It’s common people want a person to for a partner but they have a problem with some of the person’s behaviors. They want these behaviors to be changed or be addressed.
There are times when this is appropriate and can happen. Couples can work things out but there are other times where the thing you don’t like is the person, or such a large part of their nature, if you don’t like it, you’d be best off to cut your losses.
As an example, I write this blog. It’s a big part of my life. My husband had to accept it if we were to be together. This was not an ultimatum I gave him, he figured it out himself. In fact he informed me he thought my blog was so important that if marrying him would interfere in anyway, he should not be with me!
On the flip side, my husband threatens to kill people many times a day. It’s quite shocking when you first hear it and most would have an impulse to tell him to curb it. They just wouldn’t want to hear his graphic descriptions of violence but the fact is, this stuff is baked in and to tell him not to speak in that manner would be like telling me not to use the word, Saturn.
My husband and I are accepting of each other as-is. We are in for a penny, in for pound, without exception and it sure feels good.
Do you feel capable of accepting someone as-is?
Love your Insights …
it’s a process to me, but yes. mostly comes from being realistic about what matters and what doesn’t, and not putting my own definitions of behavior on others. the reasons why I might do something are not necessarily the same as the reasons why someone else does.
l am really learning this now…at this very moment in my life and it’s not easy. l found a way of having those people in my life still and accepting the situation as it is now. This is a big theme now with Saturn in Libra indeed. Most of all l am learning to live with myself and not to need so much approval from others…
Though cookie but l feel it really has big rewards and it makes me stronger…
Great about your relationship that’s the way it should be.
Definitely.
has to be more pros than cons…
but yeah.
I don’t think you can accept everyone. You can’t like everyone. I know this sounds grim and depressing, but I’m a realist.
It must be the Saturn in Capricorn in me.
@Conoco
true but we were talking about the people you are in a relatioship with..the rest is easy.
accepting that you don’t have to like or accept everyone untill you love…and you have to deal with yourself and with the other, compromise etc.
Yes, I was not meaning accepting everyone. My point here is that a person is not likely to stay with you or move closer to you if you impede them from expressing their personality.
i hope so!
oanney and Elsa, thanks.
Yes, but only if they do the same for me. It’s a two way street.
it’s getting easier with practice. and remembering the Pareto Principle helps, if i make sure the stuff that really matters is within the 80% part. that’s where choosing the right people comes in….
Yes, I accept my husband as is, but I will admit that it is sometimes very challenging to do so. I have to remind myself that he is who he is and that I love him all-inclusive.
@Penny:) I totally agree with you. I’ve had a few boyfriends who have expected me to accept them as is and then turn around and “nit pick” away at me for petty stuff. It’s really a turn off.
I *try* to.
By accepting as is, I mean can their traits still make you angry? I accept most of my friends. Sometimes they make me angry, though. I’ve had a friend for whom I was a thorn in his side. He’s got too much Capricorn to put up with a baby and I have too much masochism to not come running back to someone who smacks me in the face.
Can I accept someone as they are? I do it all the friggen’ time, no lie. 😉
@Dina,
Just ’cause you accept someone doesn’t mean they will never piss you off. It’s working through the pissed-off-ness that’s important, knowing that as much as you’re angry, you still love them.
Yeah. I can accept my wife as she is and she accepts me. In fact, she has a lovely way of teasing me about the little quirks I have that irritate her. Kinda like telling me she knows me well enough to know them all (the silly dancing, the wandering hand and all the other little things).
Me, I accept her natural Taurean laziness (sorry, but sometimes that’s all it can be called – I’m a Virgo, I hate that she doesn’t put the iron and ironing board away after she uses it) and sometimes think her stubborness is just plain adorable (if infuriating when aimed at me) 😀
Yes I can, and I can even accept aspects of a man I love which almost everybody on here would find a total deal-breaker – other women for example. For some men this is in their nature, very deeply so – and in their charts – and it’s useless imo to try to change it.
