Freedom to evolve and change
In relationships many people run an interesting program: it’s okay for me to grow, develop, evolve, change, etc but my partner must remain just as they were when I first met them!
He/she mustn’t get old, get slim, get fat, get fit, take up new interests, change their habits, their appearance, their lifestyle, and so on and on – or at least, they mustn’t do any of these without my permission and blessing.
Now, you realise, although I use the term ‘we’ I’m not talking about you or me, here. I’m talking about ‘other people.’ They are the ones who run this program – not us.
Most people resent change
Most of us, as we get older, have a tendency to resist or resent change. We become more conservative: we want things to stay the same. We don’t want new neighbours (‘we got on so well with the previous ones’). We don’t want things to change at work. We don’t want the pub we frequent to have a makeover ‘what was wrong with how it was before?’
And we certainly don’t want our spouse or life partner to change!
If you change I have to adapt to you
Because, if you change then I have to adapt or adjust to this. And the ‘not invented here’ programme often kicks in at this stage. If you change at my suggestion that’s okay. If you can change with my permission that’s okay, too. But if you suddenly spring the change on me well, that’s a bit out of order, because it requires that I adapt to your behaviour rather than vice versa! And that’s just not playing the game.
Policing your partner
So how do we tend to police our partner’s behaviour? How do we keep them in line and ensure they don’t become too creative or flexible or innovative in their lifestyle? In other words, how do we keep them under control?
We keep them in line with arguments, rows, sulks, criticism, and/or demands for explanations for any proposed change. And this tactic can be quite powerful, especially if persisted in over time, because it wears down their resistance. It wears down their need to change. It just wears them down. It becomes easier for them to just ‘toe the line’.
Settling for a quite life
And sadly, based on my own experience as NLP psychotherapist, this particular result is all too common. Because, for example, if Jack loves Jill but every time that he tries to change his interests or routine or hobby or friends she reacts negatively then, after a year or two of this, he’s likely to think ‘what’s the point!’ and settle for a quiet life.
Freedom 6: I respect your right to evolve and change
This is the ‘you are free to continually evolve’ freedom. You have a right to not stay the same forever.
In this, the sixth of the Relationship Freedoms, we take responsibility for our own responses to our partners behaviour. We choose to be adaptable and flexible rather than demand obedience and compliance.
As with most of the freedoms, we are taking responsibility for managing our own fear that we might lose them – rather than requiring them to behave in ways that assuage this fear of ours.
In Freedom 6 we are saying because I truly love you for yourself, I also love your ever-changing kaleidoscope of moods, appearance, interests, beliefs, directions, etc.
Ralph Waldo Emerson had a nice comment: to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
In the sixth Relationship Freedom we choose not to try to make our partner something else – but accept them as they are, can be, and will be.
(Is this the final Freedom? Maybe – or maybe not – I’m seriously thinking that there does need to be a 7th… )
