-commitment" to describe couples that were exclusive but not yet committed, it was a helpful distinction, but the question remains- "What is commitment?"

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