The first key: Is for women to understand the man in their lives. By reading Dr Weinberg’s book on “Why Men Won’t Commit: Getting What You Both Want without Playing Games”, he suggested that men have a masculine pretense or a masculine complex. Whereas it is not so much that men are afraid of commitment, but rather afraid of losing their masculinity. Grantly Morris also talks about understanding men’s ego as masculinity, in his essay “Men: The Simpler Sex? Trying to Understand Men”.

Understanding Your Man First:
1. Help protect his masculinity. According my research, men need to feel masculine. Therefore if you are making him feel less masculine, or keeping him from being masculine, he is prone to run farther and farther away from commitment. He might even secretly hold a grudge on you. Let your guy be a guy, if he wants to go out with the guys and play sports let him. If he wants to watch Sunday sports, and you want to watch Buffy or Charmed, watch it on two different TV’s. Don’t be selfish and make him watch what you want to watch, and let him know if sports aren’t your thing. When it comes to watching a romantic movie together, or spending time together, set aside timeframes. Obviously the romantic date can’t be set for Sunday. Set a day for the two of you to be romantic and spend time together, and a time when he goes with the guys and you with the girls. Also, make it a mutual respect that both of you ask what the other has planned and wanted to do that upcoming week. This way you both feel understood, and you feel that he wants to spend time with you. The benefit to this is he feels like you respect him as a man, and he doesn’t feel embarrassed by his buddies. Say for instance, when his buddies see him they don’t say, “Wow Joe you were able to sneak out of the house, how did you manage that”? Guys will do that, and he will end up resenting you for losing his masculinity especially around those where it means the most, his friends. You could also risk losing him. Then he will go out and try to find the perfect woman (which there is no perfect woman) but he might end up with a woman who respects him and his masculinity. Also, always keep in mind that his masculinity is extremely sensitive, especially around other people. Be especially careful not to say any jokes, or tell tales of some funny story that he did, that might even slightly embarrass him or bruise his masculinity.

Unhealthy Signs
A. If he is unwilling to commit to a win-win schedule.
B. He wants to just see you whenever, or when he wants to see you he just wants you on his time and schedule.
C. You both have a time set up to do something together, and he ditches you anyway to be with his friends or do something else.
D. You always end up spending your “together” time with his friends.
E. He breaks his plan with you more than once. Lets say he has had a lot on his mind and instead of going out he needs some alone time. Great! Let him have his alone time but commit another time to you. If he ditches you again there is a problem.
F. Your problem. We all have those girlfriends who are whinny if their guy isn’t at there beck and call. If you find that you whine that your guy never spends time with you, even if he spends all of his time with you, and even breaks plans with the guys to be with you, there is something wrong. Find out why you do this through self-help or therapy. Is it because of a self-esteem issue, or a selfish issue? Not only will you help yourself you will help salvage your relationship.

2. Be loyal. Guys actually like loyalty. So after you have been seeing each other for a while, tell him how much sexual loyalty means to you if the both of you have been sleeping with each other. He may act funny to this but will probably feel a big sigh of relief. Do not talk about your past relationships unless there is something valid i.e. your last relationship was abusive in any kind of way. This will help him to understand you. Don’t bring up useless info of the past, or try to make him jealous by saying “so and so always did this for me”, to make your current man do it. He will do far less than commit, and probably think “Well if so and so did this for you, then why aren’t you still with him?” If you are in a conversation about what you did in the past, don’t mention what you and your ex did. If say you and your ex traveled to Argentina together, say, “I went to Argentina”. Empathize Argentina if your current man asks you who it was with; softly say it was with “so and so.” But say it doesn’t really matter now. Then get off the subject and say you and I should do this and that together. This will show him you valued the experience not who you were with, even if you did, and that you want to be committed to him by sharing new experiences. This will make him want to commit to you.

