But, I Can Change Him...

**Note: this is a post about fixer-uppers, the bad boy/bad girl.**

Ah, those five little words, sometimes (in more "judicious" moments) phrased as "I can help him."

 

^ This will not be you. 

 

^ This is a little more likely.

 Because ladies, it's easier to pull someone down than lift someone up. Gravity and all.

The savior complex is one that many ladies struggle with, and it's well intentioned, I think, at least for the most part. But in the end, the self-proclaimed "savior" more often than not just gets hurt or changed for the worse. 

I mean look at Sandy, a perfectly nice girl, albeit uptight, but nice. She had her morals in the right place, she only wanted a high school sweetheart (who all summer long pretended to be a completely different person--nice, caring, sweet, a total dreamboat-- but as soon as his buddies entered the picture he became a schmuck). 

Now where is Sandy? Probably dead from lung cancer after picking up Danny's less than desirable habits and living a jaded life after getting pregnant at 19. And let's face it, in all likelihood  Danny probably didn't to pay his child support. I mean the man had bills to pay and beer to buy and on a 1950s/1960s mechanic's pay? Yeah right. And who knows how long he could be trusted with likes Cha Cha DiGregorio hanging around the local bars. 

Grease, a cute sing-a-long love story? Or the beginning of an after-school special about the woes of sex and alcohol?

Okay, maybe that's dramatic, but ladies (and gents, if there are those of you out there thinking you can make a bad girl good) you can't change him. You can't save him. You can't make him see the light. You can't. 

No one can make anyone else do anything. He (or she) has to change of his own accord. 

It's fine to want to be a support. It's fine to be the friend. But to get emotionally/romantically involved with someone on the basis that you're going to change him or "help" her is not only not very smart, but incredibly selfish. 

Maybe that surprises you, because how could "helping someone become better" be selfish? Because your definition of "better" may not quite mesh with his or her's. 

And on top of that, he may not think he needs to change. Or she may not think she needs help. And if you try to tell either of them otherwise you're just telling him he isn't good enough. And when someone is "struggling" (assuming that's actually what's happening) that person does not need to be told (however nicely) that he or she is as bad as he or she thinks/feels.

So how do you avoid the death trap of falling for someone "in need of saving/help"? The most powerful organ you have will help with that: Your Brain. 

Think first about what you're getting out of you trying to "help." Chances are you are getting more out of you trying to help than the intended recipient. Does it feed your ego? Your co-dependency? Your self-righteous nature?

Obviously you're probably saying, "Hey! I'm not self-righteous/co-dependent/egotistical!" Well, honey you are a little. 

The first step at learning to not get too emotionally involved is to realize that what you're attempting to do is probably more about you than the person you're trying to help. And that kind of service isn't really love-centered. I want you to really think about that. 

The second step is to ask yourself, if this person is, right now, what I'm looking for? It's good and important and even necessary to see the potential in someone. We all need someone (or a group of someones) to see in us what we cannot see in ourselves, but it's best if that person is of no romantic attachment. A person does not have to (and quite frankly cannot) be perfect, but before you go diving headfirst into the pool of love, make sure that you know what you're getting into. 

If all you see is "potential," and no reality, you are in a for a world of trouble. What was may not matter anymore, and what might be if (s)he would only do this or that may be nice to think about (if you don't mind going slightly crazy, staying up all night worrying and getting frustrated), but what is is all you have to go on.

And third, always always remember that you do in fact have control over only one thing: you. You cannot (and should not) try to control anyone else. You have full control over how you react to a situation, and falling in love with someone, or developing "romantic" feelings for someone is in fact, nothing more than a reaction.  You control how much of yourself you give away to another person. 

 Love is not something you find (sorry Rihanna) it's something you cultivate and create with another person. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with our society in the fact that we focus so much on the end goal (which most of the time we don't fully understand in the first place), like marriage (which by the way shouldn't really be seen as an "end" considering it's more of a beginning) that we don't focus on what's happening right now. We walk around in this ridiculous haze thinking that any one of the people we see could be the one, the one we will fall in love with, the one who will be different. I really don't think love works that way.

All those fluffy warm feelings don't really have much to do with love. They may be exciting, romantic and fun, but love is about forgiving someone for being a total ass  even when you don't feel like it. Love is about wanting to make someone else feel good about himself or herself. It's about mutually maintaining a relationship. 

If what you're feeling has anything to do with what you get out of it, you're doing it wrong.