Yes, Change Is Up to You

"I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself." — Aldous Huxley

What? You mean if I cry, scream, threaten, punish, manipulate, ghost, or just wait and wait and wait, things won’t change? No, they won’t.

So, what’s next? I know! Call yourself a victim.

A male caller wanted to know how he could get closer to his three adult children after years of no contact. I asked him his understanding as to why all his children decided to have nothing to do with him and got the usual answer: "I don’t know."

Now, it is virtually never true that we don’t know why something so drastic as complete alienation from all of one’s children occurs. "I don’t know" really means I don’t want to admit it because then I will have been wrong or bad.

So, at this point my job is to pull out tiny splinters one by one. It took many minutes but, one at a time, they came to the surface, albeit minimized in importance by him.

First, well, his wife got the court to give her a restraining order against him so he couldn’t go near her or the children.

When I asked what she told the judge to get that writ, he didn’t know because he didn’t go to court that day and wouldn’t explain why he didn’t.

The only thing he could think of was that he broke a glass, and that seemingly was scary to them. More prodding. He had at least one aff air, he was a drunk, and very angry all the time.

Lots of yelling and screaming terrible things at the wife and children.

I tried to explain that the divorce was not over his "broken glass" but after decades of abuse by him.

He flicked that aside to say, "I am different now, so they should come back to me."

Unbelievable.

He still had no compassion and understanding of the abusive environment in which his kids grew up.

Why did she stay so long?

Typically, she had a nest she didn’t want to lose so, yes, give him more opportunities to "change" so she wouldn’t be challenged to face a new life.

She finally changed herself by divorcing him.

However, severe damage was done to all the children who had to grow up in the environment mom kept protecting. Another man called about his relationship with his girlfriend.

She is a very busy and successful producer in Hollywood.

He lives about three hours from her and travels to see her, as she has no time to drive to his neighborhood.

When he does visit, he reported that she is so busy they barely have any time together outside of going to bed at night.

He called me asking how he could present the situation to her so she would make the choice to prioritize him.

I laughed out loud.

"Sir, do you really think that if you said, 'It’s the job or me,' that she would do anything but show you the door?

"You make it easy for her to continue building her show business career and still have nookie on the side with a nice guy who doesn’t demand too much."

So why, then, is he calling me to fi nd out how to change her when he knows that is unlikely?

The answers are 1.) We do anything to avoid the feeling of rejection and having our ego implode, and 2.) We deny the truth of what we know because we want what we want in spite of reality.

One young woman called the same day to ask about a "boyfriend" of four months who no longer returns calls, texts, etc. She wanted to know what she should do to fi x the situation.

I asked her about having had sex with this guy she barely knew.

I pointed out that women in particular who have sex simply as a part of dating have a much more difficult time establishing a quality relationship down the line.

But that wasn’t why she called. I asked her if she would cut off conversation with someone she really liked. She said, "No."

I said, "Well, he doesn’t like you. He is done. Respect that, and learn from it."

That made her gasp.

The notion of rejection, of being intimate with sex when there really isn’t an intimate relationship, and that she had no power to magically make this come out in her favor was. . . overwhelming.

So, the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

Dr. Laura (Laura Schlessinger) is a well-known radio personality and best-selling author. She appears regularly on many television shows and in many publications. Listen to Dr. Laura on SiriusXM Channel 111, Mon.–Sat. 2–6pm ET, Sun. 5–9pm ET.​ Read Dr. Laura's Reports — More Here.