Don’t Try to Change Your Partner. Change YOURSELF Instead! This Can Help Your Relationship

Men and women alike often try to change their partners. They believe that “only when” their partners will think, feel, react and behave the way they themselves do – the relationship will be satisfying. But how often does it happen that just because they try to change their partners their relationship is getting worst and worst? Just because they think they know better how their partners “should be, think, feel and behave” they find themselves in endless conflicts and quarrels? Why would anyone want to change his/her partner? Trying to change a partner doesn’t say much about the partner, but a lot about the person who is working hard on changing his/her partner. Is this person driven by control issues, being convinced that his/her way of doing things is the right way? By a feeling that he/she “knows better” what best for the two of them? By stubbornness and inflexibility, believing that his/her perception of “how things should be” is the only right perception? Regardless of the reasons one resorts to in order to justify his/her trying to change the partner, often “making the partner” change doesn’t work (unless the partner is too submissive and is willing to accommodate self to whatever the other wants in order to be loved and have a relationship – which is a story all by itself!). Trying to “change” the partner usually ends up with opposite results: anger, blaming, endless arguments, mutual insults, and a growing distance between the two. It might well be that you know it from your own experience… Change yourself, not your partner! If you wholeheartedly wish to have a satisfying relationship you need to change yourself rather than attempting to change your partner. You need to ask yourself in which ways you might be harming the relationship – rather than placing the blame on your partner. You need to acknowledge that each one of you has his/her own perception of reality, own unique personality, own ways of self-expression. Demanding your partner to change is neglecting to acknowledge his/her uniqueness, but rather attempting to form your partner to your own world-view (which says a lot about you rather than about your partner!). How can you begin the process of change? The process of change begins by being motivated to make the necessary changes; by acknowledging the fact that there might be things in you which harm the relationship; by getting up the courage to figure out what these are and finding ways to change. The decision to embark on the process of change is a crucial one. It can determine the success or failure of your relationship – whether the current one, or subsequent ones (if you are single or in the process of a separation). Some hesitate to begin the process of change. It scares them. They think it is an indication that they are not “perfect”. That they don’t know how to be in a relationship. They think that embarking on a process of change means that they are the ones to be blamed for their present and/or past failed relationships. But if you feel that your relationship is not successful and you truly want to make it work (or learn how to succeed in subsequent ones), the sooner you overcome all these hesitations and embark on the process of change, the sooner you may find out how you can develop and maintain a satisfying intimacy.