To think the human race is too unevolved for perfect relationships

[CulturalBear]

Bit deep this, but bear with me. They say if you love someone enough, you love them 'exactly as they are'. It's constantly pointed out that your partner shouldn't want to change you in any way shape or form. It's a 'sin' to suggest change.

But how are we ever to improve ourselves, our relationships, our futures for ourselves and our children if we don't love someone enough to help them see how different life could be if they allow themselves to become healthier individuals?

I'm not talking physically, per se (although there is an element of that - should a husband point out that going from 8 stone to 13 stone is dangerous and offer to help?), but more emotionally.

Emotions and past histories and life experiences make us the beat-up smiling-on-the-outside walking bags of issues that we are. We fall in love with the facades, sometimes we get to see some of the stuff in storage, but some stuff can be locked deeply away - still taking up space, still having a huge impact.

How do you help someone to unpack the demons and put them in a safer place, thus giving them more opportunities to feel love and happiness in their (and your collective family's) future?

AIBU to think we have created a ridiculous society whereby we are simply too emotionally unevolved to have the 'perfect relationship' (except for the very rare, very lucky individuals who manage to pick each other out as already evolved)?

I'm sorry but I think this is nonsense.

I've been with my DH a long time. We are not now the same people we were when we met a teenagers. We have grown intellectually, physically and emotionally. We have worked hard to maintain and develop our relationship through these changes.

We're not unique, I know lots of couples who have done the same.

Relationships are built brick by brick every day. You don't just find someone perfect and walk off into the sunset together.

A wee bit if reading would demonstrate that there were people with happy marriages 1000 years ago, we can't blame the evolution of human kind for our failed relationship.

Interesting.

However I think you're talking about two different kinds of change. What you need for a happy relationship is shared core beliefs. The "change" thing comes if one person decides that their core belief is better than their partner's and hence they have to change them. Core beliefs can be anything from the amount of mess you're happy to live in, to whether monogamy is important in a relationship, to attitudes towards food/drugs/money, fundamental ideas about children's/animals'/women's/grandparents' place in the family, loads of stuff.

Even if one person has core beliefs which might be destructive in one relationship (say, they believe that monogamy is unrealistic and undesirable), if they found a person whose beliefs align, then they can both be happy. There would be no need to sneak around, lie, suppress urges etc. The problem is that there is a broad idea of the "normal" moral code and most people believe that almost everybody is under this and so try to fit themselves into these or pretend that that is who they are in order to get a relationship which is just mad and leads to unhappy relationships.

Demons, emotional issues are totally different things and yes can cause unhealthy relationship behaviours. That's not for a partner to change, though it's for people to work out themselves. It's true though that we have insufficient facilities/opportunity to work these out generally. So a lot of people are going to be working through issues while in relationships. That's OK but you can't then make it your partner's problem or push them to work on stuff they're not ready to do.

I have to do school run but I'll be back later.

I think you're right, OP, but I also think that some people either conciously or otherwise, recognise the situation and make moves to ensure it doesn't cause a relationship breakdown.

Others have relationships that work for other reasons.

I think many people are affected by the situation you describe. However it doesn't mean a relationship will always break down, and the alternative isn't to not have relationships.

I think striving for perfection is a hiding to nothing.

I do not consider myself particularly wise or wonderful - but I am a happy and reasonably sorted individual, and I met another one, similar enough to me to get on well. That, to me, is enough - I hope I be able to improve myself with age but not that it would fundamentally change who I am.

I personally would not have embarked on a relationship with someone once it became apparent they were deeply troubled. If you are already in a relationship with someone with a lot of demons, I think you can be there for them, but they (and a professional if necessary) have to do the changing bit.

I'm talking about emotional evolution - more children than ever before are growing up in damaging and emotionally neglectful environments. The fall out is when these children grow up, repeat their own experience as an adult (not always intentionally but they don't know any better), which then impacts on their children.

