When Your Partner Refuses To Change

In this episode, Life Coach Lisa A. Romano discusses what to do when a partner refuses to change. When in a relationship, it can be confusing when you discover something about your partner you wished you could change. Learn to identify the boundaries you need in order to navigate this relationship snag.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

So today we're going to be talking about what happens when a partner refuses to change.

So today we're going to be talking about the perils that you might face in a relationship or anyone might face in a relationship when they find themselves having a relationship with someone who won't change.

And this gets to be murky water because the goal really isn't to focus on changing someone else.

The goal really is to focus on changing yourself.

And however,

There are times in our lives when it is absolutely essential that our partners do change.

And we have to ask ourselves,

Especially in light of how often we're told,

Don't focus on changing anyone else,

Focus on changing yourself,

Especially in the line of work that I do.

I help people recover from codependency,

Narcissistic abuse.

I help people heal the inner child and recognize in themselves ways in which they have been placing their focus outside of themselves and expecting to change something that they can't change.

And I help people figure out what it is about them that needs to be adjusted.

What awareness do they need to come into resonance with and acknowledge in order to change their lives?

Because the power that we have is never outside of us.

It's always inside of us.

So this can be sort of a slippery slope when we are in a relationship with someone that we are discovering that we just can't stand or we are discovering that there are just things about this person that are growing more and more irritable and they are becoming more and more difficult to ignore.

So then the question is,

Well,

I'm in a relationship and I'm not supposed to focus on changing someone.

I'm supposed to focus on changing myself.

Where is the line?

I found myself struggling with this in my first marriage when there were things about my ex that I just found that they increasingly annoyed me more over time.

And it got to a point where it was I just couldn't handle it anymore.

One of those things was passive aggressiveness.

And in therapy,

My ex was told by whoever it was that he was seeking therapy from that it was totally fine to be passive aggressive.

And I thought,

OK,

Well,

If he's going to be passive aggressive and I don't like it,

What do I do with that?

Am I supposed to just live with someone who is passive aggressive?

And a lot of other personality traits come along with someone who is passive aggressive.

And I found myself stuck,

You know,

Not knowing what to do in this situation and growing more and more unhappy.

For me,

I discovered that I couldn't get close to this person.

I couldn't grow in the relationship with this person.

It always felt like there was a chipping away of any possibility or potential for the relationship to grow.

And in my situation,

It seemed like my partner was OK with that,

That status quo or that stagnation was something that he was quite comfortable with.

But I was not.

And so I found myself struggling with where is this line?

And I began to really think about it.

And I thought,

You know what?

I have a right to ask my partner to change as much as my partner has the right to ask me to change.

If there is something about me,

If there's something that I do and it annoys you,

It is up to my partner to tell me.

And it is up to me to run it through my filter and my mind to have a long talk with myself and to figure out,

Am I being annoying or am I being shortsighted or am I being self-absorbed?

Am I doing something that is preventing my partner from feeling safe?

Am I doing something that is preventing my partner from feeling close with me?

And that is really important to me.

And I think that's why honesty and open communication,

Nonviolent communication,

And having the ability to have these types of discussions with someone that you love and you should presumably trust and who respects you are so important in a relationship.

A relationship must be a place where two people can grow.

And if there is not honest communication,

If the two people don't have a common goal,

Then the relationship won't grow and the relationship will inevitably fall apart.

It would become toxic.

And we have two people who feel very unfulfilled,

Are disgruntled.

And unfortunately,

Those relationships don't end well.

And oftentimes,

People even get physically ill inside these relationship dynamics.

So I put together a list that I want to share with everyone.

And I think it's important that we understand that in a relationship,

It's okay to ask your partner to change if there is something that's happening in your relationship that prevents the two of you from getting closer together.

What might that look like?

Well,

Maybe you have a partner that flirts and it makes you feel very uncomfortable that they're using this sexual energy in a way that you feel should be reserved for the two of you.

You have a right to ask your partner to change that behavior.

If your partner drinks too much,

You have a right to ask your partner to change that behavior.

If your partner is a gambler,

You have a right to ask your partner to change that behavior.

If your partner parades around in her underwear in front of your family,

You have a right to ask your partner not to do that and to change that behavior.

Whatever it is that you're struggling with,

If it's something that you feel it's making you feel unsafe,

It's making you feel disrespected,

And it's preventing the two of you from getting closer together,

In my opinion,

You have a right to ask your partner to change this,

To look at it.

