Why Is It So Hard to Change a Relationship Pattern You Already Understand?

Recognizing a relationship pattern and changing it are two very different things.

You may know that you people please. You know you overfunction, accommodate, chase, fix, or take responsibility for someone else's feelings. You may even understand where the pattern came from.

And still keep doing it.

Insight matters. But insight alone doesn't change a pattern.

At some point, we have to be willing to do something different.

If you usually say yes to avoid disappointing someone, you have to try saying no.

If you chase when someone pulls away, you have to tolerate the distance.

If you rush in to fix things, you have to resist the urge to intervene.

If you keep quiet to avoid conflict, you have to risk saying what you actually think or need.

This is where change gets hard.

The behaviors we want to change often served a purpose. They may have helped us maintain connection, avoid conflict, feel needed, or keep a relationship intact.

They may have been part of the currency of the relationship.

But they also came at a cost.

When we stop participating in the same way, we don't know what will happen next. Someone may be disappointed. They may get angry or pull away. They may tell us we've changed.

And sometimes they're right.

We are changing.

Not everyone will welcome our growth, especially when the old version of us worked better for them.

This is part of why understanding a pattern isn't enough to change it. We have to be willing to tolerate the fear and discomfort that come with behaving differently.

Sometimes we say no and discover the relationship can tolerate it. We disappoint someone and learn they still love us. We ask for what we need and find that there is room for our needs too.

And there are no guarantees.

Sometimes changing the pattern gives us harder information.

We may discover that a relationship worked partly because we were willing to overfunction, accommodate, rescue, stay quiet, or make ourselves smaller.

When we stop, the relationship may change.

We may even lose it.

Change isn't always rewarded immediately. Sometimes getting healthier means becoming less convenient for the people around us.

But continuing the pattern has a cost too.

How much are you sacrificing to maintain the connection?

What are you afraid might happen if you stop?

Recognizing the pattern is insight. Changing it requires tolerating what happens when you stop participating in it.

We can't control whether someone else changes with us. We can only decide whether we're willing to change our own part.

And if maintaining the connection requires you to keep abandoning yourself, what exactly are you preserving?