When you were a little girl you probably watched Disney movies, am I right?
And you probably thought it was as simple as it looked on TV. You find a man, or he finds you. You fall in love and somehow that love carries you through the rest of life. No struggles, no disappointments and no heartbreaks. Yeah, I thought that too.
But life isn’t that easy.
Men and women aren’t that easy. You can’t just find someone and fall in love and count on that to carry you through. Love, at the most basic level, requires compromise, acceptance, effort and forgiveness. Without these things, relationships can fall apart. Even with these things, relationships can still crumble. People can just fall out of love. People can just wake up one day and decide they aren’t happy, pack up and leave. So many things can go wrong, but one thing that I notice over and over is that women tend to believe they can change the men they are with. And that is what makes so many relationships go wrong.
Whether he has a wife or a mistress or he’s a criminal or is abusive, women seem to stay because they think they can change him. That with enough time and patience and understanding he will come around. No matter how much the man takes advantage you, you still stay and you still love him.
It causes so much heartache and stress, but for some reason you keep going back. And I’m not saying people can’t change, or that I don’t believe in second chances. What I am saying is that when someone continually hurts you, you need to draw the line and take away the option to hurt you again.
When you are hurting you are fragile.
When you are fragile you have a tendency to want comfort, even if it’s the wrong kind. Even if that comfort is the same thing that hurt you in the first place. Love is such a strong feeling and loneliness is such a strong liar. People fear not being able to find someone they will feel the same way about and it keeps them hanging on. But just because you can’t imagine life without that person doesn’t mean you can’t have one.
Once people start focusing on moving on instead of hanging on it becomes easier. That person stops invading your thoughts, you start thinking of what’s good for you and the fear of losing them forever starts to fade. Once you start focusing on making positive changes, you have hope for the future. You take away their power to control your feelings.
If you are meant to be it will work out.
But not being able to let go of thinking they can change does not mean you are meant to be. It’s not your job to change your partner and in all honesty, you can’t. They can only change themselves. They have to want to and if they don’t you can’t make them.
You also can’t expect them to change just because you want them to. You should love them for who they are, and if they aren’t hurting you over and over, then you shouldn’t try to make them feel as if they are not good enough the way they are. It’s selfish. You have to love someone as they are, not as who you think you can turn them into. Otherwise, you are only loving the reflection of yourself that you see in them. That isn’t true love.
Loving a person is about helping them reveal their greatest self. It isn’t about molding them into the self you think they should be. Don’t be with someone to fill your loneliness, be with someone you enjoy being around. Someone who makes you happy and someone you make happy. That’s when you will reveal your best self; when you are happy.
Don’t settle.
Be with someone who makes you feel alive and happy. Chances are you will make them feel the same. Don’t be with someone you think you can change. It won’t happen and it will only bring misery to you both. You deserve happiness. You deserve love. The true kind.