While you might feel the need to go to every lengths to be the perfect partner for the person your heart beats for, experts say this façade may not lead to a happy ending. 

Love can change your world, but should you let it change who you are for the sake of someone? This is the issue my friends and I found ourselves discussing after a friend in a new relationship drastically changed.

Despite her long time loathing of jazz, she had recently claimed that it was the best thing to happen to music.

She even started  hitting the gym despite always avowing that going to the gym was advancing the devil’s work of making humans broke. 

This character change could be traced to her budding romance with an avid golf player and gym fanatic. She has also started avoiding those people who knew her past likes and dislikes and is busy creating a new posse of friends. Her whole situation begged the question of why people change for a mate or even for friends?

Performing for love

“Everyone yearns to get someone they can blend and complement with. If you come across someone you admire, you may be attracted to them.

But if they do not seem to reciprocate the feelings, you might try to learn what they like and what they want in a mate and try to be that in order to get their attention and garner their love.

You will incrementally through tiny small things stop being you and can easily lose yourself. The sad thing is you might not be able to keep up the façade for long.

And if you do, you will probably be unhappy. Eventually, both parties end up being hurt and unhappy,” Ken Munyua a leading psychologist and relationship expert in the country explains.

He explains that not all change is bad. As humans, we are continually changing. And this isn’t a bad thing.

The person you fall in love with won’t stay that same, static individual for the rest of his or her life.  It is important for individuals in relationship to change to accommodate each other and their growing families so long as the change is intrinsic rather than extrinsic, where it is inspired by other people or it is used to garner validation in the form of attention or applause. 

He further explains that the person feeling the need to change in order to get a mate or a friend interested in them might also be struggling with self-esteem issues, as they feel they are not enough as they are hence the need to be more and do certain things in order to earn love.

“You have heard people say ‘she changed for him,’ or ‘he became a better man for her.’ But this is damaging. They are suggesting that who the person was before, was not enough.

They are implying that one person in the relationship was the ‘fixer’ and the one who changed needed to be fixed

Allan Lawrence, a practicing psychologist in Nairobi agrees with this. “People who are uncomfortable with themselves will always try to seek validation from without and to some extent they will lower or raise their standards just to fit in and attract a mate.

These people also evidently lack a clear purpose or a clear vision of what they want. Moreover, they often tend to do this for selfish gain.

Some may do it for the associated financial gain while others will do it for social status that may come from fitting into a certain group of people or for any other reason that has a future emotional or financial gain,” Allan further expounds.

While some may be out for selfish gain, Allan explains that others maybe hapless victims of their own emotions.

They may feel so strongly about their newly formed attachments that they convince themselves that their mates are worth the change.

He says it is important to be able to remain steadfast to who you are as a person, despite the person you like, love or are infatuated with and their draw to change you. But how do you stop changing and playing for the approval of others?

Way forward

“It is important to work on yourself as an individual, away from your posse and your significant other. This will ensure that you are not dependent on other’s compliments or their evaluations of your worth to decide your value as a person.

You should decide what is important to you and  your worth depending on intrinsic factors rather than based on a measure given to you by either friends, your mate or society.

Simply put, value yourself more. Let the partner and your social circle come to compliment what you already know about yourself, but not to give you worth of self. Know that you are enough and you do not need to perform for any form of love,” Munyua explains.

Allan reinforces the need to be comfortable in your own skin and company so as not to be lured into just any friendship or relationship.

“Be clear about what you need out of life. Remember that a relationship is not like a rescue centre from yourself.

Do the inner work and set a standard for relationships without apologies. Do not be desperate. Know that you are not meant for everyone and everyone is not meant for you. You are complete in and of yourself,” he says in conclusion.