I often hear conflicting advice about the futility of getting someone to change their behavior.
I’ve heard from people at the start of their relationship who are optimistic that their partner will change eventually. And I’ve heard from people at the end of a long and miserable relationship where their partner never changed despite all their efforts. But
I’ve yet to hear from someone who actually changed their SO.
This makes me wonder if this really happens, and more importantly, how it happens.
Obviously, some behaviors are harder to change than others. This thread is about behaviors that would make you want to end the relationship if you were certain change was not possible. Not about how you finally got your girlfriend to read Game of Thrones; but how your Husband was chronically irresponsible, and you got him to change his ways.
I was that wife. I was also an alcoholic. I changed everything and now we have a great relationship (minus a few bumps in the road, but that’s to be expected).
When I met my husband, he didn’t have a job and got drunk every night. It’s been four years and he’s slowly changed into a much more responsible person…into the man I knew was in there somewhere. I know I personally didn’t do anything to change him, but I’d like to think maybe I was part of the reason that he changed himself.
Lakai, you cannot change someone else. You can only change yourself.
Never have a relationship with someone hoping they’ll change. They won’t and you’ll be disappointed and they’ll be confused. Either love and accept them the way they are or move on.
My alcoholic ex-husband never changed. Not for me, not for wife number two or wife number three. Then he died.
I did learn in college that one of the factors that predicts whether a criminal man will reform his ways is if he’s in a serious relationship. I thought, “No! No! Don’t tell people that!” That’s the last thing women who try to change men need to hear.
Of course, you could say that men who already want to change are more likely to get into relationships, but I doubt that’s the case, because the most dysfunctional people seem to be at least as quick to get into relationships as anyone else.