Observation: People don't change (so don't expect them to)

[Roxanne Appleby]

Observations:

1. Individuals do not change over their lives in their basic emotional structure and responses.

2. A mature person will understand his or her own emotional structure and responses. (This is not easy.)

3. An honest and mature person will be scrupulous in not making any commitments or promises based on the requirement that he or she will change in this dimension. To do any less is not honest, and will lead to heartbreak when the inevitable disappointment comes.

4. A prudent and realistic person will not enter a relationship that is based on a requirement or presumption that the other person will change in this dimension. Someone who does so really can’t blame the other for not changing. He or she might be able to blame the other for dishonesty (or more likely for willfully evading the truth about his or her own nature), but probably should blame himself or herself more, because the signs were probably there from the start. (It’s hard, and there can be good faith errors on both sides. People should not assume malice, but also should not tolerate willful evasion, which is much more common.)

5. If people understand their own emotional structure and responses, are honest about these with themselves and others, and don’t enter relationships that cannot succeed unless they or the other person change in this dimension, there would be a lot less pain in the world. Figure it out, accept it, and then just be honest. You’ll be doing yourself and everyone else a big favor.

6. People being people, there have possibly been one or two exceptions to all this since we climbed down from the trees, but you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’ if you assume that you and your partner are going to be among that minority.

Just one other qualification: I haven’t defined “basic emotional structure and responses.” I think it’s more than just a “I know it when I see it” thing, but am still working out just what this encompasses, and am open to suggestions and comments.

 

[scriptordelecto]

People are foolish for trying to change the person they are in a relationship with. Isn't it usually the person you first meet and get to know that draws you into a realtionship? Why then would you want them to become someone different?

People who are critical of their partner's flaws have not taken the time to examine and accept their own, I think. Perhaps those who want to change the person they are with are unhappy with themselves?

I don't think that people never change, they do change as they learn and grow, but you are right, not their fundamental emotional structure.

 

[rgraham666]

People are foolish for trying to change the person they are in a relationship with. Isn't it usually the person you first meet and get to know that draws you into a realtionship? Why then would you want them to become someone different?

People who are critical of their partner's flaws have not taken the time to examine and accept their own, I think. Perhaps those who want to change the person they are with are unhappy with themselves?

I don't think that people never change, they do change as they learn and grow, but you are right, not their fundamental emotional structure.

Accepting another person is, in my opinion, difficult for North Americans to do. We've been trained since infancy that we can get what we want when we want it.

With such a perfectionist attitude it's not surprising we're so often disappointed.

 

[scriptordelecto]

Accepting another person is, in my opinion, difficult for North Americans to do. We've been trained since infancy that we can get what we want when we want it.

With such a perfectionist attitude it's not surprising we're so often disappointed.

Rob Darling, I find your cynicism in the morning quite refreshing!

 

[ungenderless]

Accepting another person is, in my opinion, difficult for North Americans to do. We've been trained since infancy that we can get what we want when we want it.

With such a perfectionist attitude it's not surprising we're so often disappointed.

FINALLY someone says it out loud! THANK YOU!

 

[mismused]

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[Roxanne Appleby]

Rob Darling, I find your cynicism in the morning quite refreshing!

LOL! Actually, I find that an interesting observation, that "spoiled" Norte Americanos are especially subject to committing the errors described in the OP.

 

[past_perfect]

Just one other qualification: I haven’t defined “basic emotional structure and responses.” I think it’s more than just a “I know it when I see it” thing, but am still working out just what this encompasses, and am open to suggestions and comments.

Hm, with your other observations I have no problems, but this is a little vague - especially since you refer to instances where people obviously enter into relationships because of feelings, ideally love.

If you define structure as I do, that would presuppose that it is a fluent, auto-correcting field of changing interdependencies with its own laws and a tendency towards meliorisation.

In other words, above feelings would offset whatever there was before, assign new values to the initial constituents, which, by definition, could be seen as change. If that change is permanent or far-reaching and how it reflects on the rest of the personality structure certainly is a different question.

Less abstract: I have seen tough, cold and inconsiderate people change into warm, caring and likeable characters - in most instances that seemed to last for as long as the new feelings to be integrated were rather fresh, and reverted to the more familiar structure thereafter - but of course I have seen transformations that appear to have lasted - which is certainly imprudent to count on or hope for, but just so very human to do nevertheless.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

RA: A mature person will understand his or her own emotional structure and responses. (This is not easy.)

Mismused: Most likely not true. Habits drive us, and habits are what stipulate to others who we are. We . . . "know who we are," and are comforted by it for the most part. The reason is that we have built this in an intuitive ad hoc manner (and with the help and input of the many, some more so than others, most likely parents and or siblings, but not necessarily in the most potent of ways at all times -- read peer pressure in teens).

