How To Change Your Husband(Or Wife)

We all want to change our partners. We need to to be a solid team. But we suck at it. Here is why and 3 Keys to Effectively Changing your Partner.


Today I want to talk to you, the mothers, about how you can change your husbands. And yes, this works on women as well. I know a lot of you women are very frustrated with how your husbands act or don’t act and wish you had some way to influence their behavior.

Unfortunately, most of the things that women and men do to change their partners backfire.

1st Step: Stop what Doesn’t Work

As you probably know, and yet don’t know what else to do, when you put pressure on somebody they resist. They do the opposite. We all do it. We were all controlled far too much as children and we have this instinctual response to push away when we feel pressure. Yes, sometimes we will acquiesce or go along or be good for some period of time, but it’s not sustainable. Before you know it, no matter how nice you were when you asked your husband to help out, it will fall off and you’ll be left with the same old pattern.

Unfortunately, nagging and controlling and writing a list and telling him how he could be better, or even asking him in a nice way, “Could you do x, y, and z?” all of it doesn’t lead to sustainable change. Which is extremely frustrating, because we need to be able to collaborate.

2nd Step: The Power of Vulnerability & Empathy

If the first step to changing your partner is to not put pressure on them, the second step is to take advantage of empathy. Empathy is when we feel what another person is going through. If somebody we care about is suffering, we feel empathic towards them and we are motivated deeply to help them. If you share your difficult experience with your partner and ask for their help in not feeling that, they’ll be motivated both to help you and to find a good solution. Next time you’re struggling with something, go and talk to your partner and say, “Hey, can you listen to me for a few minutes? I’m struggling with something and I’d really like to work it out.”

Now that you have their attention, share with them whatever is happening for you. Say something like, “It’s so hard for me how rarely it seems like you clean the kitchen. I always feel like it’s up to me. After dinner you disappear and I’m left to it. Maybe I’m just distorting that in my mind, but I feel all alone in that moment and I hate feeling all alone like that. I wish we could do it together in some way, but I also get that you need time to check out after your long day at work. Is there some way that we could work this out together?” You share your feelings and you ask for help in solving the problem, but only once you’ve asked for the other’s attention.

3rd Step: Dolphin Training

The third step to creating long-term, sustainable change in your partner is acknowledgement. Acknowledging your partner any time they do something even close to what you like has a remarkable affect. The way that trainers get dolphins to do amazing tricks up into the sky is that any time the dolphin does something even close to what the trainer wants, the dolphin gets a treat and acknowledgement. The dolphin learns: “If I do this, I get what I want.” That creates a deep motivation to do that more. They never chastise or punish or do any negative reinforcement to the dolphin. It’s all positive.

- See more at: fullfrontalfatherhood.com/change-husband-wife/#…