Now,

Here is the problem,

However.

When you have a partner,

And this will derail your ability to get close with your partner,

When you have a partner who turns the tables on you and because you are addressing a problem,

They then in turn say that you are the problem because you are addressing a problem,

That is going to prevent your relationship from changing.

You have to figure out,

Does this person have the ability to acknowledge a problem?

Does this person have the ability to care about how I feel about the problem that I am perceiving?

Does my partner have the willingness to change what I feel is hurting our relationship?

And maybe just me.

Does my partner care about how I feel and is my partner willing and capable of changing?

Is my partner willing and capable of changing?

In my relationship with my ex,

I found myself feeling very handcuffed to the dynamics because there was no willingness to accept that there was a problem.

When I opened my mouth,

I was called negative.

I was called crazy.

It was all in my head.

I was selfish for wanting things to change.

I had no right to change.

I should be happy with the way things were.

I was self-absorbed for wanting more.

More what?

I wanted to be close to my ex.

I wanted to feel like we were on the same page.

Problem number one is that you have this problem.

For me,

It was passive aggressiveness.

It was denial.

It was just devaluing my opinion.

It was not coming home when you say you're going to come home.

It was stuff that was happening with the in-laws.

It was stuff that was happening at work.

Various things happened over and over and over that I felt needed to be addressed and cleared.

Those were the initial problems.

But then I realized that when I addressed these problems,

This person,

My ex,

Would then deny that a problem existed.

Now I had another problem.

I had the denial of the problem.

Then in addition to that problem,

What happened was I was defined as the problem for recognizing a problem.

I was in such a conundrum because how do you fix a hole in the wall that someone else created that they say doesn't exist?

What do you do when you're standing there and you're saying,

You just banged a hole in the wall and the person who banged the hole in the wall is saying,

I didn't bang a hole in the wall.

You're crazy.

You're making stuff up.

There's no hole in the wall.

They're denying that there's a hole in the wall.

What do you do in that situation when then you are accused of not seeing things correctly?

You are accused of being a negative person because you're acknowledging that there's a hole in the wall.

What do you do if this person that you're dealing with says,

I'm not going to fix the hole in the wall?

Well,

That's a terrible place to be in because this is your partner and in order for you to feel happy in your relationship,

You need to feel safe.

You need to feel like the relationship can grow.

We have the right to ask our partner to change and to adjust things that they're doing and or saying or how they're behaving because it's our relationship.

This person is our partner.

We have a house together.

We pay bills together.

We raise children together.

We have a business together.

Whatever it is,

We're going through life together.

It's not just me.

It's you.

So what you do affects me.

So therefore I have a right to bring to your attention things that I feel might be causing us to experience unnecessary turbulence in our lives.

But here's the thing.

When you are locked in a relationship dynamic with someone who refuses to see the problem,

Who then says your problem because you addressed the problem,

Who denies it's a problem,

Who is unwilling to acknowledge the problem and who is incapable of change,

Then you have a ton of other problems that are so different than the original problem.

You have to decide for yourself then what you're going to do next.

And this is a really,

Really difficult place to find yourself in when you have a family,

When you have children,

When you started a life off with this someone.

And I think it gets even more complicated by so many people in the self-help industry who are saying you can't change anyone.

You can only change yourself.

So I think that everything is relative.

I mean,

If you have someone who drinks too much in your life and who embarrasses you and is spending the money on alcohol and throwing wild parties in the house,

Then that seems,

I think that seems pretty obvious that this is definitely going to affect you.

And if the person doesn't acknowledge that they have a drinking problem and worse,

They turn around and say,

You're the one with the problem.

You're just making a big deal out of nothing.

Well,

Then you have a whole lot more problems than just the drinking because this is your partner.

What does the future look like if this is what the now looks like?

Right?

So the now and the past are the biggest indicators,

Biggest crystal ball for what the future holds.

So what we have to figure out then is where do we stand in this?

Like where is our power?

Where do we fit in this situation when we have a partner who we think needs to change but refuses to change and says,

We're the problem?

I think we have to recognize that there's a big difference between dealing with someone who has a drinking problem,

Doesn't accept the problem,

Or someone who's flirting or someone who's gambling or someone who's obnoxious in front of the family,

Someone who puts the kids down.

I think we have to separate and flesh out those types of experiences versus the person who seems to forget the milk on the way home because they're distracted or they're angry about the traffic and they just wanted to get home.