What you CAN refuse to accept is that man’s refusal to mitigate the effects of his nature – of his natural and characteristic behaviour – on the relationship. Such scenarios, indeed any fundamental differences between a man and woman, need to be handled with sensitivity and good manners.
My point here is that a person is not likely to stay with you or move closer to you if you impede them from expressing their personality.”
What you say is really true Elsa.
Do you all think it comes more easily though to some combinations of people and not others?
Is that a Mr. Obvious question? Lol
“Do you all think it comes more easily though to some combination of people and not others?”
Yes, but once people are tipped to this, the worst offenders become the rock stars.
All this is so interesting. A close colleague just broke up w/her BF for the 2nd time in three months.
I noticed she spent lots of time attacking/not accepting who he was, what he was doing, how he was treating her, then cried about why he didn’t commit to her fully, as he had to his rotten, no-good wife of 20 years ago. (Well, he was a dumb 20-something then, and he knocked her up. Hello. He’s probably not so eager to get into that kind of mess these days). So illogical. Love and sex aside :-))
Now this guy is nothing if not patient and giving. I watched him work till all hours to support a huge venture of hers, then made sure she was properly recognized and had C-soup for the cold in her nose. But no sooner had the dishes been done following her event, she demanded that he make up for his coldness and insufficient attention to her.
I think it’s a good idea to get clear on your must-haves and your can’t stands, then to get ready to decide to be tolerant to a fault. Learning so much here. Maybe I’ll get brave enough to try this again in this lifetime…
“I think it’s a good idea to get clear on your must-haves and your can’t stands, then to get ready to decide to be tolerant to a fault.”
And remember, they have to stand you as well. How come people think they’re so wonderful?
It’s interesting-funny that you wrote this article. Just the other day I was having problems with my husband and also a friend at different times. You’re right, some traits in a person/ourselves just can’t be changed and must be accepted.
Thank you Elsa:)
Excellent timing.
Some people are more likeable to to each other than others, sometimes it goes one way, sometimes it goes the other, and if you’re lucky, it can go both ways and you fall in love and stay together.
Simple, maybe, but that’s my take on it.
You can think you’re in love with someone and hate everything they do, it just rubs you the wrong way. Somebody else, they could be the biggest pain in the ass you ever met, but you could be in love with them and look the other way over and over again (for good or for ill).
Can astrology explain this?
I can say I was with someone and the poor guy could do nothing right — and I could do nothing right by him. I was convinced that someone else would think he was excellent, “as-is” and I got tired of feeling like I didn’t say the right things, react the right way, have the right goals — and got tired of being told so.
I would never want to be in a relationship again where all both parties ever did was mull over how their partner could be different and going about trying to make it so.
As they say, a lid for every pot. Maybe people just aren’t happy even if they are with a someone who seems like a real prize because they just aren’t the right pot for the lid.
Is this pertinent — or am I off track?
Embarrassingly I still have trouble, its more of an initial knee-jerk anger though (moon sq pluto?), then it goes away. At the end of the day though, we always realize how lucky we are to have and ultimately accept each other.
“In fact he informed me he thought my blog was so important that if marrying him would interfere in anyway, he should not be with me.” – I just have to say, that is one of the sweetest, most considerate things I’ve ever read.
Thank you, jerriattricks. 🙂 My husband lurked on my (original) blog for 3 years. Those were dark days for him and he said my blog sustained him.
He said I was a light for a lot of people and when he needed the light it was there and he wanted the light to be there for others. He thinks this is far more important than being married to him. It is what I am meant to do.
“…my husband threatens to kill people many times a day. It’s quite shocking when you first hear it and most would have an impulse to tell him to curb it…”
I would ask you to refer them to Agatha Christie’s novel ‘Five Little Pigs’
Without giving away the plot, basically direct them to the observation that (atleast for some people) threatening and ranting and raving about killing someone (sometimes in great detail) is a pressure release to avoid actually having something snap and end up hurting an/or killing them.
I think she’s a scorpio moon too.