Don’t Let Them Change You

You know, I think I’m going to turn last week’s post into an ongoing theme and try to post weekly. This is a result of an extremely boring Monday evening class. Thanks, grad school for increasing my blog reads!!

One of the most disappointing things that I constantly see are beautiful, wonderful people who enter relationships and end up becoming jaded and angry. Of course when someone else takes you for granted, hurts you, or all around treats you poorly it’s very easy to become a ‘monster’ version of yourself. But is that really who you want to be?

No matter what someone does…

DON’T LET THEM CHANGE YOU

Too often in relationships, we become bitter based on someone else’s actions. That’s really the wrong way to go, especially when we’re not bitter by nature. When your significant other forgets an important holiday, neglects to keep a promise they made or simply does something that bothers you to a great extent, it’s become the new norm to “teach them a lesson”or “give them a taste of their own medicine” instead of just discussing what the issues might be. You end up in a constant cycle of who can hurt who more. Is that really what you want your relationship to look like?

I love to cook for my significant other.. he’ll agree with this sentiment and I try to do it as often as possible. I don’t care how tired I am, how upset I am, what a crappy day I had, how much he upset me or anything else. I will make (way too much) food and I will feed it to him. And for all the years we’ll be together, that won’t change. It’s part of who I am as a person. (How lucky is my future husband, srsly?)

At the same time, we all know those people who morph into the relationships they enter. Now, I don’t mean spending all your time with the person. I mean changing WHO you are – changing your interests, your friends, your priorities based on the relationship you enter. I actually know someone who changed religions with each new person they dated. Really? At what point do you choose the person YOU want to be? When you entered the relationship the person liked you for who you were, they didn’t ask you to become a walking replica of themselves… no one really wants that. Keep your interests, keep your religious practices, keep up everything that makes you..YOU!

Revenge and anger might be satisfying for 30 seconds, but a happy relationship is satisfying for life.