No one really talks about what happens after the vows. After the dress is packed away, the champagne glasses are cleared, the photos are posted. We’re sold this picture – glowing rings, perfect captions, the dream of finally being chosen. And for a while, that picture holds. Until it doesn’t.

The truth is, a lot of people want the idea of a relationship more than the reality of one. Because the idea is beautiful. It’s safe. It looks good. It checks boxes. Society tells us we’ve made it when we find someone to settle down with. But what we’re not told is how many people stay settled in something that doesn’t feel like home at all.

They stay because they made a promise. Because there’s a certificate hanging in a drawer and a crowd who witnessed the “forever.” Because walking away would mean explaining. It would mean disappointing people. It would mean admitting that the version of commitment they were taught to honor feels more like a prison than a partnership.

So they call it loyalty. They call it doing the work. But underneath, they’re shrinking. They’re silencing parts of themselves to keep the ship from rocking. And it starts to show – in the way they flinch at each other, the way they speak, or don’t speak, in the way resentment becomes the background noise of their lives. They’ve locked themselves into an agreement that only honors half the vows, the part that says “stay,” not the part that says “cherish.”

No one tells you that the cost of keeping the promise might be yourself. That you can wake up next to someone every day and still feel completely alone. That you can be committed and still be disconnected. And somehow, because we’ve made it sacred, we don’t question it. We just tell people to hang in there. To remember what they signed up for. We glorify endurance and label it maturity. But endurance without connection isn’t noble. It’s just quiet suffering in matching pajamas.

So when someone says they’re afraid of commitment, maybe it’s not fear of love or partnership or even monogamy. Maybe it’s fear of waking up one day realizing you disappeared inside something that was supposed to be yours too. Maybe it’s fear of losing your voice in the name of keeping the peace. Fear of confusing obligation with devotion. Fear of being applauded for staying while slowly withering inside.

We need to stop romanticizing staying no matter what. The ceremony, the vows, the papers—none of it means anything if there’s no life behind it. No honesty. No mutual care. Commitment isn’t about staying no matter what. It’s about choosing each other, over and over, because it still feels like the right choice. And if it doesn’t, we should be allowed to ask why. We should be allowed to leave. We should be allowed to rewrite what commitment even means.