There's a huge difference.

So we need some logic and reason.

Or the person who just doesn't wear the shoes that you think they should wear,

You think they should change the way that they dress.

You're asking this person to change something about themselves that is very personal to them that really doesn't affect you.

Right?

So we've got to be careful because there are people out there that want to change the way their partners look.

They don't like the color of their hair.

Or I've heard clients tell me that their husbands and sometimes even wives want them to get plastic surgery or they want them to get veneers or they want them to look more presentable or they want them to try to pretend to be happier when they go live on Instagram.

Right?

So when someone,

We have a partner that's trying to change something that's very personal about you that is not affecting the relationship,

I think that is very toxic.

So we have to be objective and we have to recognize in ourselves and be able to discern the spirit of discernment what it is we are upset about and what it is about our partners that we would really like to change.

And is the thing that I'm asking my partner to change,

Is it something that is detrimental to our relationship in a very tangible way?

For instance,

Gambling,

Cheating,

Flirting,

And drinking,

And hurting the children,

And using toxic language,

And belittling you.

That is absolutely directly affecting you.

And if this person changed,

It would accelerate the growth in your marriage.

So that's very different than being upset that your partner wears sneakers that you don't like or your partner doesn't behave or act for the camera the way that you want them to.

So we have to use the spirit of discernment to flush that out.

For me,

What changed the tide for me is when I realized that what was wrong in my relationship that this person refused to acknowledge meant something very serious.

Because if you don't believe that happiness is a potential or a possibility in a relationship,

You as a partner are not going to try to strive to make the relationship any better.

I remember very specifically sitting on the couch and the moment my ex-husband said,

Lisa,

What you want doesn't exist.

And it literally crushed me.

Here I was,

I had a business,

I had a beautiful home,

I had three children.

I'm sitting across from this person whom I loved and he tells me that what I want doesn't exist.

That told me that he does not have the mindset to grow in a relationship.

He does not go into believe that what I believe exists,

So he's never going to strive for it.

So whatever we had going on,

That was the best it was going to get.

And in his head,

That was okay.

So you can't,

I could not change that in him.

But when it became crystal clear that there was never going to be an acknowledgement of the real problems in our marriage,

When it became clear that he was unwilling to address those problems,

When it became crystal clear that in his perception,

I had a problem because I acknowledged the problem,

It also became clear that he did not have the ability to change.

At that point,

That's when I took the bull by the horns and I said,

I'm sorry that I have been looking to change you.

I thought that if I brought this up and I brought your attention to it,

You would change.

And I thought that if I said it this way,

You would find value in it.

And I tried to adjust this about myself and I thought that you would adjust in turn.

I thought that this marriage therapist would help and that didn't work.

And I thought this marriage therapist would help.

And I thought this book would help.

And I thought begging would help.

It didn't help.

So when in my situation,

It became blatantly clear that this person was not going to change,

That is when the focus became me.

What did I need to change?

And I did change.

I let go.

I studied codependency.

I got very,

Very clear about my own issues,

My fear of abandonment,

My feeling stuck in a relationship,

The loss of power,

The loss of self in the relationship.

And that's when I began to change.

And I began to realize that because I started this marriage,

Did not mean I had to end in this marriage.

It meant that I had the right to change my life and to bring my life into alignment with what I wanted for my future life.

You can't have with a partner the type of life that you want when you have a partner that doesn't believe in what you want.

You cannot grow in a relationship with a partner who refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem.

You cannot grow in a relationship with a partner who blames you for bringing up the problem.

You cannot grow in a relationship with a partner who makes you feel like because you addressed a problem,

You are the problem.

And this happens so often in relationships where there's something wrong,

We want to address it,

It has to do with something that's happening with our partner.

And we start to get a little wobbly about,

Do I have a right to want to change this?

So I think at the end of the day,

We have decisions that we have to make.

And let's face it,

Relationships are very serious.

They're legal binding business contracts.

In America,

You are going into business with your marriage partner.

You will file taxes together.

Your marriage is like a business.

You will collect taxes,

You will pay taxes,

You will own a home,

You will go into a contract with the bank.

These are business negotiations.

These are business contracts.

And if God forbid the relationship doesn't work out,

You have to go into another type of business arrangement.

It has to do with alimony and child support and child rearing.

There's a lot that is involved and at stake when people decide to couple and get married.

And so inside relationships,

We have to make decisions.

