Are you raising you partner?

It all begins innocently. You meet someone through a dating app or mutual friend, and after some time, there are butterflies in your stomach. It is a sign that this person is different from others. There's something special about them. Time passes quickly; after a few months, you think your soul mate has arrived because your emotions are strong enough. I'm in love, you think, when you re-read old messages.

You get a feeling of happiness and cannot imagine it ending. With that kind of optimism, you decide to move in together. You tell your family and friends about your decision when you realize it.

One morning you wake up and realize that your soul mate is doing things that to you seem illogical and, if you're sincere with yourself, kind of stupid.

They wait to get things done until the last minute. They don't bother that they're always late to work or social events. They need to properly wash their fruit before they eat. They spend money with no specific budget and never worry about the future.

You've always been the planner, organizer, and mother of proactive measures, and as you see their terrible habits playing out, you worry that your relationship won't go far. Having always been told that you are a generous, kind-hearted, and compassionate person, you embark on a mission to help your partner become a better version of themselves: to coach them into perfection.

With patience, you encourage them to make different choices. "Maybe you should try getting up earlier," you say. We can sit down and look at your finances and help you budget.

Soon, most of your sentences start with "Remember that you need to…" and although you started with patience, you see that your efforts are not working. Your partner still does the same annoying things, and now you're angry because they don't enjoy how much you're trying to help them. After all, isn't that what love is all about? Coaching our partners and helping them to be better versions of themselves?

Well, the answer is no.

Why are you raising your partner?

We all come in relationships with certain beliefs and values. No two people are duplicates, and how you appear in a relationship is likely what you experienced before your partner looked into your eyes and made the world spin a little quicker.

If you always slip into a pattern of "raising" your partner, maybe you saw the same dynamic in the relationship between your parents. Having been sported for you all of your childhood, it may have been noted as the normal, healthy dynamic between two people who love each other.

You got a piece of great advice repeatedly from friends and family members. I remember talking to a friend about some of my frustrations early in marriage. "Don't worry," she said. "You just need to train him." Train him? I thought. I married a human being, not a Labrador retriever.

Another reason is your partner's way of existing in the world causes you distress because it is significantly different from how you have chosen to live your life. So when you try to "help" your partner, mould them, train them, and change them to fit your beliefs and worldview, perhaps you're trying to mitigate your discomfort with things contrary to what you believe.

It's easier to concentrate on someone rather than yourself. There's a part of you that identifies some things you haven't processed, some truths you don't want to accept; turning your attention to your partner seems like a strategy to avoid feeling awkward. After all, if you were conditioned to believe that being anything less than perfect is inappropriate, it's not logical that you would grow up as an adult who can adopt your vulnerabilities.

If you experienced a great deal of uncertainty, instability, or traumatic losses throughout your childhood may have impacted how you manage your day-to-day life. Your way of establishing safety and stability in the world may have manifested as an emphasis on controlling every area of your life; you plan every step and do everything in your power to avoid feeling the same fear, sadness and hurt you may have thought a child. Your partner forging their path may trigger an alarm that things are not safe, which means you need to control every aspect of your life and also theirs.

How it impacts your sex life

If you have noticed that your sex life has changed, if you no longer reach for each other, it may be that the interactions between you have become too parental, which is not the sexiest dynamic in the world.

When you channel all your energy toward ensuring your partner is improving, changing, progressing, and growing, you need to remember two factors: They never asked you for help, and they managed to survive before meeting you. Rather than change and grow, they remain firmly entrenched in their ways, and you end up feeling exhausted, frustrated, resentful, and, worst of all, unappreciated. It is not a recipe for an active sex life.

If you are the person being parented, you might be feeling like a 5-year-old who's constantly getting in trouble or trying to get things right, so your partner doesn't get upset with you. It, too, may kill any desire for intimacy you may have had when you first met because you're starting to feel like you moved in with a younger version of your parent. Again, not sexy.

So what do you think you could do?

Decide whether or not you want to stay in your relationship. You may have to explore what drew you to them and ask yourself some tough questions: Do I love them? What, exactly, do I love? If you are hyper-focused on the things that bother you, it's easy to forget the important stuff: Maybe you share the same values, maybe you both want the same things, or perhaps you share the same faith. Remembering these things can help you determine whether or not you wish to stay or throw in the towel.

You can focus on yourself. Rather than focusing on your partner's habits, make a conscious effort to turn inward and explore your relationship expectations and perspectives. Working with a therapist can help you identify and understand stubborn patterns you want to change and help you challenge old beliefs about yourself and relationships that have never served you.

Relinquish control. I would be lying if I said this was easy because having control may have always been your way of feeling safe and secure, or maybe this was how you learned to express love. Whatever the reason, it might feel terrifying or seem like too much work when you endeavour to explore other paths outside of your comfort zone.

But if you've realized that you do love the person and you want the relationship to work, remind yourself constantly that the only thing over which you have real agency is you. No amount of well-intentioned effort on your part will ever change someone who has yet to recognize the changes they'd like to make for themselves.

Be a team, not adversaries. If your partner's up for it, seek a couple's therapist. Sometimes you can fall into the trap of thinking that your partner is the problem, or perhaps they think you're the problem. A therapist may help you see that neither you nor they are the problem but that there is a problem, and it can be resolved by working together, not independently.

Speaking to someone doesn't mean that your relationship is finished. I've worked with many couples that want to understand each other and improve how they fix conflicts.

Final Words

No matter how you appear in relationships, always know that it is not something to be considered but explored and enjoyed because there's a purpose to be found in our experiences. The more you get to know yourself, the better you can do what might seem impossible: accept your partner for what they are and not for what you want them to be.