How to Change Your Spouse/Partner Without Ruining Your Relationship
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"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude" - Maya Angelou
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It is commonly said that change is a constant thing. Whether you know it or not, every living and non-living things will go to through a period of change. The clothes you wear will change color or reduce in size due to frequent washing or that you outgrow it.
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In relationship, one of the major cause of friction or issue is when a partner tries to change the other or make them conform to his or her belief and ideology about life miraculously. Ko le work! Change doesn't happen overnight, there’s a process and there's a price to pay for it.
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For instance, if a man marries
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"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world" - Harriet Tubman
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Yorubas in their wit stated that it takes patience to cook a stone to be soft. Don't try it o, or else, you'll waste your gas, it is proverbial.
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No change happens overnight. Change is not a miracle, it's a process. If you see change manifest in your life, know that you have done something to effect it or someone somewhere have labored for that change to manifest in you.
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You need patience to make your partner be in agreement with you in the areas of your disagreement. Patience is a virtue. It is among the fruits of the spirit. God instill this virtue in you by bringing a difficult person into your life. You don't acquire patience in the college, it's a nature you must imbibe.
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How patient you are with your spouse determines how quick the change will manifest in them.
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Remove the log in your eyes
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"And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" (Luke 6:41, NAS).
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Don't you think most of us are quick to pick up faults in the life of our partner or others without removing the fault finding mechanism in our life?
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If you're complaining that your spouse is this or that, don't you have that tendencies hidden somewhere in the fabrics of your soul? Or why are you always seeing the negative?
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It will be very difficult for you to change your partner if they are always at fault while you're always the saint. Look into your soul, there could be something in you that causes them to act the way they do. And if you don't remove yours, it'll be difficult for you to remove theirs.
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4. Pray for them
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"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays" - Søren Kierkegaard
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Have you tried every means to effect change in the life of your spouse and it seems abortive? Try prayer!
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Prayer has never been a failure, it's only men that fails to pray or prayed wrongly. If you're ever going to see change manifest in the life of your partner, you must pray for them. You don't pray for them to die o, but rather, pray that God will work upon their
Marriage is something most people do but few do it well. If a couple is not looking at divorce papers that are probably seeking marriage counseling. If they are not screaming to the top of their lungs at each other they are probably sneaking out to lie in someone else’s arms. If they are not physically abusing one or the other they are probably being mentally abusive. If a couple is not saying hurtful things to each other they are probably not saying anything at all because why would they when the other is not going to listen anyways. We have all been in or seen relationships struggle with these kinds of things. This big question is where did they go wrong? I think the answer to that question lies in Matt Chandler’s book The Mingling of Souls. Chandler’s answer to the question above is that if a couple wants to have a truly successful marriage they must follow God’s design for marriage. Now Chandler is in no way implying that a couple will not struggle if they do it God’s way but they will be able to get through those struggles together. This review is not a summary of the book but it will discuss the strength and weaknesses of
Daw, Jennifer. “Saving Marriages: How to do it?” American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. 16 June 2005. 16 June 2005
The relationship between the husband and wife seems initially to be perfect. They both show each other expressions of love. There is understanding, harmony, financial security, and good communication between them. The couple spends a lot of time together, discussing future plans, and talking about the good moments they had in the past. However, behind all of this positive interaction between the two of them is something they are both not able
They tried counseling because one of their friends had recommended it. They tried it but he still acted the same way. It came to a point where she thought she was doing something wrong.
Harrington & Braithwaite suggest as cited by West & Turner “It is through communication practices that people achieve dialectical unity, or the way in which people are able to make contradictions feel complete and satisfactory.” (West & Turner, 2010, p.201) What I perceive to be may be something different, however, once someone shows me who they really are; I can only believe what I see. No matter what, I choose to have in my relationship it has to be simultaneously in nature. If I decide to have behavior control this can still lead to contradictions in my relationship even though, I may change that does not mean that the other person in the relationship will. My boyfriend’s views of the relationship seem to be quite different than
Whatever the problem is within the relationship, if a desire to work things out is mutually apparent, there is hope. Ideally, these concepts should be understood, practiced and maintained throughout the relationship, but many of us may find ourselves slipping into a place that we had never expected, nor desired to be. There are relationships that last a lifetime with the power and spark just as strong as it was, if not stronger than in the beginning. We must learn how to understand and respect each other in deep and meaningful ways that encompass all aspects of our humanity, that is, should be desire happiness, satisfaction and content. We want companionship and we want happiness; how do we satisfy these two desires simultaneously? They were installed in our make up to work together, for one to be the means to the other. But, we are still left in an imperfect world, where nothing remains as perfect as we may be led to believe that it can be.
