All of us try and get what we want, even in a relationship with someone we love. We suggest, imply, and hope that they will do what we like so we can feel good about being with them.
This is likely how you operate in your life outside of the relationship. Many of us do. We organize what we want and how to achieve it, and often we have successes. So why not with our relationship?
Isn’t this the way we make it good? If we just listen to our head, we will know what we want and then all we have to do is go about getting it. Right?
What Things Could Be Sometimes Runs Away with Our Grasp of What They Are
Well, in the beginning I think everyone does this. We are all so excited to find a person to love that we just try and fit them into our hopes and dreams that we have been carrying around in our heads for some time.
I know I did when I met my husband-to-be. He was great. I saw such potential in him I just kept trying to get him to fill that potential I was seeing in my mind. Then one day when we were talking about the relationship. I wanted it to go further and I was asking him about it, and he said, “You are always trying to get me to be different. It feels like you don’t love me for who I am.”
Being Measured Against Idealization May Make Us Feel Unseen or Disappointing
Wow, this stung. He didn’t know I had a full heart for him. He couldn’t feel my full heart. All he felt was I guess my disappointment because he wasn’t what I thought he could be.
I wasn’t disappointed. But when I heard him say what he said to me, I realized I had better lay off the improvement suggestions so he can feel that I love him the way he is.
And that is really what a relationship is between two people, unique to those two individuals. If one or both are trying to get the other person to be or act different, they are missing what is already there.
Acceptance is Part of Feeling Loved in a Relationship
Please see your partner for who they are. Accept them for the wonderful person that you fell in love with. Adjust your expectations. Because when you are expecting someone to become something different, you might be ending what you already have and that might become more than you could have ever wanted, if you could only adjust.
Finding your right person is the first part. Learning how to be with them without controlling what they do or say is a skill. You may not have learned this skill in relating to another, but you can learn it in your relationship.
I know I did. It was the first time in my life I didn’t try and control what happened. I just accepted that this is where I live, with him, and it’s good.
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