When Someone You Love Won’t Change

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Welcome back to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm Dr. Zoe, and today we are diving into one of the most common questions I hear in my therapy office, in my coaching practice, in my DMs, my inbox. What do I do when the person I love just won't change? And today I'm not going to do a win and a fail, really just for interest of time. So we're just gonna dive right in. So despite my mantra, we're not fixing them, we're fixing you, and that changes everything, most people still come to me hoping that I can give them some secret pill or a secret formula to get their partner, their child, their parent, their friend to finally be the person that they wish they were. And I want you to hear that, finally be the person that they wish they were, not the person who they are, but the person they wish their spouse, friend, family partner could be. Mm-hmm. And I get it. The biggest issue that we face in our relationships is that we expect people we love to be someone they're not. And I know you've heard me say this before, but that gap between who they are and who you wish they could be, that gap hurts. And I get that. And I know that in our minds, it feels so much easier to put all of our energy, all of our time, all of our emotion into trying to change someone else than it is to face the truth That maybe we need to change, or maybe the relationship itself needs to change. And I know how scary that is to even think about that. But here's what often happens. We convince ourselves that we're right and they're wrong. And sometimes that's true, but sometimes it isn't. And it doesn't really matter because honestly, most of the time it's not about right or wrong. It's just about preferences, right? It's about patterns. It's about how they grew up in their family and their culture and what they know to be familiar, right, normal. It's not necessarily about right or wrong, but yet we still want to change them because, because let's just be honest, we all think that the way we do things is the right way. And so when someone else is doing something different, we want them to change. But I'm— I don't wanna minimize it because I also recognize that it's not just about, oh, I don't like the way that he puts the toilet paper on the The, just whatever it's called that you put the toilet paper on. What is it called? Why can't I think of it? Okay, it doesn't matter. Or I don't like how they line the socks up in the drawer, right? I understand that it's not about that. I also understand that it's about, he doesn't see me. He doesn't value what I value. We don't hold the same priorities in our relationship, in our life, in our worldview. Mm-hmm. Maybe our politics are different. So many things that we could want to change about our partners that matter, and they're real, and they're big, and they're not little things. So I don't want to minimize. And yet still, we get stuck in this pattern of, what do I do when my partner won't change, right? When someone I love won't change. And so because this is a question that comes up again and again, and I've probably answered it in other ways before, I'm gonna walk you through some real practical strategies for that today. So number 1, stop interacting with who you wish they were. A lot of the friction that you feel in your relationships, it comes from this, trying to force people into the mold of the person that you want them to be. And then when they don't fit, you're left hurt, you're left disappointed, you're left angry, and you're left emotionally spent. But here's the truth. People actually can't give you what they can't even give themselves, what they don't have themselves, what they haven't experienced themselves. If they don't know how to show up with kindness, with honesty, with consistency, with love, with truthfulness, right? Compassion. You can't manufacture it for them. Now, can people learn? 100%, but they have to be motivated to learn. It's not something you can create. And just give it to them and hand them on a platter. And when you try to do that, you end up interacting with a fantasy version of them, not the real person in front of you. So the first thing you have to do, and this is a hard thing to do, is to stop interacting with who you wish they were and start interacting with the person that's right in front of you. And how do we do that? Well, it starts with radical acceptance. And I know this one is tough, but radical acceptance is also freeing. It's hard in the beginning. It can feel painful in the beginning. We don't want to give up that fantasy. We hope that they will change because it's in the hope that actually keeps us stuck. But when you can accept someone for who they are, and equally important, who they aren't, you create peace for yourself. Dr. Armani once said, the biggest thing that sucks the life out of relationships is the hope that someone else will change. I have experienced this in my life. I'm sure, I'm sure that you have in some way, shape, or form experienced this in your life, and it sucks everything out of a relationship when you are hoping someone will change, and it's painful, and I get it. And I want you to sit with that for a moment because that hope that someone else will change, that can feel noble, It can feel honorable. It can make you feel like, I can stick this out because I know he will change, or I know she will change. But what it is is a lie. In reality, it actually creates resistance and friction to you doing the work that you need to do because you're waiting. You're not doing any work on yourself. You're sitting and you're waiting. But when you release that hope, You're not giving up. You're not failing. You're actually setting yourself free. You're no longer waiting for them to show up differently in order for you to be okay. Guess what? You get to be okay anyway. And from that place of acceptance, you can ask yourself a better question. If this person never changes, what kind of daughter, son, spouse, or friend Do I wanna be? If this person never changes, how do I wanna show up? That's such a better question than, when will he change? How will he change? How can I get him to change? Instead, if he never changes, how do I wanna show up in this relationship? Now notice how that shifts the focus back to you. It shifts the focus back to what you can control and where your power actually is. Step 3, stop wasting energy on the why. And I know I've talked about this before too, but, and this is a big one because we can spend years, we can spend decades, we can spend an entire lifetime trying to create meaning around why someone won't change. He avoids me because of his childhood trauma. She criticizes me because she's insecure. He withdraws because he has mommy issues. Maybe. Maybe that's all true. Maybe it's not even true. But guess what? Ultimately, it doesn't matter. The bottom line is that the behavior matters. And when we sit for too long trying to understand a behavior, we excuse it and we don't require change with them or ourselves because we're trying to figure it out instead of actually responding to what's happening in the