Interesting and thought provoking. I'm not sure if "not true" is necessary, though. If I were to adopt your analysis I might say, "A mature person will understand the habits that drive him or herself, and the source of those habits."

 

[Pure]

RA: 2. A mature person will understand his or her own emotional structure and responses. (This is not easy.)

To which i would add
2* There are no mature persons.

 

[cloudy]

Roxanne, darlin', I think you're overanalyzing relationships.

After all, who, in that first dizzy, over-whelming buzz of love found bothers to take the time to psycho-analyze themselves or their partner? No one that I know, anyway.

1. Individuals do not change over their lives in their basic emotional structure and responses.

But they do....we all do. People aren't poured in concrete, and we change every single day, however minutely. You think I have a bad temper now? You should've been around me twenty years ago.

2. A mature person will understand his or her own emotional structure and responses. (This is not easy.)

You're right that it's not easy, but again, who actually understands their own emotional triggers perfectly? No one that I know. We are the sum of our experiences - even if we don't remember every single one of them. They affect choices that we make, even when we aren't these perfectly aware beings. I don't think that emotional understanding has anything at all to do with maturity.

3. An honest and mature person will be scrupulous in not making any commitments or promises based on the requirement that he or she will change in this dimension. To do any less is not honest, and will lead to heartbreak when the inevitable disappointment comes.

I'm trying not to be a smartass (honestly), but the first thing that jumped into my mind as I read this is that your "requirements" are so strict and so limiting that you must be disappointed in people quite often, because no one can live up to that. As I said, we all change, intentional or not.

Are you the same exact person (emotionally) that you were at 20? At 25? Someone who doesn't change at all - not ever - isn't honest, they're stagnant.

5. If people understand their own emotional structure and responses, are honest about these with themselves and others, and don’t enter relationships that cannot succeed unless they or the other person change in this dimension, there would be a lot less pain in the world. Figure it out, accept it, and then just be honest. You’ll be doing yourself and everyone else a big favor.

You want the world, and the people in it, to be perfect. Not gonna happen. Honesty has diddly-squat to do with it. Who I am today is not the exact same person that I'm going to be one year from now.

There are absolutely no guarantees how a relationship will go, or if it will even last, no matter how honest the two people are with each other. I understand you wanting a guarantee....but then, I want a million dollars, too.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

. . . you refer to instances where people obviously enter into relationships because of feelings, ideally love.

. . . I have seen tough, cold and inconsiderate people change into warm, caring and likeable characters - in most instances that seemed to last for as long as the new feelings to be integrated were rather fresh, and reverted to the more familiar structure thereafter. But of course I have seen transformations that appear to have lasted - which is certainly imprudent to count on or hope for, but just so very human to do nevertheless.

On the first point, note that I did not say people should not enter into relationships, but that they "should not enter a relationship that is based on a requirement or presumption that the other person will change." If one derives adequate satisfaction from the relationship with the other person just the way they are, and is not holding onto a "reservation" that "I will only really be satisfied when X becomes (fill in the blank)," then there is no reason not to enter the relationship.

On the bold in the second quoted item - Really? Of course you've seen permanent transformations? Do you want to think about that a little more and perhaps revise it? I did not say it never happens, but if it does it must be exceedingly rare. The non-permanent "transformations" described in the first part of that happen all the time, of course. They are dangerous because it is so easy for either or both parties to be misled about their own or the other person's nature because of them. Being temporary, of course they are not really "transformations" at all, though.

 

[R. Richard]

Observations:

1. Individuals do not change over their lives in their basic emotional structure and responses.

2. A mature person will understand his or her own emotional structure and responses. (This is not easy.)

3. An honest and mature person will be scrupulous in not making any commitments or promises based on the requirement that he or she will change in this dimension. To do any less is not honest, and will lead to heartbreak when the inevitable disappointment comes.

I believe that your statements are a cutting criticsim of the public school system.

The premise of the fine arts classes are that an individual can be changed and changed in precisely the direction that the school wants. Since some of the fine arts classes are required, the school is attempting to change an individual's basic emotional structure and response at the point of a scumbag gun.

I would politely disagree with your second statement. Even a child may understand his own emotional structure and responses. In my case it was not only easy, it was so easy I didn't even know it was a problem.

As a school child I, I found that the school tried to force me into making commitments and promises based on the requirement that I would change radically the dimension of my emotional structure and response. I was willing to lie to the mentally deranged sexual predators who ran the schools. However, they not only wanted a committment, they wanted performance, including lifelong committments. The entire process led to disaster, as any rational preson would have expected.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

. . . the mentally deranged sexual predators who ran the schools . . .

And I thought I was critical of the public school establishment ("the blob").

