Change me...or accept me as I am~

So you love the way she styles her hair, but you wish she would change the color up a little bit. Maybe you admire her style of dress, but you kind of hope she would show more cleavage. Perhaps she has an “unladylike” habit of cracking her knuckles, or a loud laugh you’d like her soften. Whatever your preference may be, you want her to catch on to the subtle suggestions and innuendos you casually throw out to alter the “issue” at hand.

It seems we often enter relationships with the intention to change the person we’ve united with rather than accept her exactly as the person she is.  Or, if we didn’t start with a hidden agenda, it’s interesting how simple insignificant items that “didn’t matter” before commitment can sometimes become that mountain from a molehill when too much energy is put on what we may not like versus focusing on all the positives we do enjoy.

I remember late 2009 Brandy and I spent a weekend in Chicago just after we officially entered a romantic relationship. After an evening out we returned to our room and prepared for bed. And that’s when Brandy put on some of the brightest, striped/plaid-combo pajama bottoms I’ve ever seen.  This wasn’t the first time I had witnessed her choice in bedtime attire; as friends we had traveled together and spent many evenings sleeping in the same room. Oddly though, it was that 2009 night that I first “noticed” those rainbow-colored pajamas.  My thought was, I know she’s not about wear those to bed with me. J So I teased her because I couldn’t help it; cute, though they weren’t my particular choice of nighttime clothing. What I quickly realized was it didn’t matter what Brandy wore to bed as long as she was being true to herself.  Surely I can’t tell her what to wear and further, why would I expect her not to wear her comfy bottoms with me?  (side note: it didn’t take long for me to learn that Brandy has a variety of delightful items she wears to bed so it’s all good ;-))

Now, I do believe there’s a fine line between trying to change our partner to/for our own liking versus making suggestions for what we may think is our partner’s betterment. Example: Let’s say you meet a woman who smokes cigarettes. After you enter a relationship with her, you then request that she stop smoking because you don’t care for the smell. My guess would be that you knew what cigarette smoke smelled like to begin with, yet, still opted to pursue commitment. Surely you can’t expect to change her smoking habit when you already knew she smoked from the start. It's this kind of attempt to change the ways of another that causes frustration and damage within a relationship. Still, on the other hand, if you were to sincerely become concerned about your partner’s health due to smoking, by all means, communicate your feelings and talk about it.

On a lighter side, while we may always have certain preferential “likes” about our partner, we are never to discount her aside from them. My sweet B loves when I wear green eyeliner. But that doesn’t stop me from wearing purple, blue, brown, black or none at all. I know that no matter what, when she looks into my eyes, she loves me the same each and every time whether I’m wearing her favorite or not. She grants me the freedom to experiment and to be me at all times.

Overall, I enjoy that Brandy recommends new ideas I may not have considered before, and that I open new doors for her as well. But do we try to mold one another into anything other than who we are? No, we don’t. Our relationship is and will remain about growth. Of course with that growth there will be individual changes and changes together along the way.  No person and no relationship remains stagnant (at least I hope not!). Changes will arise, whether we love, like, or groan a bit about whatever those changes may be. What we have to remember and continue is to be respectful of all aspects of the other no matter what, just as we are today.

©Nikki Rashan, January 2011