He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships [Paperback]

Steven Carter (Author), Julia Sokol (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2, 1995

Available for the first time in paperback, this  follow-up to the phenomenally successful  Men Who Can't Love tackles the issue of  commitmentphobia, that persistent obstacle to truly  satisfying contemporary relationships. Authors  Stephen Carter and Julia Sokol explore why modern men  and women are torn between the desire for intimacy  and the equally intense need for independence.  Drawing on numerous interviews and real-life  scenarios, and written with humor, insight, and the kind  of wisdom gained by personal experience,  He's Scared, She's Scared offes guidance  for all of us who want genuine, sustained intimacy  with our romantic partners.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Carter and Sokol ( Men Who Can't Love ) argue that fear of commitment affects women as well as men, and that both sexes crave the often conflicting conditions of intimacy and freedom. According to the authors, men tend to be more prone to "active" avoidance after winning over a lover. "Passive" avoidance, on the other hand, involves choosing someone who is unavailable--a woman falls for a gay man; a man becomes smitten with his married woman boss; or either sex subconsciously chooses as a love object a person who is an active avoider. Using case histories, the authors examine the reasons people avoid commitment and through quizzes encourage readers to determine their "commitmentphobic" patterns--narcissistic, claustrophobic, universal, or circumstantial--and explore feelings and fears. The authors give straightforward advice on how to detect commitmentphobia in others and how to move towards true intimacy. The authors' achievement is that they have gone beyond the obvious avoidance patterns to uncover the more subtle ways men and women sabotage love. First serial to New Woman; author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

From the authors of What Every Man Should Know About the "New Woman" ( LJ 6/1/84) comes this guide for those who are afraid of committed relationships. The authors are not therapists; their advice is based on insight gleaned from interviews rather than clinical experience or psychological research. Carter and Sokol spent eight years interviewing men and women about their relationships to find anxieties, issues, and behavioral patterns common to people who can't commit. Written in a nonjudgmental, nontechnical style, their book is divided into three sections: identifying fears that undermine commitment, facing them, and managing them. Examples and diagnostic and directive lists make this book easy to read. There is something here for every personality type, and even the committed will recognize some of their anxieties. For public libraries where self-help books are popular. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/93.
- Carol R. Nelson, Ball State Univ. Lib., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Dell; 3rd Printing edition (January 2, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440506255
• ISBN-13: 978-0440506256
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a completely useless book...but close., August 15, 2007

By 

R. Doyle "rdoyle720" (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (Paperback)

This book starts out well enough, it defines the word commitmentphobic (anyone scared of a commitment) and then discusses active and passive conflicts. It then talks about characteristics of each type -- things a person with active conflicts typically does in relationship, and the same for those with passive conflicts. You'll probably start to see some familiar behaviors here. Then it'll explain how everyone has commitment issues to some extent, both passive and active, and how it's only a problem if it interferes with your relationships.

You say to yourself, great. This is all very reassuring. So what do I do about it?

For the next 200 pages (it's about 300 pages total), the book offers NO practical advice. Instead it begins to use "commitmentphobic" as a dirty word, and starts to tell stories of relationships. You read story after story thinking "Hey, I see some of myself here, I wonder what they'll recommend to resolve this situation...". You get to the end of the story and there's no advice, just another story. You get to the end of the chapter and there's no advice, just another chapter full of stories. And regardless of what they say, not all the stories are of commitmentphobic people.

The book also practices a lot of tough love. In several cases it appears to be saying "Anyone who is willing to commit to you is the person you should commit to. There is no perfect person, no person of your dreams, no one you should be holding out for. Growing up means giving up on your dreams and settling down."

Finally, the last few chapters of the book attempt to give some practical advice, but it ends up being contradictory. Here's what one of the last chapters said, boiled down to a few sentences.

Acknowledge you have commitment issues, but don't talk to your partner about them. Ok, do talk to your partner about them, but don't cry. Actually, don't talk to your partner about them because that'll create more intimacy. Wait, do talk to them about it, but only when you're ready to break up with them.

What????

In the end the only real practical piece of advice they give is to get counseling. Not very useful after buying the book and reading 300 pages.

I'll save you trouble and give you the good stuff out of the book. Notice how short it is.

Active avoiders pursue hard at first and then draw away, putting up boundaries. Passive avoiders fall hard, but always for the wrong people (active avoiders). You're falling for those people because it's "safe" to love them, because you know it won't turn into a real relationship. No one necessarily falls into one camp or the other, you can switch between relationships or during a single relationship.

Everyone has commitment issues to some extent. If your issues hurt your relationships, take a cold hard look at your patterns and try to manage them. If you can't, seek counseling.

See? I did all the whole book in less than a page.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If only I had known...., October 31, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (Paperback)

Had I read this 2 years ago, I could have saved myself a lot of time, demoralizing heartache, frustration, and yes, money (living up to a committmentphobe's fantasies not only deflates your self-worth, but your bank account as well). Finally someone explained to me why after ending a relationship with a man who set up unreasonable boundaries, evaded talking about the future, withdrew emotionally, and maintained "friendships" with ex-lovers...I STILL COULDN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS JERK! I knew that the fact I had not been able to let go was my problem and not his, and this book explained it very clearly: I'm just as afraid of committment as the obvious "committmentphobe", and it's been the emotional hook that's kept me from detaching. The chapter on Runners and Chasers could have been written about me and my ex, and I was the passive and willing participant in the push/pull dance.

I can congratulate myself for getting out after only a year of this nonsense. Moving on has been hell, but finding this book has been a huge help in taking the first step in resolving my own fears of sharing life with another person.

I hope that Carter and Sokol write some follow-up books to help those of us who truly want committed relationships but are afraid to realize them.

78 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Cites the symptoms, but not the solution!, May 25, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (Paperback)

Buying this book to fix yourself or your relationship is like fixing a ramshackle house with rubberbands and duct tape. Here's why:
1) These people are not scientists, sociologists or therapists. They are the equivalent of emotional "trainspotters". They went out into the world and found many examples of people who are scared of commitment and made correlations and assumptions based on very little other than loose commonalities.

2) Of course you're scared of commitment! Who isn't? Duh. This book never gets to the reason WHY. Instead, it tells you to "examine yourself" (on your own) and force yourself to make commitments without ever getting to the reason why commitments create such anxiety for you. Even after reading this book and relating to it completely, I still acted out the same old patterns without a clue as to why.

3) These people have no training in therapy or psychoanalysis, and they say as much. They approach the issue as if it were something that started in adulthood, instead of examining the roots of all our problems: childhood, and the need to bond and separate with our parents.

A MUCH, MUCH better book is John Wellwood's "Journey of the Heart". Wellwood successfully addresses in one chapter what this book attempts to cover in 200 pages, but fails. Wellwood will get you to think about why you fluctuate from "abandonment panic" to "engulfment panic", recognize what's going on, and most importantly, teach you how to overcome your fears so you can lead a more fulfilling life. Pick it up and read the chapter "Obstacles to the path", and you'll get it.

PS. The idea that "Men can't love" (their other book) is pure hooey! (and I'm a woman, FYI)