Can you help me fix my partner?

When couples come to therapy, I hear these questions a lot..

• Can you help me fix my partner?
• Can you tell them why they are wrong?
• Can you tell them why they should listen to me?

The truth is, I cannot fix them. You cannot fix them. Nobody can really fix another person.

I love this quote from Dr. Jenny Brown’s Growing Yourself Up..

“If you want a better marriage, you will need to give up making a project out of changing the relationship or your partner and instead make a project out of expressing your own maturity within it.”

Now read it again.

This means that instead of focusing on changing your partner, you should ask yourself…

• How can I express my needs and wants to my partner without trying to change them?
• What is the difference between managing them versus managing my own reactivity towards them?
• What am I prepared to do or not to do if they don’t meet my expectations?
• What does it mean to not assign blame in the relationship?

YOU are more capable than you think. Your partner obviously plays a role in the relationship, but you don’t need to wait for them to be “fixed” in order for you to feel happier and calmer. You have the ability to rely on yourself to do so.

Just like how you cannot fix them, they cannot make you feel better (at least not in the long-term).