Before you read this…read the “Why Am I Here” Page…It will give you some much needed context. Follow me on twitter @youbelievemyths Follow me on Facebook at wwww.facebook.com/truthandrelationships

Are we all going to change? Can we control changes in our life or are we doomed to experience them and deal with the results?

I had a conversation with a young woman last week. After I told her that I believe in individually perfect relationships she immediately discounted my belief and told me they’re impossible. I asked why she believed that so strongly.

“People change constantly.” She said. “How could any relationship be or stay perfect when the people in it are going to be different next year or five years from now?”

She supported her claim by telling me a story. She had been with her husband for 9 years, married for the last three. In that time she has changed to the point where she isn’t sure they want the same things in life anymore. She is now struggling with that knowledge every day because she knows she isn’t going to be happy being the person he wants her to be and living the life he wants her to live. She also knows he won’t be happy being married to her if she chooses to live the life she wants to live.

She is now weighed down by guilt, confusion and fear because she blames herself and her “changes” for this problem. She is thinking about getting divorced and is paralyzed by that thought. After all, what if she changes again and she wants what she has now?

Many people believe what this woman believes. They believe that change happens to them independently of their desires. They believe they have little control over who they will become 5, 10 or 15 years into the future. People explain that belief through a commonly used phrase: The only constant in life is change. I would like to remind all those people of another commonly used phrase: A tiger never changes its stripes.

Thinking back to my own life changes, I’ve come to realize that the “change” people talk about in themselves and their lives really isn’t change at all when you think about it clearly. This issue becomes much easier to understand if you think about the difference between changes that are inevitable and those that are made consciously.

Inevitable Change vs. Changing by Choice
Inevitable change happens around us all the time. Companies close, politicians pass new laws, cars break down, people pass away, diseases affect your health, stocks lose or make money, wars break out, natural disasters destroy homes, people do things to disappoint you, and all those things (as well as a million others) affect the decisions you have to make on any given day. When those outside changes measurably affect your life, your individual situation or circumstances may have to change.

As a result of those things you may have to get a new job, you may no longer be able to afford the lifestyle you’re used to, you may be able to afford more, you might have to move or you may no longer be able to do things physically that you would otherwise choose to do, and you might end a friendship with someone. Your daily routine might have to change whether or not you want it to. Those things are inevitable.

While those things are out of your control, who you are and what you choose to do is entirely within your control. Any personal changes you make this year, next year or 5, 10 or 15 years from now are going to be conscious choices. Nobody can force you to make any personal changes, but many people allow others to influence those changes.

When it comes to relationships, people appear to “change” to make their relationship work all the time. They sometimes become different people entirely. People stop doing things they once enjoyed because their spouse doesn’t enjoy that activity. They might stop hanging out with someone or alter aspects of their personality that their spouse doesn’t like. They try to respond differently to a situation or communicate “better” because they know their spouse doesn’t react well to what would otherwise be their normal response to that situation. They might decide to convert to a different religion or make other significant life changes that are necessary to make that other person comfortable. They might change their entire life plan because the decide early in a relationship that the new life they will be able to live with their spouse will be just as fulfilling as the life they want to live for themselves.

What you need to realize when it comes to “changes” like those mentioned above is that those things never really change about you. Regardless of the way you choose to act, you still like the activity you stopped doing, you still want to react in your normal way to certain stimuli, you still have some of your old religious beliefs, and you still know you would be happy living the life you originally wanted to live before you allowed this other life option to change your decision about how to live your life.

All you are really doing is foregoing your prior desires and repressing your true reactions because you have to do those things if you’re going to stay in your relationship. That’s where the problems start.

Society convinces us that these changes are healthy and necessary. I disagree. When we start to long for the things we changed but we don’t “change back” because we know that would cause problems in our relationships, animosity begins to take root. Over time that animosity grows into frustration and arguments and leads us to question our relationship. The only way to relieve that frustration personally is to start doing what you were asked not to do in the beginning.

