Waiting for someone to change for you is usually, at least in most cases, a form of unnecessary suffering.
This reality usually occurs in romantic relationships, where one member wants the other to live up to their expectations, their behavior improves and one day learns to love exactly as they expect, however, those expectations rarely materialize.
- If we stop to think.
- To believe that someone is going to take a 180-degree turn in their life.
- Change attitude and behavior.
- Creates the foundations of an emotional dependence that is both harmful and exhausting.
It’s living waiting for a miracle, it’s believing in each other when you say it’s going to change, that what happened in the past won’t happen again. But in fact, an hour we realize that we fall back into the taking of blind and passionate hearts.
Such situations are more common than you usually think, it is even normal for this to happen, because when a person loves trusts, because the former cannot be separated from the second, so we end up giving a second, a third or even a fourth chance in the hope that the relationship will work.
We fight with conviction, because to love is to believe that any effort in the end will be worthwhile, until at some point the person opens his eyes to understand that even if the desire is enormous, it will not come true.
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily, the moment of experience is chosen to look back or forward. -Graham Greene-
Psychology uses the term personality to define a series of traits more or less stable over time, so if someone exhibits a combination of introversion and shyness, it’s hard to expect them to exhibit extroverted behavior overnight.
However, showing a personality trend does not exclude the fact that we can make certain changes against the current, that is, against the natural tendencies of our personality.
Moreover, if we do not believe in the possibility of change in the face of inertia, psychological intervention would not make sense, in this context people, in addition to seeking to make changes, are experiencing improvements and acquiring new mental and behavioral patterns.
For this reason, one thing that shows various studies, such as that conducted by Dr. Walter Roberts of the University of Illinois in the United States, is that change occurs most often in a psychotherapeutic context.
That is, when a person is aware that there is a problem to face, clinical intervention itself means the possibility of causing these personality changes.
We are constantly waiting for changes in others. This hope occurs even in the family or in the upbringing of a child. When the child’s behavior is not as expected, we draw the child’s attention and inform him what we want or expect in this context: respect, attention, affection and responsibility.
In education it is normal to expect change, in the end, education means reorienting, suggesting, dialogue, being a good example and showing a path that, for us, is the best option for our children.
Now that we are reaching adulthood, many of our personality patterns are already deeply rooted; if there is not much will, there will be virtually no change.
Thus, it is common in sentimental relationships that the other behaves in a way that we do not like, the ideal is to accept both the good and the bad of the other, because defects, manias and singularities are nuances that shape the person as he is, his essence and his authentic being.
Therefore, trying to switch the other to match what we expect is not a good idea, however other, more serious situations may arise.
Abuse, contempt and deceptive behavior, for example, are not allowed or acceptable under any circumstances. In the latter cases, we not only recommend attempting to generate change, but also a condition for the relationship to continue.
In Dr. John Gottman’s book, The Seven Principles of a Relationship at Work, he says something very important. Love is first and foremos s. is to appreciate the other for what it is and vice versa.
Now, if harmful behaviors appear, such as what he called the four horsemen of the apocalypse (detachment, flight, criticism, and defensive attitude), the relationship is doomed to failure.
In these latter cases it is essential to investigate and generate changes, and it is not a question of waiting for someone to change for us, it is about realizing that there is a problem, because when there is suffering you have to change attitudes and behaviors not only for the bond to be maintained, but also for there to be something essential: well-being and happiness.
Thus, in these cases two situations tend to develop. The first is that the other person tells us this famous phrase: “I am like this, do you either accept me or do you not stay with me?”
The second situation is one in which we are trapped in a mental and emotional trap of thinking that the other will really change for us when he says that he will be better, that everything will be fine from now on and that what happened will not happen. Again. . However, things are not only repeated, but sometimes even worse.
What if we find ourselves in the middle of one of these situations in a relationship?The answer is simple: if we are unhappy and the other person does not mobilize to change or improve the situation, change will have to be made by us. We will have to pass the page and overcome the sadness and carelessness they have had with our feelings.
Finally, it should be repeated that the ideal in this type of situation is to seek the help of a professional, couple therapists and psychologists are of extraordinary help in these cases.