Myth: Definition of “Committed”

 The original definition of “committed” is something like:

Adj. committed – bound or obligated, as under a pledge to a particular cause, action, or attitude; “committed church members”; “a committed Marxist”

When we are committed to a cause, we take the cause seriously, we bind ourselves to work on that cause. We make it our business, concern ourselves with it, take “ownership” of the cause.

If I am in a committed relationship, it should mean, I do not take it lightly, but am willing to put effort and time into it.

Interestingly, when it comes to “romantic relationships” the meaning of the word immediately changes! It suddenly is used instead of “exclusive”. If presented with a situation, where the spouses live next to each other in the same house, and don’t even talk to each other anymore, we still call it a “committed relationship” as long as neither of them has a romantic relationship with another person.

On the other hand, if a person is very engaged and supportive, spends a lot of effort to be there for the other person, makes him/her-self emotionally and physically available often and especially when needed, we still do not call this a committed relationship, as long as this person does not explicitly proclaim not to have any sexual interactions with any other person.

I do not understand why we abuse the word “committed” in that way! It is de facto a completely different meaning from the original definition. Isn’t that a bad situation?

Whether somebody is exclusive or not does not make a relationship committed, and vice versa – this is a MYTH!

Wouldn’t it be better to use the word “exclusive”, when we mean “exclusive”, and “committed” when we mean “committed”?

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