moment. Because here's where the trap lies. When you're busy rationalizing, you're secretly telling yourself that if you can just figure out why, then you can fix it. And so you're keeping yourself stuck, living with something that you're not okay with because you believe if you can figure out the piece, the puzzle, if you can figure it all out, then you're gonna be able to fix it. But the reality is only they can fix themselves. Not you. Okay, so if you're going to accept that someone in your life won't change, then what? What do you do? You've got to draw clear boundaries. Now let me be very clear: acceptance does not mean tolerating harmful behavior. Your needs still matter. Acceptance does not mean I'm just gonna take this and do nothing. The reality is, is that you're way more likely to accept bad treatment And to accept it indefinitely if you're clinging to the fantasy that one day you'll wake up and they're gonna change. But when you accept this is just who they are, this is what they're choosing, you can stop bargaining with reality. And instead, you can ask yourself the important question: can I live with this behavior? What boundaries do I need to put in place to honor my worth? Because you are worthy. Your needs do matter. So instead of asking why, instead of hoping for a change, you're asking instead, can I live with this behavior? And what boundaries do I need to put in place to honor my worth? Now remember, boundaries are not controlling the other person. They're about protecting your peace, your health, your safety, and your emotions. So I know what you might be thinking when it comes to acceptance, and I wanna honor that. You might be thinking, okay, Dr. Zoe, but what happens if I do all this acceptance, I accept them exactly how they are, and nothing changes? Am I just supposed to live like this forever? No, absolutely not. But I want you to think about this: when you're spending time trying to fix them, when you're spending time trying to figure out the why, You are living with this with no end in sight because you're not focusing on the right thing and you're not instead trying to change yourself. But here's where I want to offer you hope. I don't talk about any of the negative, difficult things that happen in relationships without also letting you know there is hope, and I want to give you hope. You do not have to stay stuck here, even though I know it's frustrating, even though I know it's scary. The second you change, the entire relationship shifts. It's simple physics. Anytime you change a part of a system, the rest of the system must react with change. It is simple physics. It's relationship physics. It's reality. So the second you change, the entire relationship will shift. And not because they've transformed overnight, but because you have stepped Out of the exhausting cycle of trying to make them different. You're no longer relating to who you wish they were. You're relating to reality. And reality, as uncomfortable as it might be, is the only place where you can actually heal. So what does that look like in actual practice? It looks like stop expecting them to change. It looks like accepting where they are right now. It looks at deciding how do you want to show up with the knowledge that they are not going to change. And then you've gotta set boundaries. that protect your worth. And what does that look like? If you remember what boundaries are, boundaries are rules for yourself. They are not rules for other people. So what that means is that you are in control of your boundaries. And so when someone does something to break your boundary, you have already pre-decided your action, your behavior. If, if someone is speaking to you disrespectfully, Your boundary is, I will not tolerate that. And so you will remove yourself from the situation always and every time. If someone violates your boundary, you remove yourself from their presence. Sometimes it's just in the moment. Sometimes it's an in-law or a mother or a family member who continually does the things or says the things or says something to your children in a way that you have already said clearly, please do not do that. Every single time they do that, you remove yourself, you remove your children, You remove whatever it is that needs to be removed to enforce that boundary for yourself. And this feels like a lot of work, and it is a lot of work in the beginning, but what I can promise you about human behavior, and I was just talking to probably a client, I don't remember, is that all human behavior will go extinct when it is not reinforced. I'm going to say that again. All human behavior will go extinct when it is not reinforced. If someone yells at you and nothing happens, or every time they yell at you, you remove yourself, they will stop yelling because it will not be beneficial to them. If every time someone gaslights you, you call them on the gaslighting, you respond with logic and remove yourself, they will stop because it will not work. Now, sometimes, and we're going to talk, I think, in the next few weeks about manipulative behavior, because sometimes people actually push your boundaries and order for you to go away, especially if they know that you have strong boundaries. Now that can be manipulative. And what you have to understand is that you still need to go away, but maybe not continue to engage with them in another way such that they don't get what they want. So for instance, if your partner or your friend does not like conflict or does not like to talk about certain things, and you bring up the topic and they immediately blow up knowing that, oh, if I blow up, She's gonna go away and not talk about it. You should go away because your other boundary is, I will not be spoken to that way. And yet you have to come back to the conversation over and over again. And I know it feels exhausting, especially if you have to continue to remove yourself. And maybe you need to approach the conversation in a different way, with a letter, with a text. My point is that you can figure it out. I know it always feels like, but This will happen. And so I, I'm stuck and I have no options. My answer is you always have options. Now, are they always the best options? Are they always the options that you want? No, but you always have options. And the only person you can control is yourself. So when you do this, you'll realize that peace doesn't come when they finally change. Peace comes when you stop needing them to. When you are able to remove yourself, when you are able to take care of yourself emotionally, when you are able to put up healthy boundaries and not need them to change in order for you to be okay, you've just released codependency. If this resonated for you today, I'd love for you to share it with someone who needs a little hope in their relationships. And if you're ready to dive deeper into untangling these patterns of complex shame and codependency, make sure that you subscribe so that you don't miss the next episode. Until next time. Stay stronger, my friend. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe to my email list so that you can get some encouragement from me, and have a strong week. See you next week.