I Can't Change Him

Dreams, relationships, and life how we picture it don't happen from coming up with canned reactions or strategies. Things don't change based on the same old thinking and actions we take, because those are entrenched, normally based in fear.
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I won't change him from a slow thinker to a quick doer.

I can't unravel the knots that keep him tied up and stuck to his familiar place where very little changes for him.

It's not my job, nor can anyone climb inside my head and move me out of my comfort zone peacefully. I have to want to move out first, right?

Perhaps, I can't even really ever know his truest feelings for me, I only get in words what he has shared. The action doesn't follow and therefore the words don't create a lasting effect.

Now, I don't write this as a realization that I must stop controlling him, because it isn't that I am trying; it's the thinking that if someone is acting a certain way, I must respond in a way that fits.

Don't they say the punishment must fit the crime? Even though this isn't a crime, it's trying to respond so as to make myself feel better... to get back into my comfort zone and in control of myself.

Aren't we always looking for the most strategic response? The quip? The action to create the reaction? The reassurance? The way for us to feel okay and not like our insides are hanging out?

Dreams, relationships, and life how we picture it don't happen from coming up with canned reactions or strategies. Things don't change based on the same old thinking and actions we take, because those are entrenched, normally based in fear.

Fear comes in so many disguises and we put it on others. Sometimes we believe we know their thinking and their intentions, we focus there rather than on making changes ourselves.

I thought for a really long time, could he show up just once, emotionally and physically in an open and generous way -- being all in, and completely available... what it would be like? How amazing it would be.

Even though, he sometimes admitted to his fears, he couldn't take action. No loving action for himself or me, he hid away from me, feeling as though he was failing, instead.

I hoped for so long that, because I loved him so much it would open the door to him wanting to join me in a full life together. Perhaps, from the words he stated, the truth was he didn't love himself enough, or trust that relationships could be different than what he experienced in the past.

He didn't see his value. And I kept looking at him to seek my value too. I was used to it, because I wasn't brought up with much value. I was always different and therefore, in my mind, usually coming from behind.

I learned to find myself and even though I grew much more confident from learning to love myself, I could and can still be triggered.

The trigger can take me by surprise, it can lead me back down old familiar roads and cause me pain. The feeling of emptiness, of a desire unfulfilled. Wondering why, if it all seemed so easy it had to be so difficult?

And it struck me that the way I was looking at it, was what kept me repeating the lesson.

He won't change. At least through my words, my reassurance or my actions. He won't discover his inner light, or how amazing he is and finally follow through his words with action. He won't get how much I miss him at times, because he was like the male version of me. I can't make someone a giver, who is afraid, because of his own disappointments and not wanting to experience possible shame again from being vulnerable. And that means I can't make him a receiver of love either. That's his choice.

What it means is something new.

I can change.

I have been changing.

In my deepest core is the meaning, I have to remove all obstacles within me to love. Every pain and twinge of not having circumstances how I want them, is an opportunity for me to just love. Love myself, love life, love him, love others, etc. The giving and receiving is what I keep changing, my ability to receive kindness, love, sharing, caring, etc... and feel it deeply is what changes me. I give, as I have always given, but not from a depleted place, no.

By receiving I am not depleted, and it is everywhere in life, if I keep changing my perception. Where I see obstacles, I can change those to temporary challenges, if my goal is love.

Nope I can't change him, I don't even try anymore, and the hope that I had for so long has changed too. I can't make someone do what they don't want to, just because I don't want to lose him.

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