I am working on some of my issues at the moment, but what am I supposed to do about my DP? He has very deeply entrenched issues that are affecting him in so many ways. He has no desire to change, or is too scared to admit he needs to or to be vulnerable enough to address the feelings from childhood.

What do I do? Do I turf him out for some other poor future woman and family and tell him he's beneath me? Or do I try and encourage him to face up to things and be a better person?

Society, appallingly, says I do the latter. Which means I then end up with another potential victim man who has been turfed out by someone else previously. You see, it's a vicious cycle until and unless someone steps in and says enough is enough.

Oops, meant former ^

Ah but you see now you aren't talking about society your talking about your personal situation.

Difficult to advise without full background but I suppose it would depend on whether you and your DP both still think there is value in saving the relationship. You are not responsible for his whole emotional being. There is a difference between supporting a man you love &respect through a difficult period in his life and continuing to put up with a man you know you will never again be able to love and respect.

You can love someone without liking every aspect of them, and without thinking they are perfect and incapable of being any better or happier or more fulfilled than they are now.

People are not perfect. Relationships are not perfect. OUr aim should be to be good enough people and have good enough relationships, not to say the only thing worth having is perfection.

^^ your . You're.

There's no excuse...,

You can't change someone. They have to want to change themselves.

^What do I do? Do I turf him out for some other poor future woman and family and tell him he's beneath me? Or do I try and encourage him to face up to things and be a better person?

Society, appallingly, says I do the former.^

And if people stay together hoping one can change the other and fails. What about the child(ren) who grow up in a house of turmoil with a poor role model on how relationships should be conducted.

OK, so this is about your partner, not a theoretical issue.

There is nothing wrong in pointing out to him that he needs to deal with his issues. That's not about love, though it might count as 'tough love'.

Whether you decide to stay in the relationship or not isn't about being perfect, or about whether your relationship is perfect, it's about deciding whether his failure to address his problems makes it beyond repair.

We have an average relationship, good in some ways, others less so. It's more than 51% ok, which is tipping point.

But some things which only emerged after a few years of being together, are deeply undesirable. For example, he makes sexist comments such as 'women can't do this or that', bet she's a woman driver etc, whereas initially he welcomed my tomboy character. It also turns out he has no respect for mothers (including me) because he refuses to have a relationship with his own mother.

These are things that cannot be weeded out in the initial stages of a relationship.

The sexist stuff bothers me because his 12yo boy is starting to copy him and I am constantly pulling him up and advising him that actually, girls can play football, I drive very safely etc.

It's bigger than just us. These issues would have become apparent before in other relationships, just as they will replay in future ones (if we finish). His lack of emotional evolution means that this won't change - society has made it so acceptable to 'just be yourself' and 'you don't need to change' that he thinks he doesn't need to change.

That's the societal issue.

I'd like to see the evidence that more children are growing up in damaging and neglectful environments now than in previous eras. I think more people talk about it, I think the damage is more likely to be recognised, but I'm not convinced it is more prevalent. Perhaps it is part of our emotional evolution to be more aware of emotional neglect.

Cultural that sounds very difficult.

But I'm afraid it's still not a societal issue. It is not acceptable in wider society to be a sexist misogynist and to disrespect your DP.

I'm not expressing this very well! I feel like... you know how if you walk past a puddle on the floor at the top of the stairs at work and don't say anything but someone then slips on the puddle and breaks their neck in a fall, you a liable for that?

Well that's how I feel. We're walking past puddles everywhere all the time. They're deadly. Seems wrong to not try and prevent fall because we're supposed to love someone, potential-death-creativity and all.

"more children than ever before are growing up in damaging and emotionally neglectful environments"

Do you know this or just think this? Because it sounds like an assumption to me. I couldn't say either way but I would tend to lean towards it being the other way around, TBH, there is a lot more understanding of the importance of emotional acceptance, etc, today than there was 30 or 50 or 100 years ago.

"...sexist comnents...[no] relationship with his own mother...are things that cannot be weeded out in the initial stages of a relationship."

