How to Stop Hoping They Will Change
Are you hoping the other person in your life will change? Are you hoping he/she will be different and choose differently?
Do you notice yourself trying to
“help” him/her?
“teach” him/her?
show him/her the errors of his/her ways?
give him/her a wake-up call?
scold him/her until he/she gets it?
get empathy for how his/her choices are impacting you and the relationship?
get the other person to value you?
get other people to understand what your problems are with this other person?
figure out how you can fix the problem?
figure out how to change yourself so the other person will change their ways?
stuff down your cringing, anger, pain, bitterness, disgust, regret and resentment?
The hard truth is that we don’t hope a person will change if we truly liked him/her. We like him/her because we like who he/she is, what he/she does, and what he/she chooses. We like how the other person treats us, respects us, considers us, and makes us a priority.
If we liked the other person, then we wouldn’t work so hard, and we wouldn’t hope so much that he/she would change.
Further, if the other person truly liked us, he/she would care about the impact his/her choices have. He/she would care that we’re hurting. He/she would be inspired to be a better person in order to have a good, healthy relationship.
How to stop hoping the other person will change is by realizing you don’t really like him/her and he/she doesn’t really like you.
This isn’t to say you can’t hang out with people who you don’t fully, truly like. It’s possible to like people for only one or two reasons. But with such people, you don’t try to change who they are; you just appreciate and enjoy the few good things, and leave the rest. You don’t invest much energy. You don’t apply your seriousness and sincerity. You preserve your traits of devotion and dedication for someone who is a match for your needs, vice versa, as is.
If you’ve accepted that you and the other person don’t like each other; but you are still bothered by him/her, this shows you that you’re still having wishful thinking which needs to stop for your sanity.
Do you need coaching? Please contact me. I’d love to help you.