The Devil Owns the Fence

Sunday, October 12, 2025. This is for KAM, who introduced me to the fence.

There’s a saying from the Deep South I love because it refuses to love me back: The Devil owns the fence.

You can stand on one side, you can stand on the other, but if you sit on that fence—paralyzed by “maybe”—you’re basically doing pro bono work for the underworld.

Not because you’re wicked, but because indecision is.

In couples therapy, I see a lot of conscientious, intelligent people frozen on the planks of I don’t know. They’re not fighting (which looks sorta civilized), but they’re not repairing either (which is ultimately deadly).

The cease-fire becomes the slow surrender. Ask them how they are and you’ll hear a museum audio guide: informative, neutral, and somewhat lonely and remote.

The Devil doesn’t need you to betray your values. He just needs you to delay them.

Ambivalence Is Anxiety in a Tuxedo

Psychologically, fence-sitting is often approach–avoidance conflict: the same goal carries both reward and risk, so you inch forward and flinch back (Miller, 1959; Elliot, 2008).

Intimacy promises warmth; vulnerability threatens embarrassment.

Career change offers meaning; but it also threatens the status quo.

The brain reads this as danger and starts running loops worthy of community theater: dramatic, repetitive, and not nearly as good as the actors think.

Neuroscience adds a fluorescent highlighter. Indecision taxes the anterior cingulate cortex, the system that monitors conflict and error (Botvinick et al., 2004).

Keep it revving long enough and the stress network lights up in patterns that rhyme with physical pain (Shenhav, Cohen, & Botvinick, 2016). That exhausted “we’re in limbo” feeling? It’s not melodrama. It’s your metabolism.

The Modern Fence Comes With Deluxe Memory Foam Cushions Now

We’ve optimized hesitation and branded it as optionality.

Dating apps, job boards, even spiritual shopping make it easy to keep twelve tabs half-open and call it prudence.

But indecision can often scale into perpetual moral drift.

Hannah Arendt warned that damage often arrives not by villainy but by vacancy—ordinary people declining to choose until the harmful thing becomes the normal thing (Arendt, 1963).

In relationships, no one sets out to neglect a partner. They just postpone loving them until Tuesday. Then Friday. Then the anniversary card.

Ghost Marriages and Soft Breakups

When one partner refuses to choose—rebuild or release—the other ends up in a ghost marriage: two bodies, one presence.

The home feels museum-clean and prayer-empty. I don’t tell my clients to “try harder.” I invite them to fucking try something.

Movement, even imperfect, is the antidote to paralysis.

Ending a relationship clear-eyed can be as moral as saving it; What I discovered depletes the soul is living in a waiting room with no door.

The Devil’s Business Model

Hell doesn’t need a monopoly; it just leases the middle ground. It whispers, “Don’t decide—you might regret it.”

Here’s the joke: not deciding is a decision with interest. Joy declines. Resentment accrues. And eventually you’ll call the accrual “regret.”

Seven Ways to Climb Off the Fence (That Don’t Require a Personality Transplant)

• Name the Real Choices. Write the two actual paths on paper—not vibes, not “see how it goes.” Clarity is a kindness to all concerned. Be concrete AF.

• Run a One-Week Experiment. Act as if you’ve chosen Path A for seven days (no hedging). Implementation intentions reduce anxiety and increase follow-through (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).

• Shrink the Stakes, Keep the Spine. Choose the next right action, not the forever one. Courage can be bite-sized. Please don’t forget that.

• Time-Box Ambivalence. Give indecision a calendar invite that expires. If the deadline hits with no change, you choose by default—and you state that out loud.

• Replace Rumination with a Ritual. When the loop starts, do a pre-scripted five-minute reset: breath, brief journal, single outreach text. Rituals beat wrestling matches.

• Ask the Body. Your nervous system often knows before you do: Which choice brings relief? Which makes me small? Relief isn’t proof—but it’s data.

• Tell the truth in One Fucking Sentence. If you can’t say what you’re doing in a sentence a friend could understand, you’re not deciding—you’re decorating.

What Commitment Most Likely Means

Commitment is not cosmic certainty; it’s a vector of behavioral direction with accountability and intent.

The healthy couple isn’t the pair who never doubts.

It’s the pair who doubts—and keeps moving toward repair.

The healthy professional isn’t the one who never fears. It’s the one who fears—and acts anyway. Certainty is a luxury; commitment is a muscle.

A Note for the Tender-Hearted Overachiever

If you’re allergic to hurting people, ambivalence can feel like virtue. Trust me. I’ve made epic mistakes with ambivalence. Never again.

Lingering on maybe often hurts more than a clean no. Think of your indecision as a tax you’re secretly levying the people you love. Lower the rate. Or abolish it.

Closing Thoughts

The fence is never neutral. It’s just the best-designed sticky trap in your life. Choose a side, even if you need to revise it later.

The ground will wobble; your courage, hopefully, will not.

In therapy, as in life, salvation rarely descends—it proceeds instead from your values.

With any luck, you’ll soon be making one excellent decision at a time, with your boots on solid ground, and your values clear as a morning sunrise in the Berkshires.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed

REFERENCES:

Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. Viking Press.

Botvinick, M. M., Cohen, J. D., & Carter, C. S. (2004). Conflict monitoring and anterior cingulate cortex: An update. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(12), 539–546. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.10.003

Elliot, A. J. (2008). Handbook of approach and avoidance motivation. Psychology Press.

Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1

Miller, N. E. (1959). Liberalization of basic S-R concepts: Extensions to conflict behavior, motivation, and social learning. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of a science (Vol. 2, pp. 196–292). McGraw-Hill.

Shenhav, A., Cohen, J. D., & Botvinick, M. M. (2016). Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the value of control. Nature Neuroscience, 19(10), 1286–1291. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4384