Fixing People & Changing Spouses: The Human Nature To Change The Unchangeable
Back in 2006, Amy Sutherland wrote an essay for the New York Times that took on a life of its own. This small, goofy essay spawned a full-length book, then an Amazon series, and then a series of copycat movies. Her essay was about using circus techniques to train animals; But instead of animals, she trained her husband. The essay is called What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage, and in the essay, Amy said, “The central lesson I learned from trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't.” After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging, and the same goes for the American husband.
She would thank her husband if he threw one dirty shirt in the hamper; if he threw in two, she’d kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soil clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though she would sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller. In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon starts training his friend Penny by throwing candy treats in her mouth for good behavior. Jeff Foxworthy had a bit where he jokes that his wife trained him to get up and change the thermostat just by mentioning the chill. Last year Hallmark put on a movie on how to train your puppy, except the word puppy had been crossed out in the promotional pictures, and husband had been scrawled into it.
Training each other and fixing our partners has become a downright obsession in society. So, today we ask, how about it? Can we actually fix each other? Could I fix my introverted podcasting partner?
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Trying to fix our partners is kind of our jam as human beings. You don't need to have a disorder either to want to fix a partner. Young women try to nurture bad boys into being supportive partners before they grow out of that bad boy phase, and men often go through a phase of dating where they seek birds with broken wings.
Of course, clinically co-dependent relationships usually have some element of one partner trying to fix the other and narcissistic partners like to be rescued. In fact, that can be what makes a narcissist so attractive; they look like the perfect DIY project. Whether a partner has a few cracks in need of some glue, we find ourselves married to a rattling box of Ikea parts without instructions. But what we want to know is, can we fix someone? And help us explore the subject, we have three myths to bust.
Myth One: Is it moral to fix someone? What if they really need fixing and literally asking to be fixed?
Joe: On rare occasions, we will bring up episode subjects to each other. Some of them sit on our list based on recommendations, and we will have them on deck to be recorded for months. This one came through, and Todd included a note that said this would be the best episode ever. Let's do this. We need to talk about fixing people. What made you so excited about this, and what made you think of it?
Todd: I've been getting flooded lately by my inner circle and in my own head and in my own relationship about fixing myself and the wife trying to fix me on things. And then I've been hearing a lot for my friends - people who have been with people for years, either married or in long-term relationships, and not complaining, but wanting changes in their spouses.
Joe: So, I kind of want to know about your philosophy about change. I'll tell you mine in one sentence because I am a bit of a stoic and a pessimist: I don't think people change. I think people adapt to each other's strangeness and idiosyncrasies. Going into this research, I thought there was no changing somebody.
Todd: Well, I thought that too, but I also don't think everyone's the same. I think it takes extreme change and extreme circumstances for anyone to change at all. And I think certain people pick out certain people to put up with their bullshit. They pick a partner so they can be their worst self.
Joe: Now, we may not be picking out an enabler, but we are possibly picking out somebody who will bring it out in us or enable us in a certain way. So, who have you tried to fix, or who tried to fix you?
Todd: My ex-wife. It was a 10-year project, and she did not succeed. But that was a very unhealthy marriage, to begin with. There were a lot of healthy habits. One of them was when we first got married, she, almost on a monthly basis, would say that she wanted to get divorced and that she was going to file for divorce.
Joe: That sounds like she was holding a gun on the relationship. Like she was using your marriage as leverage to try to get you to change.
Todd: I don't want to play the victim here because I was not. The things she wanted to change were very needed to be changed. These are obvious flaws. But one thing she did was constantly compare me to other men my age, their accomplishments, or whatever it was. And that was kind of damaging to me.
Joe: Just in your own opinion, what is it healthy to try to hold up as a comparison? Because I don't think accomplishments are healthy to compare. I mean, that's the stuff that makes for depression, trying to compare yourself to other people's accomplishments. But is there something you can fix in somebody that would be healthy to ask for?
Todd: I think the big ones are drinking, smoking, the diet, and anger.
Joe: So, behaviors. I don't want to spoil too much, but in a nutshell, you've basically accidentally recapped all the moral points we are going to be making. Want to get into it?
Todd: Sure, but what about you? Do you feel like sharing?
Joe: I will say that I am currently in a relationship, and I've always had anxiety issues. I am a writer, I used to drink, and I am a very nervous kind of person. I need to know everything. If you want to know why all our episodes have statistics in them about social behavior, it's because I have to know what is normal. So, I am constantly looking up these normalities, even for simple behaviors. We have an episode about long-distance relationships because I needed to know how these work out statistically. I will look up everything from how many times you text somebody to how many times you talk to somebody in a day. In short, my changing behavior is almost like asking, hey do you need something changed repeatedly until the other person wants you to just shut up and be yourself. The things I offer to change aren't going to be the core problems. I can offer to change everything but, in the end, I probably am not doing a good job identifying what actually needs to be changed - and as our studies bear out, it may take a divorce before I recognize them quickly enough. Hopefully, that won't be the case. I really believe in positive change, seeing professionals, and talking to people.
