One of the most popular pieces of advice I hear when it comes to relationships is this: don’t go into one expecting the other person to change. In the early stages of romance and love, it’s too easy to fall head over heels, and in the process, happily overlook any niggling faults he/she may have because they’re, sigh, just perfect.
Does she have a habit that annoys the hell out of you? Does that tiny character trait drive you up the wall? What everyone will tell you is this: don’t start a relationship hoping your partner is going to change for the “better”. She’s probably going to have that habit forever, and that character trait you see traces of now will, more likely than not, become more pronounced with age.
A girl should never love someone expecting him to change, people say. Or to put it another way, you need to love the person you see before you; not the person you hope you can make them in the future. My mother likes to say: open both eyes when you go into a relationship. See, know and accept the man for all his faults from the beginning, and you won’t be in for a rude, nasty shock later. It’ll also save you the effort and frustration of trying to mould them into that fantasy in your head, near driving yourself crazy in the process.
It’s good advice, that, and I’m not about to tell you otherwise. I just think someone should also bring up the other side of the coin: what if the person does change? Oftentimes for the better, just as likely for the worse. People change as they grow older, as they enter new environments, as they begin to discover themselves, as they get sucked in to their careers and all it has to offer.
Maybe that’s why so many relationships don’t survive the transition from university to professional employment. Or the transition of the 20s, the years of self-discovery. Or when one person moves away and the relationship becomes a long-distance affair. Sure, the distance complicates things, but more important than the geographical divide is the change that will likely accompany the new living environment.
When that happens, the awakening can be just as rude as realising your man (or woman) is never going to change. Except this time, you didn’t even have the liberty of foresight because they weren’t like this before. The good news is, you can’t beat yourself up about it because there was no way you could have seen it coming or prevented it. The bad news is, you really can never be sure exactly what you’re getting into, can you?
interesting point on moving from uni to prof career.
one thing for sure… there’s a saying…
women go into relationships hoping that men will change… they dont
men go into relationships hoping that women will not change… they change
haha! very true. actually, men do change, just maybe not the way the women had hoped. a guy who is pursuing a girl behaves very differently from a guy who has already landed the girl.
Life is like a box of chocolate, you will never know what you are gonna get! I think it’s the fun of discovery new things about your other half along the way that makes life so interesting, don’t you think?