4 Critical Realities to Consider Before Trying to Change Someone for Marriage
You’ve met someone you deeply care about, someone you can’t stop thinking about. You imagine a future with this person and feel sure you want to spend your life with them. But as time passes, certain red flags start to emerge. Perhaps it’s their habits, beliefs, addictions, lifestyle, or personality traits that trouble you. Despite these concerns, you’re still drawn to them and begin to wonder, ‘Can I change this person?’
Let’s be clear—people can change. Love can inspire genuine transformation. But it’s important to be aware of the risks and realities involved when your relationship is built on the hope of changing someone.
Here are four major issues you must carefully consider before taking that path.
1. You’ll Become the Keeper of Their Change
If someone changes primarily to please you, it may sound good, but it is not good enough. Authentic change or repentance is when a person recognises the need for personal growth and shows genuine willingness and readiness to change to become a better person for God and himself or herself. Before one can truly love and take care of others, one must first learn to love and take care of himself or herself. The change must first be for him or herself and not for you. You then become a beneficiary of that aura of love and positivity the person has learnt to develop and carry. Otherwise, you may end up becoming responsible for maintaining that change. Their transformation will depend on you and how you treat them.
In essence, you’re likely to find yourself managing their behaviour rather than enjoying the peace and freedom of a loving, balanced relationship. But you’re not a therapist, and you’re not their parent. You also deserve to live freely, without constantly wondering whether the person will revert to old ways the moment you’re not watching.
2. Unmet Expectations Can Trigger Regression
Every person enters a relationship or marriage with certain expectations. If your partner’s purported change is based on certain expectations and they are not eventually met or are not met, they may feel frustrated or disappointed. If their change was never truly internal but just performed for acceptance and because of certain unmet expectations, those old behaviours, habits, or attitudes could quickly resurface.
Change that is not rooted in deep personal conviction is usually temporary. Like a sleeping volcano, the past remains dormant until a trigger (disappointment, stress, or unmet desires) causes an eruption. And when that happens, you’ll feel like you’re dealing with someone entirely different from the person you thought you were marrying.
3. Feelings Fade, Attraction Shifts, and Material Things Don’t Last
Attraction, infatuation, and even romantic feelings can be powerful, but they’re also temporary. Sometimes people “change” for a partner because they’re emotionally attached, physically attracted, or hoping to gain something—money, comfort, status, etc. But when those feelings fade, or the material benefits lose their appeal, what’s left?
If the change wasn’t authentic, if it was rooted in selfish desire or lust, there’s a high chance the person will stop pretending and revert to who they truly are. This is when we often hear people say, “He changed after we got married,” or “She’s not the same person I fell in love with.” The truth is, they were never that person to begin with.
4. Emotional Manipulation and Control
When someone knows how deeply you love them, they can use that love as leverage. If they also know what you dislike or what you fear, they might begin to use those things to control your behaviour, and this can lead to emotional blackmail.
It may not be said directly, but the unspoken agreement becomes: “As long as you keep doing what I like, I’ll keep being who you want.” This conditional behaviour forces you into a position where you’re constantly trying to please them just to keep the peace or prevent them from “going back”. Over time, your needs, values, and voice may begin to disappear under the weight of their manipulation.
Final Thoughts
Yes, people can change—and many do. But meaningful, lasting change doesn’t happen just because someone wants to be accepted or loved. True change comes from within. It’s born of personal conviction, not emotional pressure.
If you’re considering marrying someone you’re hoping to change, take time to reflect honestly. Are they changing for you or themselves? Are they becoming better because they believe it’s the right thing to do or because they’re afraid of losing you?
As you consider the future, remember: the most powerful and enduring transformation is the one that happens through genuine self-awareness, humility, and often through spiritual renewal and the work of the Holy Spirit.
You deserve a partner whose growth is real, not a performance, and whose love is rooted in truth, not obligation.