I disagree with this as well. No it's not always possible to spot warning signs early on, but they are always there. Liking a tomboy character doesn't mean that someone isn't sexist.

The thing is that whatever you think - and I abhor sexism, really, would love to live in a sexism free world - he is entitled to have his opinion. He is perfectly within his rights to literally believe stuff like this. Yes you can try and enlighten him with feminism, talk to him about your point of view etc, but fundamentally unless he is interested, you're not going to get anywhere. And if he was interested then he'd be searching it out himself. So you're really wasting energy. It doesn't matter that sexism is a horrible nasty destructive thing, it doesn't make his point of view less valid. You don't have to give it time of day, though.

Society may make it seem ok to 'just be yourself' but it also tells us that we should be true to our own emotional needs and well-being and not feel we have to stay in a relationship with a sexist twat just because of some garbage about loving them 'exactly as they are'.

You don't have to put up with his shit. Pull him up on things, and/or sit him down and say "If you think all women are shit, then you think that I am shit. Do you seriously expect me to stand here and put up with crap like that about women drivers?"

He may be emotionally as thick as mince, but he may also not see the connection between 'women' and you. Sometimes people just need to be challenged about their stupid attitudes.

If a serious challenge doesn't do the trick, that doesn't mean you have to stay with him forever to protect some theoretical 'next girlffriend' from his twattery. You don't owe her anything!

Butterflies - I know that's a specific example. But I bet thousands upon thousands of people will have spotted these bubbles of chaos in their partners and wondered what they can do to make them a more complete person.

Society says 'if you love me, you love me as I am'. That's a pretty arrogant assessment, don't you think?

I'm not sure society says that at all. My DH and I give each other 'helpful' feedback all the time. We love each other but still try to encourage each other to be the best versions of ourselves we can be.

The sexism thing isn't a big deal - I don't think he really believes it, he's just careless with what he says but I pull him up on it constantly in front of his boys because it's unacceptable.

(And yes, casual sexism is a very big deal and I agree, but it's not the biggest issue here - bad example on my part really, but more apt examples are way way too long to explain here)

Generally though - I wish he'd heal his mother issues and let himself be more open to real love. But he's not interested.

"Love me as I am" doesn't mean "Put up with all the crap I feel like dishing out" though. Otherwise nobody would ever split up or divorce, and there wouldn't be groups helping women to feel confident enough to get out of abusive relationship with men they 'love'.

But he's not interested.

Then surely trying to change him is a waste of time and energy.

Yes but it's not the same. It's more like walking past somebody who is drowning. If you're a strong swimmer then you'd be a terrible person if you didn't try to save them, but if jumping in after them is going to get you killed as well then it's not a good idea and nobody would expect you to.

I do get what you mean. Do you tackle the problem or the cause? It's such a self perpetuating cycle. Violence, sexism, hatred, neglect, abuse, happening all the time. We can look after the victims, but that's hopeless because more victims are being created all the time, an impossible tide. So we can try to stop the tide by curing, rehabilitating, deterring, preventing access. Curing/rehabilitation hardly ever works. Deterrents seem non existent and meaningless since they are not only barely enforced, but when they are, abusers (et al) usually have a higher reason for doing what they do, it's not as simple as "I want to and there are no consequences to me", it's an embedded worldview. So lock them up, prevent access. That could work but firstly you're giving up on the person underneath all that, secondly there is not space in the world, thirdly it's overkill for some of the things mentioned - you can hardly lock somebody up for being a bit upsetting in relationships, lastly it also falls down at the same place deterrents do - it is barely enforced even when severe enough to be warranted.

Can we prevent it at the root cause? I think this is the only way. Education and information aimed at young people before they develop into somebody who would do these things. But in a lot of cases it's too late by the time they're teenagers, it is children growing up in families where these ideas and attitudes are the norm which is causing harm.

I don't think that you can prevent somebody from "falling" when they have already "fallen" multiple times, you're focusing on the wrong person here, the person in danger of falling anew is the child in the situation.