 

[scriptordelecto]

Observations:

1. Individuals do not change over their lives in their basic emotional structure and responses

3. An honest and mature person will be scrupulous in not making any commitments or promises based on the requirement that he or she will change in this dimension. To do any less is not honest, and will lead to heartbreak when the inevitable disappointment comes.

#3 Is assuming that one chooses a partner for a relationship using logic and reasoning. This is actually something that I did for my first marriage, which ended disastrously. Both of these were out the window when I met my second husband. We have now been together for ten years.

I don't believe either of us has tried to change the other over the years, but change has occured, nonetheless. We have influenced each other, and people we have had contact with through friendships or work aquaintances have affected our views on different subjects.

Although we are still, at the most basic levels, the same people, there have been subtle and numerous changes, without which our relationship could have become stale. There must be new things to discover about each other for a relationship to survive.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

#3 Is assuming that one chooses a partner for a relationship using logic and reasoning. This is actually something that I did for my first marriage, which ended disastrously. Both of these were out the window when I met my second husband. We have now been together for ten years.

I don't believe either of us has tried to change the other over the years, but change has occured, nonetheless. We have influenced each other, and people we have had contact with through friendships or work aquaintances have affected our views on different subjects.

Although we are still, at the most basic levels, the same people, there have been subtle and numerous changes, without which our relationship could have become stale. There must be new things to discover about each other for a relationship to survive.

I am happy for you that you found a good relationship.

That "I haven’t defined “basic emotional structure and responses” qualification is a pretty big one. Qualifications necessarily diminish the usefulness of a theory, but they give this one the wiggle room to accomodate your "subtle and numerous changes."

"No. 3 is assuming that one chooses a partner for a relationship using logic and reasoning."
People are attracted to another for reasons that often are not logic and reason. We can't help it. However, in an important sense - the one described by this theory - the terms of the relationship we choose to enter can't really go against logic and reason, as in, "I know it's not logical or reasonable for me to expect this person to change in his basic emotional structure and responses, and I won't be happy unless he does, but what the heck, let's get married anyway." You don't have to be a Mr. Spock to see the problems with that one.

 

[past_perfect]

On the bold in the second quoted item - Really? Of

Yes on two occasions, one being a personal friend of mine, who was or at least pretended to be a cold, analytical cynic, who wouldn't let anyone or anything near him - until he got into a relationship that completely changed him around, and although that relationship ended, he is still the "better" person he became through this relationship.

The other one was a bitter elderly man, extremely rough and curt, who discovered love and a different side to him in his early sixties, becoming almost intolerably sweet. Again someone who is/was very close to me, so I could see that transformation first hand.

My other point was more on the grounds of "don't expect them to change" doesn't really apply because they have obviously changed already when a new feeling has to be integrated into their emotional-make up and personality.

The value they place on the relationship and the way they deal with their emotions is perhaps the more decisive factor, so rather than saying their basic emotional structure doesn't change, I'd say, the way they deal with their altered emotions might not change.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I think, intuitively and externally, there is more evidence to the idea that people /do/ change--in many ways up to and including fundamental ones.

 

[shereads]

I changed. A lot.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Roxanne, darlin', I think you're overanalyzing relationships.

After all, who, in that first dizzy, over-whelming buzz of love found bothers to take the time to psycho-analyze themselves or their partner? No one that I know, anyway.

I'm trying not to be a smartass (honestly) . . .

Smartass! (Just kidding. )

I suspect that we do disagree on some core premises, but that much of what appears to be disagreement in your post is a result of reading what I have written in ways that I did not intend. Perhaps this is a function of those real disagreements.

A few points. First, my "basic emotional structure and responses" formulation is admittedly not well defined. You say, "we change every single day, however minutely," and who could disagree? But that does not necessarily contradict my point. You say, "You think I have a bad temper now, you should've been around me twenty years ago." I read that as you have become more mature in how you behave (perhaps including the thoughts you think) given your basic emotional structure and responses, which have not really changed. Rather than being "stagnant" you have learned a lot about yourself over the years and don't make the same mistakes, but the basic emotional structure and responses are unchanged.

3. An honest and mature person will be scrupulous in not making any commitments or promises based on the requirement that he or she will change in this dimension. To do any less is not honest, and will lead to heartbreak when the inevitable disappointment comes.

I'm trying not to be a smartass (honestly), but the first thing that jumped into my mind as I read this is that your "requirements" are so strict and so limiting that you must be disappointed in people quite often, because no one can live up to that. As I said, we all change, intentional or not.

I don't think this is "strict and limiting" at all. As I said to Scripto, people can't help who they are attracted to, but we choose the terms of the relationships we enter. I did not say people should not enter into relationships, but that they "should not enter a relationship that is based on a requirement or presumption that the other person will change." If one derives adequate satisfaction from the relationship with the other person just the way they are, and is not holding onto a "reservation" that "I will only really be satisfied when X becomes (fill in the blank)," then there is no reason not to enter the relationship. If such a reservation does exist, this does not foreclose having any relationship with the person - from a fling to a friendship - but it better inform you that you should not marry the person or, as I said, you're cruisin' for a bruisin'. Ignore this at your extreme peril, young women and men.