The first question is, is it moral to change somebody? It doesn't seem like it is. We rarely will quote the Bible, except I've seen this quote show up and sci-fi. It's something about not removing the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and not looking at the plank in your own. Overall, I think it's hard to morally justify telling yourself you're trying to change somebody when you have so much to work on yourself. And if it bothers someone else, it probably bothers them 20 times as much. That's why people are so defensive when somebody wants to fix them; it's because they are basically stating they see you have a problem like you don't already know it is there. I guess the first hurdle we have to get past is when it is moral to fix somebody or try to. Otherwise, our episode is going to be all of 10 minutes if we just end with. No, it's not moral.
I'm going to say if you get into a relationship or marriage and you both agree to work on something, then I would say it is moral. I think it's okay to be just crazy in love with somebody, but they have this one flaw that doesn't line up. Maybe it's not a problem for their family, but it doesn't line up with your values, and we know that having the wrong values in a marriage or relationship is terminal. If you're in a committed relationship and you've agreed to help each other grow - that's the idea I think is growth, not change.
There's this great tweet I want to read to you. It came out after the movie Joker with Joaquin Phoenix came out by a Twitter account, Tammy the bush pilot. She said, “Watching The Joker movie. Under her breath - I could fix him.” So, the instinct to fix people, especially if they are murderous psychopath clowns, is it moral? To me, that's like rehabilitating the prisoner; it needs to be done. Breaking it down, is it moral if two people agree to grow, and the other is if a person literally needs to be changed and you happen to be the one standing there holding the relationship leash at that moment.
Myth Two: Is there even such a thing as fixing someone? Does anyone really change a relationship, or do we just get used to each other's weirdness and call it change?
So, what needs to happen to change somebody? What is step one? Is it consent? Is it declaring it? When you get into a relationship, do you pull up to a leather jacket-wearing thug at the bar and start with, hey, I want to change you? How soon do you have to declare that? I know how women do it; they set me down in a very serious voice, and I've been on the wrong end of more than one of those. Usually, it's about 10 to 12 months after the honeymoon phase wears off and true colors start peeking through.
Now, we kind of want to talk a little bit about morality and whether you fix somebody. There aren't a lot of great statistical datasets about changing people. We got as many as we could into this episode, and there are some interesting ones. The first one I want to go with is, let's ask the oldest people that we could find who have been in relationships forever. For this, I found a great Psychology Today article called What Can You Change About Your Partner? They interviewed 70- to 90-year-olds, sometimes older than that, asking if they could change people? Can you change your partner? Well, this is from Sheila, who is 94, and she sums it up very well. She says, “They say that people marry and think, well, I can get him or her to change. But I think that's just stupid. Why would you marry them and want them to change?” There's another quote here from Marguerite, 74, "We all try to change the guys we are with once we get them, like, this bothers me, and that bothers me, but I know once we're together, I'll change it." That quote made me think of what we're talking about. Marguerite goes on to say, “But you can't change somebody. If something bothers you a little bit when you're dating, 20 years later, you're going to hate that thing about them.”
Seems like human nature, and I've noticed that a lot of people think getting married will fix things, or once we have a kid, we'll fix things. They really believe that with all their hearts that when they settle down, they'll stop this, or they'll love me more. Once we're actually married, that reality can't be further from the truth. That logic is almost like saying once we're both too busy to do anything or think of anything, that'll change things. No, getting busier, getting more wrapped up in children and marriage, that's not going to change things. That's going to make you have less bandwidth and more stress.
One of these people in the interviews pointed out the word idiosyncrasies, and idiosyncrasy is little behaviors that are cemented into your behavior set. So, whether or not you're a clean person, idiosyncrasies are just these little, tiny groupings of behavior that accompany the major things. They say that idiosyncrasies will kill you both. It's not the big stuff like wanting to have kids or how you both deal with money. Those themselves can be deal-breakers, but the idiosyncrasies are the hard ones to change.
I'm going to list off a couple of points from Verywell Mind. There's an article about how much you should try to change your partner, and they just have a list of things that probably won't change. We're talking about idiosyncrasies, which make the top of the list. Another thing that probably will never change is a partner who doesn't make you a priority. This is an interesting one because it's at the top of their list, and I think it's one of the ones you do in the first place. It's the building block. It's the cornerstone of change. They say a partner who doesn't make you a priority initially isn't likely to change later if you come in second to your partner's work, friendship, family, and hobbies. It is important to recognize that it's not going to be altered. They say abusive behavior and things like codependency and narcissists, it is critical that you recognize it and realize it's not your fault and this is going to continue. There are personality differences, and that probably won't change.
The last one on my list here of things that probably won't change is coping strategies. Now, this is what I've been reading about recently. I've been going back to the Gottman Institute; they talk about coping strategies and how good relationships are built on not necessarily people who are the best emotionally together but people who are the best at repairing. They have an interest in repairing, and they talk a lot about repairing the relationship. They're willing to do it on the same day they argue, and in this article, they say people who have different coping strategies from one another are unlikely to change. If you're not into making repairs and your partner is, this will not work for you, and you will not be able to change that.
