Commitment in Love Relationships

In my diploma thesis I intend to look into the issue of commitment in love relationships. I wonder how it is influenced by the nature of nowadays society enhancing individualism and flexibility. These commitments are based in merging our own identity with identity of our partner. But crucial is to also balance it with our own autonomy and freedom. Commitment means putting certain restrictions to our future choices. I made sixteen semi-structured qualitative interviews based on grounded theory with sixteen women and men in young adulthood and I looked for answers on how they perceive commitments in love relationships, what meaningful partnership means to them and how they cope with comparing potential alternatives and overall which strategies they use in making decision about commitment and behavior for its lasting, deepening or ending them. Keywords Commitment, love, relationship, intimacy, identity, individualism, autonom