Why we don’t need to try to change the other person

If you have been in a long-term relationship this thought has probably popped into your head at some point.

“If only the other person could change.”

We may want them to listen to us, be more organized, be more loving or simply to understand us better.

It doesn’t really matter what it is that we want, as long as we recognize that when we want the other person to change, we believe that our happiness is somehow dependent on them.

We believe that if only the other person changed, we could be happier. However this is not true.

Our happiness is never dependent on the other person.

And when we begin to see how this is true not only does the acceptance and love that follow allow us to enjoy better relationships, but also we create the best environment for allowing the change to occur.

When we lose the feeling of connection

When we first fall in love what happens is that we become present in the company of the other person. We feel good in their company no matter where we are and what we are doing.

We listen to them, we are being present with them and feel the connection that exists between us.

However when the time goes by what many times happens is that we begin to lose some of that feeling of connection that we were used to experience.

We get into our heads believing that we already know the other person for who they are, instead of meeting them in the present moment and truly listening to them. We begin to take them for granted.

This is when we begin to lose some of these feelings of closeness and connection. We get caught up in an illusion that in order for us to feel good again, the other person needs to change.

Why the other person is not to blame

This all happens very innocently when we don’t understand where our experience of the relationship is really coming from.

When we don’t see that we can never really experience the other person nor our relationships as they are, but we can only ever experience our own thinking about them. Whenever we don’t understand this it’s natural that we blame the other person for the feelings of dissatisfaction and discontentment that we might be experiencing.

However when we begin to see how our thinking always creates our experience, we also begin to see how the other person is never to blame for our feelings of discontentment.

We may begin to see how every experience we get to have is always created from within.

How these feelings of closeness and connection we feel in the beginning of a relationship always come purely from our own ability to be present in the company of the other person.

And how these feelings of dissatisfaction and unfulfillment that many times replace those good feelings, are simply created by the level of thinking that we are experiencing, and are a result of our own inability to be present in the moment.

Our way back to contentment

The way for us to feel good in the company of the other person again is not to try to change them, but to understand better where does our experience come from.

Recognize that we have been caught up in our thinking, experiencing our own stressful thinking and that we have not been seen what is true from the noise of our thoughts.

This simply recognition allows us to get out of our heads and fall back to the beauty of the present moment.

And whenever we fall out of our heads and are being present, we are always automatically filled again with these feelings of love, happiness and contentment.

We begin to see the other person more for who they are again. Whenever we are less caught up in our thinking, we cannot help but to fall back in love with life again — Just as it is.

And without any need for the other person to change.

Allowing change to occur

When we begin to see how this is true, we begin to recognize more how the other person doesn’t need to change, and yet we can be happy.

The feelings of love, contentment and acceptance that follow this discovery begin to fill us up.

The irony is that whenever we recognize that we don’t need the other person to change and accept them for who they are, we actually create the best environment for allowing the change to happen.

Whenever we come from this place of love and acceptance not only do we enjoy our relationships more, but also bring out the best in the other person.

Instead of trying to change them with the ideas we have, we allow the best in them to become to the surface.

Whenever we come from this place of love and acceptance, we see the other person more for who they truly are, and this is the person who also shows up for us.

This is how we can allow change to occur more effortlessly, love more unconditionally and ultimately enjoy more loving and effortless relationships.