Society then further confuses the issue by using the changes we were willing to make in the past (which we now regret) to convince us that the relationships is worth changing for. After all, you made changes that you didn’t think you wanted to make before because that relationship was worth it. Due to the inevitable nature of change, you will continue to change in the future and your relationship will too. All you need to do is work to make sure that future change is positive and you can improve your life. Unfortunately that’s just not true.

Changing who you truly are and what you truly want to do is what caused the problems you now have in your relationship. More change isn’t going to make it any better. The only thing that will make it better is “changing” back to who you naturally are.

To outside observers and to that person who you “changed” for originally, when you start doing whatever you stopped doing before, you are changing again. The truth of the matter is you never changed in the first place.

So how can this help you understand the effect change will have on your life?
First you need to look at the proposed changes individually and determine if you are being forced to make them by inevitable happenings in the world around you, or if you are being asked to make in order to fulfill someone else’s desires.

When you are truly forced into a change by outside circumstances, you may not like it, but you don’t have anyone to blame. In those cases the animosity doesn’t affect your relationship. You have to deal with the hard times those changes cause together. By doing so, you actually strengthen your relationship by overcoming unforeseen difficulties together.

On the other hand, when you make changes that you wouldn’t otherwise choose, but they are being asked of you in order to make someone else happy, you are actually hurting your relationship by making them. Eventually, those changes will cause a different kind of “hard times.”
Society believes getting through these hard times makes you stronger too, but society is again wrong. The only way a couple gets through the hard times caused by animosity, frustration and arguments, is agreeing to disagree or by one person getting their way. There is never a win-win solution and someone is always slighted. That leads to even more frustration, animosity and future arguments, all because of a decision to change.

Real Life Results of Change
Let’s now revisit the story of the young woman I spoke of earlier. She and her husband have different definitions of a happy life. They have different religious beliefs. They have different opinions about whether or not they should try to have children. She consciously changed her desires and beliefs 9 years ago so that her husband could live the life he wanted to live. She chose to change and act differently because she was convinced she would enjoy that type of comfortable life with him. Now that she is living that life, she isn’t as happy as she expected to be. She also realizes that it is that life that is preventing her from doing what she really wants to be doing. She isn’t happy in this life now, because she never actually changed back then.

I believe this young lady should now choose to live the exact life she wants to live. I think she should maintain her religious beliefs. I think she should choose to follow her true desires instead of choosing to repress them in the name of maintaining her marriage. I believe she should choose to get divorced and allow her husband to find someone else that wants the same things he wants and that believes the same things he believes. I believe the choice they made to get married, and the conscious choice she made to change for him, were bad choices. They shouldn’t now carry any more weight than the choices she wants to make in order to be happy in the future.

If she doesn’t choose to do that, she is going to negatively affect her life, continue to struggle with him against the choices he wants to make, and neither of them will ever be able to be truly happy. All so they can pretend they have a happy marriage.

Right now she is choosing to allow guilt, fear, obligation and societal pressure to convince her that she can’t be who she really wants to be. That’s not a healthy choice. She is doing this because she chooses to believe that she changed before, and she is afraid she will change again. If she looked back 9 years, I think she would be startled to realize that the person she wants to be now, is the person she was back then. She tried to change to be who her husband needed her to be, but a tiger doesn’t change its stripes.

After all of this explanation, here’s my recommendation. If you’re looking for someone to marry or trying to figure out why you’re unhappy in your current marriage, you first need to understand you. You need to figure out exactly who you are, exactly what you want to do with your life every single day, and you need to start doing those things. While that might seem like “change” to those around you, all you are really doing is reversing all the unnecessary and unsuccessful changes you’ve tried to make to make in yourself in the past to keep those people around you happy. You need to change back and allow yourself to be exactly who you really are.

Once you know who you are and what you want to do, refuse to change! Find someone who wants to do all the same things and marry them. Then live the rest of your live dealing with the inevitable changes the world throws at the two of you without ever being asked to change a thing about yourself.

If you like what you’ve seen here, please hit “follow” and you will receive notification of my weekly posts. Please also share this on your Facebook page. I need your help spreading the truth about relationships. Please also follow me on Twitter @youbelievemyths