Gottman (1999) conveys that the integration of active listening and conflict resolution techniques is not sufficient to safeguard marriages from a probable divorce. Due to that couples who develop throughout the years a high level of
“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.” – Robert H. Schuller. No one said relationships were going to be easy but having steps to these three strategies: Compromise, communication, and commitment can help them grow an average healthy relationship.
One direct way is to vote for laws to start sending individuals to counseling before the problem even starts. If a petition were started to pass a law, that would definitely kick start the process. I have started a petition using www.thepetitionsite.com that targets the state of Tennessee as my starting point. If one state can change its laws to support marriage counseling and it goes successfully, then it is possible that other states will follow suit. The petition is named HELP PUT AN END TO DIVORCE TODAY!!! and it outlines what I think should be done to start this process. The body of the petition says, “Marriage is the backbone of successful families. This is true in the United States as a whole, in the South, and in the First World in general. Marriage is sacred in most religions but yet it fails continuously. Our goal is to fix divorce rates in the United States but no one seems to be trying. I propose to the State Legislature of the state of Tennessee that we provide more incentive for couples to go to premarital counseling. Premarital counseling has been proven to increase the chances of a marriage to survive but there is not enough incentive to go to marital counseling. The current incentive is that if people go to counseling then they get a discount of $60 on their marriage license. My proposal is to make a law stating that people should go through marriage counseling before marriage and that the counseling must
It's dangerous to try to stop change and argue against it, especially if the person wants to change so much. The reason that somebody wants to change is usually not their choice, but a feeling that the person feels inside their head and heart. It's almost like a celestial force is making you change and you have no say in the matter but you know you have to because your mental and physical attributes are commanding you to. Maybe the change isn't the best change, but if you dig deeper, the person that you love and know isn't really changing, they are just trying to find themselves and the one thing they need the most is the support of the people who they care about the most. When the people they care about the most dismiss their change as something unimportant and try to guard down everything by rules and regulations, the person they loved begins to change out of sadness that the one group of people he or she thought would understand, really has no clue.
Have you ever discovered something so erroneous about the person you chose to date and you felt you needed to breakup immediately? Seems simple enough. Now imagine if you were married and discovered this crudeness.
The partners of codependent spouses often seem to skate through the marriage waiting for all their needs to be met and taken care of. They usually have no regard for the actual health of their marriage or partner. When delving a little deeper into what codependency actually means, it becomes all too clear that the cycle must be
When you encourage someone to change, you need to be an example yourself. Compromising and bending a little will enable you to overcome stress in having bad relationships.
In my life, I have been exposed to a challenge called change. Change can occur in many different ways and is dealt with in many different ways. I have come to the awareness that change can be the deepest of all things. I always thought that change occurred when you moved to a state or when you lost someone real close to you. Those are a challenge to change, yes, but change doesn’t have to occur over a climactic incident. It can just appear overnight when your brain winds up when it’s time to do something different. Even with friends that you used to have and know that move on. For example, most of my friends from elementary school, I don’t even talk to them anymore.
To begin with, lack of communication is a significant cause of the recent rise in the rates of divorce. A marriage is on the rocks when the lines of communication fail. People will tend to stay quiet about money management and job issues, because they don’t want to burden their partner. Most of the time they think it’s easier to deal with it by one’s self, but in reality, it’s pushing their partner out of the room and shutting the door. When this starts to happen, it’s harder to push back. In marriage, one person’s problems is supposed to be handled by both. One will feel neglected if they don’t have a say in a particular situation. Thus, resentment and distance starts growing between the two. Those small problems now become big problems, which result in separation. In order to have a good solid foundation, each couple needs to be heard and voice his or her own feelings. This includes conflict of opinion with concerns to small or big disputes such as religion, children, job opportunities and money management.