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Changing yourself for a relationship might seem like it makes a lot of sense at first. But it never pays off in the long run. It is a little like getting a permanent tattoo. You don’t really want to make that move. Even if your love lasts forever, there are good reasons to not want your body art to do the same.
The bigger issue has to do with why you are making changes to yourself in the first place. If you are trying to make yourself more attractive so that a particular someone will notice you, that means you have body image issues that should be handled before you do anything else. If you think he wouldn’t like you if you look the way you do, you are already setting yourself up for being controlled and manipulated by someone else’s whims. That is never healthy. If you have to change yourself to be in a relationship, it implies that there is something wrong with you or something wrong with him. Either way, those things need to be sorted before the relationship can be successful. Don’t change yourself for the sake of a romantic endeavor. However, feel free to change the following.
The Look of Your Home
Your home is your castle. But it could be that your castle could use a little work — the kind of work that would encourage you to do a search for the cost to paint the exterior of a house. You do not want to invite your soul mate over to your place for the first time only to leave the impression that you don’t take care of your home. If you don’t care about the appearance of your living space when you are by yourself, why would he think you will care more about it when sharing it with someone else?
Sometimes, entering a relationship with someone will cause you to jumpstart good habits that are worthwhile whether or not you are with someone. Habitually cleaning your house is one of them. Even when by yourself, you shouldn’t get into the habit of leaving dirty socks lying about, or leaving the clean laundry in the basket and unfolded so they get and stay wrinkled. You want to keep a clean kitchen to keep the bugs at bay. And clean the bathrooms because porcelain looks gross when not cared for. You don’t have to get or remove a tattoo. But you might want to paint your house.
Change Your Routine
To move forward in life, sometimes you have to change your routine. As the old saying goes, if you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always gotten. Your routine might have fallen into the category of doing what you have always done, otherwise known as a rut. That is the kind of thing in which you don’t want to get yourself stuck.
Before entering a new relationship, you will want to get unstuck from your rut so that your relationship will have a chance to bloom. It will be smothered early if you try to squeeze your partner into your rut. If you are uncomfortable in anything except your comfort zone, then you will be greatly limited on the types of relationships you can successfully have. There needs to be room for a little give and take. But if your ruts are too deep, you will not be able to manage it.
Know When Not to Change
Perhaps your new boyfriend-to-be is a smoker and you are not. Should you become a smoker? Should you change your policy about smoking in your house? This is a personal decision that is completely up to you. But you have to think about your future and the future of your kids. If you want your kids to be nonsmokers, you have to make some hard choices right now. And no relationship should endanger those choices you have made. When you have made a choice based on values rather than passing fancies, you should keep looking until you find a person who shares those values.
If a person cannot accept you for who you are and the values you hold, keep looking. But it makes perfect sense to start taking better care of your home and free yourself of unhelpful ruts.
