When you believe your partner should change something about himself (or the other way around!)

In every relationship it is bound to happen sooner or later: the almost unconditional acceptation you had for each other in the beginning because the experience of Love was so strong in this contact, slowly yet certainly is replaced with the daily practices of your personality. You are going to judge situations with this partner as well, and are guaranteed to experience unpleasant outcomes of this process of judgement.

And one of the success stories of your personality is: when you have an unpleasant experience, attempt to change the óther person so that you can uphold your judgements, can be in the same situation, and yet can manage to have an outcome 'pleasant'. These are the moments where you find yourself attempting to change your partner. Because it is no longer exiting enough. Because you see that others do or do not do certain things and you believe your partner should be like that as well. Because you get irritated over a gesture or habit. Etc.

It does not matter in itself whether you want to change the other person, or whether you receive the 'request for change': in both situations you have the choice to see this request as a signal that the experience of Love in your relationship is about to be diminished in favor of your personality. And you can choose to not want to strengthen this within yourself and your partner, but use this to reclaim the true essence of yourself and your contact.

Your personality will want you to believe that now the only way to keep your relationship 'good', is that there will be a reaction somehow to this request. This is because he cannot imagine a different way to deal with it than his own reactions. He is likely to have you think that the only alternative is the opposite, so for example that when your partner does not change, things will always remain the way they are now, while you truly believe your judgement is justified. It also seems that the other denies you a pleasant experience because he does not do what you want him to do. However, the only thing that really happens, is that you distract yoursélf through introducing this judgement.

Ask yourself what it is that you want to accomplish: have the other person force himself in order to meet the demands of your personality, or re-introduce the experience of Love in the situation. The experience what happens when you let go of the investment in your personality and allow your inner Self to fill the space thus made available, cannot be imagined by your personality. And yet you are familiar with the idea, since it resembles the experiences in the beginning of your relationship. And your personality himsélf is the aspect which created the problem in the first place: by introducing a judgement and then attempt to make it work for him with an outcome 'nice'! Realizing that the above applies to your situation is a first important step. Elsewhere on this site you can find more insights and services in order to practically move through this process.

When you receive the request, your issues are likely to be the same, only in a different form: you are likely to want the other person to stop (= change) what he is doing in order to not feel the unpleasantness your personality judges to come with this demand. And you are tempted to believe the requests the other person makes of you, thus cracking your self image, twisting yourself in ways that do not suit you in order to meet the demand, and loosing further sight of the essence of your relationship as well.