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Accepting your partner for who they are
Everyone here has been saying "if that's how your partner (boyfriend/fiance/whatever) is then that's who you chose and you can't and shouldn't change them" ... what I'm saying is doesn't that go the same for us women? ... for example: when we started dating he knew i didn't like this or that yet he still dated me. So instead of me trying to change him or him trying to change me.. shouldn't we compromise and make changes ourselves without being asked? When you love someone, wouldn't you climb mountains to make things work?
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Maybe give some free advice about: Love Life?
you've described exactly why couples that stay together so long continue to get along and love each other- they COMPROMISE. it's not the same thing as change neccessarily, its about putting the other person before yourself and making them happy before you.
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Whoever's said that you shouldn't change people is a crock. I've changed many a man in my life and I've never had a single one complain about it. It's a matter of HOW you change them. People change, it's a fact. Compromise is what happens when people inadvertently change each other. It's sort of a neat thing, really. The main thing here is to change each other, or yourselves is you choose, for the better and because it's better for the person changing, not necessarily for the changer. ^_^
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yes, i do think that you should compromise a bit to make things work. if you really love them, you would do anything for them, right?? besides, i think it really just makes the relationship stronger in the end, because you are showing each other how much you really do love them and would do anything for them, even if that means tweaking ourselves a little bit. i hope that this is helpful =]]
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I once knew a couple who used similar logic, he had a drinking problem, she didn't like it. She thought she could teach him a lesson by adopting a drinking problem herself and "show him". He died at age 43 of alcohol related problems, last I heard their son was in prison and who knows about their youngest daughter, and she came away from it with a drinking problem of her own.
The most important thing in life is to become the person that YOU can live with. Who do we think we are to believe we have the right to decide that for another person.
If I gave you the impression that trying to change another applies only to the guy, you got it wrong. You should no more adopt his bad habits for "compromise", then he should give up a bad habit because you tell him too. Resentment is not a good way to start a life together. You make him do anything and he will resent you, as you would resent him. I only addressed these questions from your angle, because the questions demanded it.
In the important things in a marriage there is no compromise, if one of you wants a child and the other doesn't, you can't compromise and have half a kid. A proper home life is only achieved by a united front, if a man or women does not believe as you do, how to live your lives together, your marriage is doomed from the start. Think about it.
Lastly, guys choose their women first and foremost by looks, (we are visual creatures), women choose by other standards, if this wasn't true us ugly guys would never get any. We will over look things for most of our earlier years and if you're lucky enough to hang in there long enough for our testosterone levels to drop, then we will start loving you for much more then your looks and actually start caring about changing our bad habits.
Be well
Gee, I must have missed something here, I was speaking of forcing a person to change, not setting a good example and allowing them to change themselves. Ultimatums don't work, for a person must want to change in order to change. You are talking about taking a persons free will away from them and making them into what you want, instead of allowing them to be what they want, but boy, your rating of me has sure put me in my place. Because you don't agree with what I say, I guess I should change and start thinking like you and become your trained little puppy, I'll go to my corner now that you've slapped my nose. You are living in the movies, not the real world. You need a robot, not an individual. A real man or women would drop a person like this in a heart beat.
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Unless either of you are mind readers, then no, you don't need to be changing without being asked. It is nice when that happens, but it is not a realistic or a fair expectation to have all the time.
And changing without discussion, it not really the kind of compromise that relationship are built on or defined by. Compromise that just 'happens' because you know something about your partner or they know something about you is willing change that doesn't require conflict or conversation.
Real compromises, the kind that actually define your relationship and figure out your path together, happen when people disagree strongly and must come to an agreement through communication and negotiations.
He IS responsible for himself. Exactly the same way you are responsible for yourself. When either, or both of you, realize that compromise on this issue is not possible, when your communication and arguments get you nowhere, then it's time to break up.
It would have been nice if you realized that at the beginning of dating, but it doesn't change the facts if you are only figuring it out now. It doesn't make either of you bad people that you are only realizing it now either. You'll learn from this experience and be more specific about what you want from your future partners.
So you see, it IS the same for both the man and the women. You are both responsible for standing up for what you believe in. You are both responsible for your own beliefs and self-respect and for defining what degree of compromise is acceptable to you.
It is a nice idea that love will conquer all, but it's only a nice idea. It's not the truth of the universe. Love will only conquer what we choose to let it conquer.
You might choose to let your love for him conquer your dislike and beliefs about porn. You might choose to believe him and respect his opinion that it's no big deal, even though your opinion is different.
He might choose to have his love for you conquer over his enjoyment and beliefs about porn. He might choose to stop enjoying porn out of respect to your opinion that it is inappropraite even though he doesn't agree with that opinion.
Or both of you might refuse to do change your behavoir and stick to behaving in accordance with your own beliefs about pornography.
That is okay. It doesn't make you bad people. That doesn't mean you don't love each other. It just means you can't move forward together.
Neither of you are wrong about pornography. You are simply learning that you might be wrong for eachother.
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