Time Changes Us and Our Relationships
Time has a noticeable effect on us. We change and mature in time, as do the people around us.
Think back to who you were 10 or more years ago. Who were the people you hung out with? What were your hobbies? How did you fill your time? How do you see yourself as a person back then (positives and negatives)?
Almost everyone can make a long list about how they’ve changed over the past 10 years, because time does change us. Whether we adapted due to life events like marriage, divorce, having children, changing jobs, or even world events like facing a global pandemic, all of us have had to change and adapt. We are not who we once were.
In the past 10 years, I have changed a ton and experienced a lot of different things. In no particular order, I have traveled around the world, lived abroad for a year, started and finished graduate school and then post-master’s program, survived a global pandemic (at least so far), left a harmful relationship, met someone new and got married, decided not to have biological kids, lost a grandfather to cancer, had two grandparents diagnosed with alzheimer’s, trained for a triathlon, started counseling as a career, and started my own private practice.
Each of those things has shaped me into the person I am today, and most of those will continue to shape how I experience and engage with the world around me. I am more confident in myself, have become a lot more in-tune with my inner world, and grew out of some unhelpful family patterns (and am still growing out of others). I have become better at asking for help, advocating for myself, and holding my own boundaries.
We can each form a long list of changes and events that have shaped us over the last 10 years. I found that the positive things were a lot easier to name, but the harder events also definitely left an impact on who I am.
And yet, when it comes to our relationships, we often believe that the person we partner with or marry will remain the same for the rest of our lives. In our families, we would like to think that our parents will remain the same people until the end. It’s hard to admit that the people around us have also changed and will continue to do so.
Our parents may have become “empty-nesters” or retired. Our partners may have changed careers or changed their vision for the future.
Why is it so hard to recognize how others have changed? In essence, people like to predict what will happen. We want to hold to the patterns we’ve known and believe that they will remain the same through the years to come. When we choose to partner with and marry our beloved, we want the relationship to stay the same because it feels safer that way. We had 18 years of experience with our parents as our guardians, and yet they also have changed as individuals since we moved out. As people, we will all still change.
Psychology Today’s newest magazine released an article about how people change during different times of their lives and explored studies that showed how our personalities change over time. As a child, you will “rely on [your] parent’s voices to understand the world” and learn how to “regulate your attention and behavior.” As teenagers, you start to incorporate more voices into the mix, friends and other adults and seek novelty.
Particularly “adapting to partnered life” has been shown to change people and their personalities. “Repetitive demands of a committed relationship… influenced personality change” according to these studies p 29. That means that once both people committed more fully to the relationship, they both changed and adapted in how they interact and engage with one another. Communication shifts. Personalities change as you navigate the shared space and accommodate for the other person in your daily life.
“Marriage or long-term partnership, career changes, geographic moves, and the arrival of children can all push us to adapt to meet the expectations and needs of new people in our lives in ways we might have never imagined.” p 27
These changes are so normal! And if people are always changing, that also means that there are always new things to learn about your family members and loved ones! Perhaps knowing that you and your partner/loved one are changing, is an opportunity to continue to learn about this person.
Start asking yourself and your loved ones questions again! We often start dating relationships by getting to know each other. Continue to foster your intimacy and connection by continuing to learn about the other person. What new things are they learning? If it’s been a while since you’ve asked, check in about their vision for the next five years. What are things they want to try that they haven’t yet? What are hobbies that they want to maintain over the years to come? What is their favorite song or movie?
If you want some ideas on questions to ask, check out this list of 100 questions (skip to #36 for present day questions). Or pick a couples game such as what is on this list. There’s also the Ungame, Date Night Boxes, and so many more. This is a “choose your own adventure” option, but start today to get to know your loved ones anew!
