News

When people try to improve themselves, such as by losing weight, stopping smoking, on improving their education and career prospects, they often experience opposition from their family and friends. This can be quite blatant and upfront, or it can be devious and subtle. For instance, a woman decides to lose weight, and initially succeeds in losing half a stone. Her husband congratulates her, and buys her a box of chocolates as a reward! This is actually very common.

It’s obvious why someone would resist change if the change was for the worse, but why would they resist a change that’s clearly for the better? In my experience, this generally happens when the other person feels threatened by the changes that are being attempted.

For instance, some men fear that if their wife loses weight, she will be more attractive to other men, who will entice her away from her husband. These men feel that it is safer if the wife is unattractive, especially as less attractive women will also generally lack confidence.

Obviously to think like this, the man has to be very lacking in confidence himself. Suppose he’s no longer the handsome young chap whom the woman originally married, he may assume that she now only stays with him because she can’t find anybody else. Hopefully he actually has other qualities that the wife considers more important, even if she hasn’t spelled this out to him. A surprising number of married persons really don’t know what their “other half” sees in them, and are pleasantly surprised when they find out.

The same applies to other forms of self-improvement, such as education. An insecure partner may fear that their “other half” will look down on them, if they are better educated. Again, hopefully this isn’t true. People generally get together because their personalities are compatible, and this will not be affected by improved education.

Another common reason to feel threatened is that people fear that if their friend or partner makes a change, then they too will be pressurised to make that change. For instance, if the wife quits smoking, she will want the husband to quit also. This assumption is often correct, so the reassurance that the other person needs here is the reassurance that quitting smoking is really not that difficult. If the wife can do it, so can they.

In the case of seriously harmful behaviour, such as very excessive drinking, people often feel shamed by anyone who doesn’t drink excessively. They are “shown up” by that person’s ability to be happy without getting drunk, and will often make strenuous efforts to drag them back into their former habits. Where peoples’ lives revolve around excessive drinking, it is really very difficult to stay friends with them if you no longer drink so much. That is why religious-based programmes are often very successful with this problem, because the church or mosque provides a ready-made set of new friends, to replace the old drinking friends whose company is no longer so attractive.