One of the most difficult lessons to learn and to thoroughly understand is that we cannot make another adult do anything they don’t want to do.
It doesn’t matter how good it will be for them if they do it.
It doesn’t matter how much they will lose if they don’t do it.
It doesn’t matter how much we scold, nag, promise, plead or cry.
We cannot make another adult do something they don’t want to do!
One of the most frequent questions I get is “How can I make my husband (or wife) love me?”
The only answer I can give is that you cannot make them love you. You cannot make them want you. You cannot make them come home and make the family whole again.
You cannot make them give up drugs, alcohol, gambling, or their lover. You cannot make them stop lying to you. You cannot make them stop abusing you. You cannot make them stop beating you. No matter what it is they are doing that is causing you such deep pain, you cannot make them into the person you need them to be.
And because you cannot make another person do what you need them to do in order to maintain your life as it is when all is right in your world, there will always be change of some form in your life.
When your spouse cheats, do you express the most anger at your spouse or at the person they cheated with? If you’re like most people, you get the angriest at the other person feeling that they make your spouse cheat.
To place the blame on the other person is to endow them with powers no one has. The other person is no different than you in their capability to make someone do something. They have no special powers. They cannot make your spouse cheat, nor can they keep your spouse involved with them if your spouse doesn’t want to be.
When you said your marriage vows, you assumed that guaranteed your marriage would last your lifetime. Marriage does not have a lifetime guarantee. Marriage, ultimately, has no guarantees. If one of you doesn’t want it to work, the other one cannot make it work alone.
Once you understand these things are out of your control, it makes acceptance of the situation a little easier.