We have to decide,

Is this something that I can live with?

Am I just being super sensitive?

Am I being a little narcissistic myself?

Am I wanting my partner to wear his hair a certain way?

Is that kind of silly?

Is that important?

Does it really affect our relationship or am I just picking on him?

I might not be happy with it,

But it's not affecting our marriage versus is my wife cheating?

Is my wife flirting?

Does my wife drink too much?

Does she become someone else when she drinks?

Am I hearing things about my wife from my business partners when I'm not there?

Is my husband gambling?

Is he spending way too much money at the racetrack?

Is he lying to me?

Is my husband lying about assets?

Is he opening up businesses and signing my name,

Forging my name?

These are different,

Very,

Very different things than a haircut and a couple of pounds that you gain naturally after having babies,

Right?

So we want to make sure that they were very clear about the thing that is bothering us.

And then we have to decide,

Is this something that I can live with?

Is this something I cannot live with?

What we have to figure out is,

Is this thing that we're looking to change,

How big of an issue is it really?

Is it a want or is it a need?

Is this something that I can learn to live with and then I need to just grow up around and let go?

For instance,

I don't like the sneakers he wears.

Big deal.

I don't like the socks he wears.

Big deal,

Right?

Or is this something that I absolutely has to change and it's a deal breaker for me?

So if you are dealing with a deal breaker,

In my opinion,

You have every right in the world to ask your partner to change,

To expect your partner to change,

But you have to figure out,

Can this partner see the problem?

Is this partner willing to work towards the problem?

Is this partner capable of changing?

Is this partner,

However,

Making me the problem because I addressed the problem?

Has real change ever happened or is it a bunch of lip service?

These are things that we have to really think about seriously and we have to hold our partners accountable if and when they begin engaging in behaviors that are detrimental to our relationship.

At the end of the day,

If you're in a relationship,

You want to feel like you can grow with this person.

You want to feel safe with this person.

You want to feel that this person has your best interest at heart.

And if you have someone who is toxic and who is creating chaos in your life and they can't even see the problem,

Dear one,

You've got a bigger problem than the original problem.

I hope that this session has been helpful.

I hope it's given you some clarity if in fact you needed it.

And I hope that you recognize the necessity to figure out what type of change you're asking for.

How serious is this change that you're asking your partner to participate in?

And is it something that you can live with and just let go of or is it an absolute deal breaker for you?

And if that is the case,

Then you need to decide and figure out quite quickly whether or not you have a person in your life who is absolutely willing to see the problem.

Because without seeing the problem,

You're in denial.

The partner is in denial and you can never fix a hole in the wall that you can't see.

And you know what happens over time?

That hole gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

It deteriorates over time.

And unfortunately,

When we are locked inside dynamics such as this,

We lose ourselves.

We lose ourselves complaining about it.

We lose ourselves in the inability to express love for someone and to feel love come back to us.

And at the end of the day,

Love is what supports us all.

Love is what makes us want to wake up in the morning.

Love is what allows us to hold the hand of our partner that is ill.

Love is what allows us to accept help from a partner when we're ill.

Love is essential.

And if there are problems in your family,

Problems in your life and problems with your partner that your partner refuses to acknowledge,

Then that in and of itself is a major problem.

Namaste everybody.

Until next time.

Bye for now.

Reviews

This was great. I had a pretty significant and unexpected realization while listening. At first I thought it was a bit repetitive, but then I realized I needed the time to get to my realization. Thank you.

❤️❤️❤️

Dear Lisa,

Thank you, for shining light on the thing I find so hard te explain to myself (wakei.ng-up more and more) and others.

Thank you
Namasté Cheekyfuel

Wow...I'm stunned. This sure hit home! Many thanks..very eye opening. 💪💖

Spot on ! When our partner shows us who they are we should believe them.

Love how well you address these problems, it's very eye opening. Kindest regards ❤

One doesn't have to operate with great malice to do great harm.
The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.

Great talk! As always i feel so validated -
Thank you ❤

Gave me insight to understand why my marraige had failed. Realized that I have the right to point out a problem in a partner without that making me the problem. Thank you!

Receiving no empathy. No mutual view of reality. No shared desire to resolve problems. Prospect for happiness lost. Where is the love in that? Thank-you Lisa for thoughtfully addressing these delicate subtle aspects of relationships unraveling, and how we come to where we must decide to be true to our self, or else lose our self. Namaste