Who actually understands their own emotional triggers perfectly? No one that I know. We are the sum of our experiences - even if we don't remember every single one of them. They affect choices that we make, even when we aren't these perfectly aware beings.

I like this, but perhaps you take it too far. Of course no one "understands their emotional triggers perfectly," but a mature person certainly recognizes most of them, and has a pretty good understanding of them. I said it isn't easy; perhaps I should say, it's the work of a lifetime.

There are absolutely no guarantees how a relationship will go, or if it will even last, no matter how honest the two people are with each other.

Actually, there are some things that are pretty close to guaranteed. For example, it is almost guaranteed that if I get romantically involved with someone who is extremely emotionally needy the outcome will not be be good. I'll guess that the same is true about you getting hitched to someone who is totally discombobulated by a person with a fiery temper. (That would not preclude me, but we still shouldn't get hitched. ) I can tell pretty well in advance whether I can have a valuable friendship with a person. Relationships are not crap shoots, and should not be treated as such. But to be fair, you are right that even when two people act in good faith, and believe that they can be satisfied with the other person as they are now, there is no guarantee that they are correct, for the reason you cite above - the lack of "perfect" knowledge.


Finally, you said, "Who, in that first dizzy, over-whelming buzz of love found bothers to take the time to psycho-analyze themselves or their partner?" No one. You can't, because that experience is like being on drugs. As you might guess, I'm not a big fan of whirlwhind romances that result in marriage in a few weeks. Perhaps you'll luck out, but you're playing emotional russian roulette. Savour the high, but don't make any life plans until you've both returned to earth in six months or so.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

(Reposting for easy reference.)
Observations:

1. Individuals do not change over their lives in their basic emotional structure and responses.

2. A mature person will understand his or her own emotional structure and responses. (This is not easy.)

3. An honest and mature person will be scrupulous in not making any commitments or promises based on the requirement that he or she will change in this dimension. To do any less is not honest, and will lead to heartbreak when the inevitable disappointment comes.

4. A prudent and realistic person will not enter a relationship that is based on a requirement or presumption that the other person will change in this dimension. Someone who does so really can’t blame the other for not changing. He or she might be able to blame the other for dishonesty (or more likely for willfully evading the truth about his or her own nature), but probably should blame himself or herself more, because the signs were probably there from the start. (It’s hard, and there can be good faith errors on both sides. People should not assume malice, but also should not tolerate willful evasion, which is much more common.)

5. If people understand their own emotional structure and responses, are honest about these with themselves and others, and don’t enter relationships that cannot succeed unless they or the other person change in this dimension, there would be a lot less pain in the world. Figure it out, accept it, and then just be honest. You’ll be doing yourself and everyone else a big favor.

6. People being people, there have possibly been one or two exceptions to all this since we climbed down from the trees, but you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’ if you assume that you and your partner are going to be among that minority.

Just one other qualification: I haven’t defined “basic emotional structure and responses.” I think it’s more than just a “I know it when I see it” thing, but am still working out just what this encompasses, and am open to suggestions and comments.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

To Joe and Shereads: Your daughter tells you that she wants to marry a guy that you agree is not a bad person. However, you and she both recognize that he has a basic emotional structure and responses that cause her a lot of pain. She says that he promises to change, she believes he is sincere, and he is sincere.

Does this give you a warm and fuzzy feeling? Are you optimistic, or fearful for your daughter's happiness and future?

I didn't say that nobody has ever changes in this dimension, just that it is very rare, and not something to bet your life on.

Perhaps our disagreement is one of degree?

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Originally Posted by Roxanne Appleby:
If I were to adopt your analysis I might say, "A mature person will understand the habits that drive him or herself, and the source of those habits."

So, are you saying it, or what?


And would you also of neccessity have to say that to understand the habits that person will have had to analyze theirself, and if so, to what degree?

I used the phrase "basic emotional structure and responses." You used the term "the habits that drive us" and cited some sources of these.

Are these the same thing? Perhaps. In the opening post I acknowledged that I have not defined "basic emotional structure and responses," and am still working out just what this encompasses. (I've been working on it for years. ) Your formulation seems a lot more concrete, which makes it better.

I would add one thing, which is "disposition," something we are born with (ask any mother ), and which surely is part of the mix that defines a person's "basic emotional structure and responses." Maybe "the habits that drive us" are also part of this.

Do I think that "to understand these habits a person will have had to analyze theirself?" Certainly. As you have said before, a lot of things come down to what you pay attention to.

 

[mismused]

delete