To maintain a relationship, learn to embrace change

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Quite often, the reason for quarrels and partings is changes in the character or habits of partners. But changes are inevitable, you just need to learn to accept them.

Changes in a loved one often cause rejection and quarrels. But in any long-term relationship, both partners change sooner or later. The person you once fell in love with will inevitably turn into someone new, and not necessarily become smarter and better. Almost all of us go from climbers to couch potatoes, from rebels to middle managers, from obsessed with sex to obsessed with sleep. Sometimes these changes make people feel betrayed.

When a loved one ceases to meet our expectations, it seems to us that he has violated the contract.

Psychologists wondered why this is happening. In their opinion, the problem may not be in the changes themselves, but in our tendency to such an error of perception as the illusion of the end of history.

“Humans are constantly evolving creatures who mistakenly believe that they are finished,” said Daniel Gilbert, professor of social psychology at Harvard University, during his TED talk. - The person you are now is just as fleeting, fleeting and fickle, like all the people you were before. The only thing that is constant in our life is change."

In 2013, Gilbert and colleagues conducted a study. All participants (their ages varied from 18 to 68 years) noted that over 10 years they have changed much more than expected.

And if we can still adapt to changes in ourselves, then it is more difficult to come to terms with changes in a loved one.

Moreover, we have similar feelings not only because of a change in people, but also because of a change in some objects or places. For example, it seems to many that the city in which they grew up is no longer the same: all the good people have left, and the standing shops have closed. It is curious that we can say this about the same place, disagreeing only about who these "good people" are and what kind of "standing shops" they were.

Longing for the past, which fuels our dislike for change, is a natural human feeling.

To always be happy with your spouse, you need to learn how to be happy with different versions of that person. Many people who have lived with their second half for several decades say: "I have had at least three marriages, and all with the same person."

Perhaps the most justified approach in this case is not to resist change, but to let it happen. Such a reaction will save in any situation when a loved one has changed too much or, conversely, too little. Do not forget: whether you want to change or not, over time, they will still happen.