This ideology of changing someone is a fallacy that comes from an unknowing God complex wherein we start wanting to be someone’s redeemer. But we are not, nor can we ever be, God to someone. When you have a “need-to-be-needed” complex, you’ll allow that need to influence your choices. And the more others warn you about it, the less you listen to them.
This process often happens without your even knowing that you have allowed the need-to-be-needed impulse to take over your decision-making process. Perhaps you heard testimonials from those who have experienced massive change through their marriage. But the difference is that the power to change must come from within the person, not from you. When you try to change your spouse, it doesn’t work, and eventually the hope for change makes you sick. “Hope deferred make the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12)
Hope makes you sick when you keep envisioning something that never materializes, sick of making lame excuses for what is not working even as it becomes increasingly obvious to those around you. Sound relationship decisions are not based on hope.
Now add in the fact that people of faith often try to spiritualize every issue. In the name of faith, we often dumb down our instincts and ignore our senses. That is not having faith in God. Faith in God should be just that, faith in God. We must not place our faith in men and women. They will fail us. God gives all of us a will and doesn’t force us to change. Change must come from within each of us as we accept the grace God repeatedly extends to each of us.
In any relationship decision, make sure you’re processing all the data and listening to your gut. What you see is what you get. Don’t mistake yourself for God in someone else’s life.
