Every relationship starts out in what has been termed the proverbial honeymoon stage. Then it comes to a point where one person feels that the relationship has maybe changed. Has the relationship changed or just transitioned to a new stage? I have learned and wrote about many of my experiences with relationship change in “The Marcus Graham Chronicles Series” and I as I have written time after time things DO and WILL change in a relationship. I read somewhere before that men generally want things to stay the same in a relationship while a woman wants things to be constantly changing. Should things change? How much should things change in a relationship? Is too much change a problem? This week’s guest post is from my dude O’Dell Harmon ( @Proposition_O ) of O’Harmon’s 2 Cents and he is going to speak to the complexity of change in a relationship.
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Most of the time when someone says “you’ve changed”, it’s because in some for or fashion you’re not acting the way that they want you to. And in most cases it’s because your new-found behavior isn’t beneficial to their psyche. You ever notice how you’re never notified of your changes when you stop doing things that they found undesirable? lol But in all seriousness, what did they expect? You stay the same? Puberty may have stopped, but the process of maturity and finding ones self is a never-ending algorithm.
So I guess it’s perfectly fine and acceptable to change, but it doesn’t become an issue until they notice that you’re perfectly fine acting a certain way that you didn’t notify them of the changes of. And it’s not that you were ever misrepresenting yourself, but they chose to accept the attributes and actions that infatuated “them” from the getty up as a constant that’s to be expected from the infancy stages of your relationship, extending to a plateau. Or in other words, it’s “who you were..”
But who you were is someone who existed decades before you two crossed paths. So is it really fair to say “you changed” on them? Or better yet, are you just no longer perpetuating the microcosm of your being that they like the most. A guy who once loved to visit museums and art exhibits isn’t necessarily a “changed” guy because you chose to make him no more than the museums and art exhibits. Maybe you just caught him at a point in his life in which that aspect was in line with how you wanted to spend your time… And a woman who loved to do nothing more than cook during your first phone conversations didn’t necessarily change because she stopped being so enthusiastic about her culinary gumbo making abilities. But it’s your own fault for believing that what you liked the most was the most important part of herself that she wanted to keep in the forefront to keep you satisfied and possibly pacified.
I like to make the parallel with your favorite music artist, who in your mind “fell off”, and you wish they’d go back to making music the way they did when you first became a fan… But the truth is, artist change their music styles. And more specifically, they’re more than the SINGLE you decided to fall in love with. There was an entire album of music to choose from to gain a better consensus of what they’re about. They may be influenced by whats current and would like to stay relevent to what they believe the masses find appealing. Or sometimes their artistic expression just matures in a way that’s most importantly near and dear to them! It doesn’t mean that the artist you’ve grown to love because
of that first classic isn’t as talented and capable of catching your ear in the same manner, but they just have different tunes. But the totality of their artistic ability was blinded by the classic you held near and dear to your heart. Different tunes… Same artistic ability.
So we can be quick to point the finger and accuse the other of changing, but you have to understand that they were a work in progress before you were even an option. They’re just not acting the way that you want them to that produces the most benefit to your psyche. We have to be careful to not be caught up in singles and pay more attention to the other 15 tracks (or the B side for my old schoolers). So perhaps the real problem is a mixture of your eagerness of living in the moment, and ignoring the fact that moments will ALWAYS and forever CHANGE…
Make sure you check out this week’s episode of the “Straight Outta Lo Cash” Radio Show. This week’s show “What is Considered a Classic?” feat.Hip Hop Historian Finsta. You can also subscribe to the show on I-Tunes or listen on your Android, I-Phone, I-Pad or Black berry of Stitcher Radio.
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Good read!
You are right. Change should be expected and embraced. You can always learn something new from change. Sometimes good and sometimes bad but you will never know unless you change!
I’m really feeling this post. This was a good reminder to carry through everyday life
Change can be a good thing but a lot of people change up for the relationship to sustain. You have to access which one is happening
Awww, man…..
This article is so accurate that it is killing me inside. People love to scream “you have changed”. Maybe. Or maybe I have done three other things:
a.) Stop doing something that I used to do.
b.) Became better at practicing self control.
c.) Improved as a person.
Within those three situations, you can find that a person “changed”. Yet most of the time, the change really doesn’t exist. Like you said “O”: they didn’t pay attention to the other songs on the CD. Or better yet, they didn’t realize that the B side had about 2 or 3 bonus tracks and remixes.
GREAT piece of writing.
While I think it’s reasonable to assume that people will grow and evolve, I don’t think that’s the type of change that most people are complaining about. In my opinion, I think that people get upset that their significant others aren’t doing the things that made the person want to be in a relationship with them in the first place.
Usually the conversation goes something like this… “Niqqa, we used to go out all the time and now all you do is play video games! You’ve changed!” Or, “Damn, Baby, we used to get it in at least four days a week and since we’ve had kids I’m lucky if you break me off four times a month! You’ve changed!” What track was that?
Even though you have a “b-side” [that I may or may not really want to hear], let’s make sure that I get to listen to the songs that I do like. Nobody goes to a Prince concert to listen to him play his new sh*t. Remember, the tracks that I liked are what made me buy the album in the first place, so you cannot dismiss those things for the sake of “change” or stop doing the things that made the relationship great [to me] and dismiss it by telling me that you’ve changed. F*ck that!
If I have to listen to the other tracks, cool, but make sure that the songs that made me get the album still get played, too! I’m not trying to sit through a whole show of “Lotus Flow3r” when I know I really want to hear some Purple Rain! IJS
I don’t think that many people realize that when you meet someone and you fall for this thing about them it’s ultimately going to be your own fault if you expect it to remain a constant. Now if it leaves out of nowhere, then it’s an easy presumption that perhaps some trickery was going on and it wasn’t really them. Now if over time, this thing about them (or track you like the most) starts skipping to the point ot where it just doesn’t play, then maybe it’s just the cd showing what they have to offer at that point. You’re only going to be as close to who you are at any given point as you are right now. One overlooked variable is that often your tunes changed based on the vibe your significant other is giving you. If they don’t excite you in the way they used to, they shouldn’t expect to hear “Bombs Over Bagdhad” but a more mellow or even melancholy song.
The problem is that people change because they believe there is always something out there better for them especially women
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