Commitment as Structure

Philosopher Margaret Gilbert argues that commitment creates a shared agency that turns two individuals into a "we" — with goals and obligations neither person holds alone.

Commitment also works as a decision-reducer. Once you commit, you stop weighing alternatives, and that is freeing: the constant evaluation of options breeds anxiety, not freedom. It swaps the exhausting "could I do better?" for the productive "how do we do this better?" The constraint, paradoxically, creates more freedom inside the relationship than endless options provide outside it.