Myth Three: What about the new husband who quits drinking or the wife who stops flirting? What makes people finally change?
As a quick note, this topic can get dark fast. There was a book that came out called, Training Your Wife To Be Submissive. That is a real title. There is another one by a so-called Christian writer called, Training Your Wife To Be Tractable. It feels so weird to see that on Amazon.
Joe: You're talking about how exes have tried to change you. Do you feel like they were successful?
Todd: I feel like I just got older. Some of those things were sharp blade swords, and now they're a little bit duller, but they're still there.
Joe: Okay, so they may not have changed; you just sanded the edges. So, we mentioned Gottman earlier. Dr. Gottman wrote that 69% of relationship issues consist of unsolvable problems. So those sharp edges you're talking about are 69% of issues that relationships will bring up.
One of the strangest articles I found, which was very interesting, talks about men ironically changing themselves after the first divorce. I used to work in a law office, and I've heard of the second marriage syndrome, where guys would be a better fit after they had already been married once. But I think some of it's just getting older. I think getting older and maturing helps here, but Psychology Today had an article called The Walkaway Wife Syndrome, and it's exactly what you were describing where your wife would go to the divorce lawyer using that as leverage to get their husband to change. The idea is that a first wife will want to correct your behavior, and we'll start leaving a relationship. And while she is planning her exit strategy, the guy panics, and they go from “I'm making changes” to “get off my back” to “oh my God, I actually need to change these things right now.”
According to the article, these guys will make lasting positive changes, but it's too late by the time they make those changes; The wife has walked away. It may sound like we're being sexist by singling out men, but the article was very specific, calling out that it is usually guys that run into this, guys who will rush their change, and it won't take effect until their second marriage. So, let's talk about what happens if you want to change yourself without getting divorced. Because that's hopefully what we end up with, right? We want to know if you can change somebody and how you would do it morally.
Half of all marriages end in divorce. Well, it would make an awful lot of sense if those divorces were based on 69-70% of issues being unsolvable. Now, based on research, the best way to start this process is with open communication. If you're trying to change somebody without them knowing it, it's abuse. And keep in mind, if you are trying to change someone without their knowledge, it will go slower, and it will be far less effective if they don't know what's happening. We joke this whole episode about training men like they're baboons or circus animals, but if you tell the person I want to work on this, it can become a very nice conversion over time for the both of you. Simply communicate what you wish they would do, like pick up the laundry.
Now, there are steps that the Gottman Institute has here. First, they say check-in with yourself. Get to know yourself, look into your attitudes, beliefs, expectations, and triggers, and ask yourself if their behavior challenges those things. Can you stay with that person if they never improve? That should be pretty much day one.
If you've answered that question, and the answer is yes, can I stay with this person if they never change, then consider your values. If you and your spouse have entirely different values, the relationship might be in trouble. If you can't change those and the other person doesn't want to grow, then that is not just a deal-breaker; that's something you're not going to get them to budge on. There's also something to be said about if they are willing to change. Be patient and understanding. Don't hold a gun to the relationship any time they get upset, or they don't make change quickly enough.
So, while we say that everyone should feel loved and respected and heard and cared for all the things we deserve from partners, we also recognize that you can be facing issues and trying to change something that has already taken its toll on you. So just please keep in mind that when you start asking for change, it is better to do it early while you still have the patience to be caring and to hear the partner and be respectful and let them know that you want them to change.
As a final note, I have a pet theory, and it's kind of backed up by what we've read. I think that possibly if you want to fix somebody, what you're really doing is shifting their joy. I think for guys that find their joy by going out to a bar and staying out all night, changing them really means getting them to shift to find joy as a family person. Ultimately, what we are doing is correcting negative behaviors like not putting away clothes, but if we correct a positive one, we have to shift where that person is finding happiness and replace it with something else.
Final Thoughts
Going into a relationship with the intent to fix your partner is a pretty rotten way to begin things. You may want to fix them for the better, or you may want to fix them, so they suit you better. Either way, you're buying into a project that will never be finished. Morality aside, even if your partner agrees to change for you, there's no change in idiosyncrasies. The way we behave and the subconscious way we move through the world are cemented into us long before adulthood.
You may be able to throw treats at your husband until he remembers to pick up his underwear, but if your man is messy, he’ll end up with messes somewhere. And these idiosyncrasies get 20 times worse when they're not messes - when they involve drinking, children, and tempers. Ultimately, if you want to fix someone, you must communicate it directly from the first sentence you speak to them. You must be open, patient, and considerate of their values. If you're trying to change where your partner finds their joy, you have to be willing to offer alternatives.
Even if you succeed in fixing your spouse, you have to be careful what you end up with. You or your partner could resent the person they become. If all that sounds like too much work, instead of fixing someone, you could do what the rest of us do: use a damn algorithm to match with someone who picks up their underwear from day one.