Unhealthy Signs
A. If you have no intention of being sexually committed to this guy, you need to let him know so that you are both dating openly, and neither one feels tied down to begrudge the other later. Or if you didn’t want him to sleep with other women, and you brought up the loyalty thing just so he wouldn’t sleep with others, you need to tell him anyway. How would you feel if someone led you on this way?
B. If you are in anyway, shape, or form in love with your ex, or on the rebound and don’t want to be loyal, don’t make him be your ex by sizing him up or being a replacement. Again how would you feel if someone did this to you? Let him know you just want to date openly for a while for personal growth purposes.
C. He comes on too strong, or gives you the “I love you so much” speech, “so lets do this”…Or he pushes hard for sex even if you are not ready.

How to help him commit:
1. See him underneath the surface of his masculine complex.
Ask him questions of who he is, rather than size him up about his successes in life, his wage, how much the Christmas bonus was, or how much salary he will be making with his new promotion. Ask instead how it makes him feel, and how his coworkers responded. Did they have a celebration afterward on the promotion or bonus? This helps him understand you care about him, and not what job he has or how much money he makes. This is very important for men. Help him feel important. Don’t give advice if he vents. He is testing you to let him talk about it. This will make him feel like he can open up to you.

2. According to Dr Weinberg, if you want your guy to resent you, then let him do everything for you. If he keeps doing things for you, then he is going to feel like he is putting off his life for you. Tell him how grateful you are when he does something for you, and help him to remember his life afterward, like say “Didn’t you have that report to write for on work?” “I don’t want to take up all your time.” Do things for yourself and be independent. It will make him feel so much better.

3. Make him say the L word. If he says, isn’t it obvious or ditto, like in Ghost, tell him it is really important for you to hear him actually say the words. If he doesn’t eventually tell you he loves you, he probably doesn’t, and it is best to again move on. Don’t make him say the L word, however, really early on in the relationship, give him time. But if he hasn’t said it within about six months, and you have said it a billion times, then it is best to make him say it.

4. Don’t pressure him. If you have asked him if he plans on spending the rest of his life with you, and he has said yes, then let it go. The time will come when the time is right unless you are into this about 4-10 years of dating and or living together.

When Not To Commit:
1. If you have any doubts in your heart, listen to it and move on.
2. If he is abusive.
3. You are using him to fill a void in your life, using him for validation, or to replace something you did not or do not have in your life.

Living together by helping commitment or marriage - The Controversy:
According to The Rules: “The Time Tested Secrets To Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right” by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider: If you are already living together and he says he doesn't want to become engaged, make plans to move out. But don't say, "I'm moving out because you won't commit, just say that you need more space and you heard about a great apartment.” When a man doesn't want to commit and you do, leave him alone. If he doesn't try to get you back with a proposal, don't waste your time. If he asks what's going on, nonchalantly answer, "I don't know if this relationship is for me." If he can live without you, you don't want him. Move on.
The outcome of a recent Rutgers University Study on single heterosexual men 25-33 years of age, one of the top reasons men did not commit was that they could get the benefits of a wife by living with her and not having to marry. And according to therapist and Minister Ronn Elmore, Ph.D. "They typically offer a woman only as much commitment as they perceive necessary to have her. A woman, who fears she may scare a man off by insisting on marriage, may accept cohabitation. If you'll take less for it, he'll offer less for it."
In the early nineties, half the couples admitted to living together before getting engaged. In my own experience it takes longer for men to propose when they cohabit rather than date and then get married.
You have to just analyze your situation.

Definitely Don’t Move Out If These Are Your Motives:
1. If your relationship is rocky, and your guy suggests to move in together to have the relationship work itself out.
2. If your man wants to move out to “test things out”. There are no test things out. Either he wants to marry you or he doesn’t, and he doesn’t need to move in with you to find that out. This would be a sign he is not going to marry you, and is possibly using you.
3. If you think it will help him marry you faster. As we have seen by the studies and statements above if you offer less he will take less. So basically, it would make him move farther away from marriage and commitment rather than closer to it.
4. If he pressures you in anyway, or tries to manipulate you in any way, by saying “I don’t want to marry you until I move in with you.” This is when you say sianora.
If you both just moved out together, just to be moving out together. And there wasn’t much emotion behind it, then I suppose it is up to you to read the tell-tell signs if he is going to commit or not, and obviously in the beginning of the cohabitation rather than later in to it. To save time, money and pain.