Darling, Should I Try To Improve You?

"Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed." Albert Einstein.

"Don't go changing, to try and please me... I love you just the way you are" (Billy Joel)

Should we try to improve our beloved? Doing so involves two major characteristics of romantic love: (a) being in love implies loving the person as she is and not wanting to change her, and (b) loving means caring and the wish to improve the situation of the beloved. Those two characteristics are not always compatible.

Consider the following complaints made by Natalie: "My hubby claims that he criticizes me because he loves me. He wants me to improve and he has high expectations of me. He does not care about other people; hence he does not correct them. Is that logical? Maybe it is, but it is also hurtful."

It should be noted that Natalie's situation differs from the popular wisdom as expressed in the above quotation from Einstein, who claims that women are usually the ones who want to change their men's behavior. Leaving aside this issue of gender, the wish to change the partner is problematic.

Without doubt, everyone is undergoing changes all the time and most of these changes are spontaneously generated. People are continually acquiring more experience and accommodating themselves to their changing circumstances. Changing because of the influence of other people is natural and should be expected. The problematic aspect emerges when the lover requires the change in order to improve the beloved. The nature and the extent of the required change are highly relevant here. Typically, it is improper to demand that someone else makes a profound change in their personality trait, as that is seldom possible alter. However, it can be both feasible and proper to require the person to make changes in their behavior or activities.

As someone wrote in a blog discussing this issue, "I wish people could just accept people for who they are BEFORE they get involved. People are who they are. They don't ever change. Not really. You can change the situation and the environment around someone, but people are who they are. If there is something you don't like about your man (or woman), they are not the one for you. Find someone who you are ok with as they are!" Indeed, we really should try to appreciate the beloved for who he is and not for who he could be. Trying to improve the beloved can be insulting since it could be interpreted that the beloved is deficient.

Despite the above difficulties, the wish to change the beloved is natural. As the Bible (Proverbs, 3:12) puts it, "For whom He loves, He rebukes." We are not indifferent toward the beloved, but rather we want to improve him. If we do not love someone, there is no reason to correct him. Loving someone may require giving him not only compliments but also suggestions for change. This should be done in a sensitive manner, and in general, such suggestions are best accompanied by praise for or some reference to those facets that we appreciate in him.

Love involves the attempt to improve aspects that can be improved, while cherishing those features that are part and parcel of the other's identity. Devastating criticism is hard to associate with genuine romantic love. It is necessary and appropriate for each of us to accommodate our behavior in order to enhance our present relationship, but we cannot reform ourselves to meet our partner's ideal, nor can we try to be what we are not.
The right of the lover to suggest changes in the beloved's behavior implies that there are cases in which the lover knows better than the beloved how to make the beloved happier. Indeed, an outsider may sometimes know better than the person herself what is good for her. The whole business of psychological therapy is built upon this assumption. Sometimes people give us good advice to follow. But it is almost always imperative that the person herself should be the one to make the final decision.

An interesting issue in this regard concerns the identity of the benefiting party. Is it the changing person, the proposed changed person, or the world around us? Do I base my request that the person changes on my wish to be happier, on the prospect that she will be happier, or on the possibility that it will make the world a better place in which to live? Although making us happier and improving the world are worthy causes, they are demands that we should first put on ourselves, not on others, and in any case they cannot take precedence over the well-being of our partner. Improving the well-being of our partner is of greater moral value, but the way in which this is achieved cannot be imposed upon the partner.

The above considerations can be encapsulated in the following statement that a lover might express: "Darling, I love you so much, but do not try to alter me. I believe I know quite well how to fold my clothes and how to wash the dishes. Please love me as I am, since I am not the worst choice you could have made; our neighbor would have been much worse (or so I am told)."