You've Changed

You’ve Changed

Ah, one of the big complaints to every relationship. You’ve said it, they’ve said it. So it must be true right?

The person you’ve been with appears to be completely different. Their behavior and attitude has completely changed. It’s the only explanation.

Only it isn’t the explanation. That isn’t what happened at all. See our relationship goes through stages.

In this article and video, I’m going to discuss how and why everyone changes after they’ve been with their partner.

I got an email here from Travis asks what is going on: Hey Craig, big fan of your Youtube channel, I have a question for you. I’ve had a few long term relationships but none make it past two years. Why is it that after a few years, the person that you’re with completely changes? I feel like I’m being lied to.

You are being lied to… by your body.

When we first start to feel romantic love, our brain releases all kinds of wonderful chemicals. And it feels amazing. This is the during the Lust stage and the Attraction stage. Now, once we get into the attachment stage Oxytocin and Vasopresson is released.

Well all those chemicals (dopamine and serotonin causes us to idealize our partner) make us completely overlook all of our partners faults. We overlook all those red flags (such as alcoholism, depression, anxiety, work ethic, poor communication, commitment level)

Because if we saw all their faults, we would probably never have given them a chance to begin with.

So while we probably do try to put on a better impression when we first meet someone, a big part of the reason it looks like they’ve changed, is that the chemicals in our brain have gone back to normal.This is why the honeymoon stage lasts about 2 years, because that’s when our chemicals go back to normal.

NOW, as soon as this happens, we start to see our partner for who they really are. They have appeared to change.

We can’t believe it. It’s almost like the person we thought we knew died. When this happens we go through the stages of grief. (Which I’m not going to get into in this article/video).

Now you are going to have to go through those stages of grief and loss. But we don’t want to lose that feeling or that person we love.

So the relationship then goes into a power struggle. We try to use tactics to get them to be like the way we remember them.

Here are some of the tactics that we do both unconsciously and consciously. Withdrawal, rejecting, avoidance, criticism, blame, judgment, sarcasm, excluding, withholding, manipulation.

I’m sure it’s very easy for you to picture your partner doing all those things (I’m sure you’re innocent of them of course).

Now, when we do all those power struggle moves it makes our partner feel disconnected (You should watch my video Disconnection hurts to see more about how it destroys relationships).

The way of dealing with the power struggle is through communication. Which you can see me talking about in. My videos Disconnection Hurts and 3 Ways We Ruin Relationships

I want you to be aware that our relationship goes through stages. The chemicals released cause us to overlook negative traits in our partner and when the chemicals go back down to normal levels. We start to see our partner for who they really are. If you don’t have the tools at this point to communicate, it’s only a matter of time before the relationship ends.