How to Accept That You Cannot Change the Person You Marry
How to Accept That You Cannot Change the Person You Marry
There are probably a few things that you want to change in the person you are going to marry – minor issues of course or you would be best advised not to marry them. You probably know that you have little chance of marrying a person who is tailor-made to your particular personality. Therefore, there will be many things about you both which the other would very much like to change. We cannot emphasize too strongly that every person has to act in accordance with the kind of person he is. No promise, however sincere, whether made before, during, or after a marriage, can change the essential pattern of any personality. This is why wise selection is so vital. The one you marry is the one you get. Of course, people do change with age and experience. The one you marry will not forever remain the game. Neither will you. Such changes will, in part, result from the experiences of marriage. But such changes will be what they will be, not what you want them to be. They may leave the other less, rather than more satisfactory to you.
Can you influence this process of inevitable change in de¬sired ways? Here are some of your possibilities. In trivial matters unrelated to a basic need, you may be able to get some changes with little difficulty. John had the habit, greatly annoying to Elsie, of throwing his hat on the sofa when he came into the house. She asked him not do it. He forgot several times, but she kept repeating her request and he tried to co-operate. Since it was only a habit, not con¬nected to any deeper emotional feelings, he was soon able to break it without serious effects either to him or to the re¬lationship. The same thing proved true of her habit of leav¬ing the top off the tooth paste. But changes are not always so simple. A few months after their marriage, he found that he had a strange desire to throw her off the platform of the L station. He rightly went to a counselor for help. In work¬ing the problem through, they discovered that he had had in his den some old hunting equipment and trophies to which he was deeply attached. His wife, feeling that they de¬tracted materially from the decoration scheme she had adopted, insisted that they be removed to the basement, and they were. The counselor called in the wife and explained to her the deep emotional basis of this attachment. The ob¬jects were restored to a prominent place in the den, and the difficulties ceased.
Basic changes can sometimes take place, if conducted with enough patience and skill, and provided that they are con¬sistent with the already existing personality structure of the individual. Tim was a well-educated middle class boy of good tastes. His wife had a "heart of gold" and a good mind. But she was crude, and her taste in literature was limited largely to the "pulps." He made no protest. Instead, he constantly left about the house highly illustrated magazines of a better grade, but not too difficult. From time to time he would ask her opinion on some article. He also bought copies of the classics edited for children, with large print and highly illustrated. When company was present, he drew his wife into the conversation, taking great care that it should not go be¬yond her capacities and interests. In time, this program began to take effect. Gradually she dropped the pulps and became interested in better literature. As her natural intel¬ligence began to take hold, she graduated into the better magazines and books. Within ten years her interests at this point had become completely transformed, and she was able to hold her own in any conversation. Increasingly, too, she came to adopt the manners and the etiquette of the middle class into which she had married. But note that during this period there was no nagging, and great care taken to avoid making her feel inferior or threatened. Furthermore, she had a natural aptitude for the change.
On the whole, despite such rather "nice" cases, this whole business of trying to change the other person is risky on sev¬eral counts. It may produce a reaction which will damage the whole relationship. Even more serious, the desired change may actually not be for the better. The problem of changing a person is often like that of alterations in a house. A man bought a house which had a tiny bathroom which could easily have been larger had the builder used some of the waste room in the hall. Before the house was built, such a change would have been simple. After it was built, the change would re¬quire a shifting of three partitions and two doorways. Such a change would have cost too much. So it is with the ones we marry. If we could bring them up from babyhood, we would properly make some real changes. But after they are grown, basic changes may prove far more costly than they are worth. Furthermore, a house cannot actively resist alterations, but a husband can; and usually does.
Finally, the desire to change the other may indicate that something is wrong with you, rather than with him. Many people have personal deficiencies which they feel unable to overcome, and about which they feel insecure. If they can get others to adopt their peculiarities, they feel less uncom¬fortable about them. Those who are too zealous in seeking to convert others to their religion or their point of view are rightly viewed with suspicion. Often what they are really trying to do is to gain support for their own abnormalities as a means of finding greater security for themselves.
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