Imagine a world where you can get everything you want in a partner.
Imagine a world where you can infuse into your partner everything you desire that they have.
Imagine having a person who thinks, talks, acts and does everything just exactly like you want.
What a perfect world, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, such a world doesn’t exist. You will never get all that you want in a partner, thus, there are some things you’ll just have to tolerate in a partner, things that you cannot change, things they cannot change for you, things you just have to live with.
This is not to say you won’t rub off on your partner or that they won’t rub off on you, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll change and fulfil your expectations.
You cannot change the following things in a partner :
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Their personality
Personality is a set of unique characteristics that distinguishes someone from others.
It’s what makes a person who they are.
Personality is formed by a mix of nature and environment, and it’s more enduring. It hardly changes; although individuals can modify their behaviours if circumstances require.
For example, someone who is an introvert can hardly become an extrovert.
That’s who they are. You can’t change them. You don’t expect them to go from being reserved to being the life of a party.
While some are ambiverts and can fit into both worlds, a lot of introverts prefer to be observers than actors.
You can encourage your partner to modify their behaviours, especially if it’s causing problems for them and your relationship, but you can almost never change their personality.
It’s who they are. You just have to accept them.
2. Their interests
Usually, a person’s personality influences their interests.
If you can’t change someone’s personality, you can’t change their interests.
Their interests stem from who they are.
People sometimes may compromise to enjoy their partner’s interests for the sake of bonding with them, but they don’t necessarily adopt such interests.
You can’t force your partner to be interested in what they don’t have interest in.
Imagine being forced to take up interests that you do not fancy.
Relationships are more enjoyable when you have a partner who shares similar interests with you.
You don’t necessarily have to share ALL interests but there should be something or some things you enjoy doing together.
3. Their past(s)
The past is past and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
It’s wasteful wishing that your partner didn’t make a certain choice or mistake.
The past cannot be reversed, not by you, not by your partner. You just have to live with it.
4. Their style
This isn’t to say you can’t influence your partner’s style but people express themselves through their style.
People’s styles are usually an expression of who they are.
Changing their style is changing who they are or how they express themselves.
I know a lady who changed her style of dressing just to please her husband.
When she eventually got divorced, she started dressing the way she used to dress before she got married.
She confessed that she felt trapped by not being able to express herself through her dressing and dressing the way she wanted.
My husband doesn’t like wearing short sleeves or sleeveless shirts. He prefers long sleeves. That’s who he is.
I can’t change that.
While you can improve your partner’s taste, you might not be able to change their style.
5. Their mindset about life and marriage
A person’s mindset is usually formed by their upbringing, life experiences and environment.
You can’t change in a few years what someone has learned to believe for more than 20 years of their life.
I once dated a guy who was so traditional in his mindset concerning marriage. He believed that women are to be subservient.
Once he voiced that out, I dropped him like a bad habit.
I knew he wasn’t going to change even though he promised he had changed, just to change my mind about the breakup.
Guess what?
Six years later, I stumbled on his Facebook post, where he wrote about women not being like their mothers and grandmothers, hardworking, cooking and cleaning.
Hahahaha!
I knew it!
Dude wasn’t ever going to change.
Again, you can influence your partner but that’s going to be subtle. It doesn’t guarantee total change on their part.
So, whatever you know you can’t cope with in a partner, better to leave them than to think you can ever change them.
Nobody likes fixing, not even you.
