I’m a member of the club who has tried to change their romantic partners out of all sorts of reasons. None of it was successful long term. Let me be straightforward with you.
The one thing that is 100% out of your control is the other person!
Yes, you have completely no control over anyone else. It may seem like you do at times, but the reality is that they choose what to do from what you ask them. As long as your romantic partner is not a doll, you can’t control them no matter how much you care.
So yours is a human, too? Good, then let’s check what you can do.
You can control everything about yourself. And if that seems hard, well, imagine how much harder it is to control two of those. So let’s come back to you, shall we.
The hard pill to swallow is that you chose the person you are in a relationship with. You made the actions to be with them. Now it’s your choice to understand if that is something that you want in your life.
There are red flags that are truly not for you and there are simple smaller things that you could potentially accept.
The two options you can start with begins with understanding which category it is.
Is the thing that annoys you something that you can potentially live with or is it a deal breaker and you prefer to be with someone else?
Ask yourself: if my partner does not want to change this something, am I okay to live with it?
Once you know the answer for yourself, you have the option to tell your partner in a loving way that you would like it to change and how. Then they have the choice to either change it or not. And you know clearly where you stand with this.
My real life example is me asking my partner not to be on the mobile phone whilst we talk to each other. I knew that if he wouldn’t change this habit I would potentially see it as a deal breaker as I truly value quality time together with loads of presence for intimate conversations.
I talked about this topic with him using the magic communication formula of: sharing how I feel when he is X + why it is important for me. + What I would like instead Y.
It sounded sort of like this: “I feel sad and lonely, sometimes angry when you are on the phone (X) whilst we have a conversation and it’s important for me to have connection and presence when we talk to each other. I would really like it if instead you could put the phone away whilst we talk to each other (Y). ”
As you may notice it is all about my true feelings, it’s vulnerable and very clear on what I want instead. There is zero mention of blame or shame towards his actions. He knows exactly why I don’t like it and how it makes me feel, he even knows what I want instead.
Guess what? He puts his phone away when we talk.
Of course, some scenarios and asks may not be changed as some may be addicted and struggling themselves and that’s why you need to know what is your deal breaker ahead.
If the person does not see it as a thing they want to change about themselves, they have the freedom to do so. It’s your choice to be there growling, nagging or blame shame them for that..
or accept it and move on. Either with them or without.
So what is in your control?
What you learned about yourself through reading about this?
