Changing a relationship without changing the other person

I once helped someone work through a difficult family relationship. Let’s call her Stephanie.

Stephanie felt very unseen and unheard by a family member. Stephanie felt like she was always asking questions, showing interest, making the effort, and getting very little back.

Her thoughts sounded something like, “I’m so sick of asking all the questions and getting nothing back” and “It hurts my feelings that she just doesn’t seem to care about me.”

And the more Stephanie thought about the relationship this way, the more upset and resentful she became.

So we did an exercise I’ve used with other clients struggling with similar relationships. We wrote down all of the unspoken expectations Stephanie had for this person.

For example, Stephanie expected this family member to…
🔹Ask her lots of questions
🔹Self-reflect and show a deep level of self-awareness
🔹Show interest in Stephanie’s life in the same way Stephanie showed interest in hers

Seeing it all on paper was incredibly eye-opening (the list was quite long!).

Stephanie realized that her pain was coming from the gap between who this person is and who she was expecting her to be.

So we decided to start practicing something different.

The next time this person didn’t ask a question, instead of immediately going to, “She doesn’t care about me,” Stephanie would think, “Of course she didn’t ask. That’s just not what she does. I don’t have to make that mean she doesn’t care about me.”

This exercise took some practice. But slowly, Stephanie started letting go of some of those expectations and accepting this person for who she actually is.

And then something pretty amazing happened.

After spending a weekend together, Stephanie said, “We had the best time we’ve ever had together. We just got along so well. I have no idea how that happened?!.”

And I chuckled. Because I did. 😉

The relationship changed without the other person changing.

Stephanie had stopped spending every interaction looking for all the ways this person wasn’t showing up the way she thought she should. Instead, she was starting to accept her for who she was in the moment they were in.

Acceptance doesn’t mean you have to like everything someone does, or you’ll never get annoyed at them. But it’s amazing what can happen when you get honest with yourself about what you’re expecting from someone and slowly start letting go of those expectations.

If there’s a relationship in your life you’d like to change, remember, the other person doesn’t always have to change first.