I Can Change Him

I can change him.

Four words. A manifesto. A religion I invented at sixteen when I first understood that some boys come broken and some girls come convinced they were born with instructions for repair, that love is sometimes less about finding your match and more about finding your mission, that the accelerated heartbeat when he walks into a room isn't chemistry, it's recognition….the way a mechanic recognizes a complicated car engine, the way a surgeon recognizes a case that will make her career, the way I recognize hardwork disguised as romance and call it destiny.

I can change him.

Everyone says they see red flags. My mother, whose marriage taught her to spot warning signs from three blocks away. My best friend, who's watched me do this before with different names but same patterns. My therapist, who's stopped pretending she's neutral and now openly suggests I'm addicted not to him but to the project of him, to the delusion that if I just decode him correctly, apply the right potion of patience and devotion and strategic withdrawal, he'll creak open like a box and reveal the treasure I'm convinced is buried beneath the rust and dysfunction.

They all see red flags.

But my color blindness isn't even at play here. I can see them too. I just see a dark shade of fuchsia pink. I see warning signs painted in a color that could be danger or could be passion depending on the light, depending on how desperately I need to believe this is salvageable, depending on how much I've already invested and how catastrophic it would be to my sense of self to admit I've been building a future on a foundation that was condemned from the start.

I can change him because I have to change him because if I can't change him then what have I been doing?

Let me paint you the picture of him. Six foot two of unresolved trauma trapped in a body that knows how to hold me just gently enough that I forget how roughly he handles my heart. Eyes the color of storms that never quite clear, that threaten and promise simultaneously, that look at me sometimes like I'm salvation and sometimes like I'm the guard at a prison he's trying to escape. Hands that touch me like I'm made of something precious one moment and something disposable the next, that leave marks, not bruises, I wouldn't stay if there were bruises, just impressions, just reminders that his gentleness is a choice he's making moment by moment and could revoke at any instant.

He smells like liquor he swore he quit and cologne too expensive for someone who can't hold a job, which is one of those red-flags-that-I've-decided-is-fuchsia because it shows he values quality, has taste, just needs someone to help him translate that into ambition, into follow-through, into the kind of stability his childhood never modeled and his adulthood hasn't prioritized and I'm convinced I can teach him if I'm just patient enough, strategic enough, loving enough in exactly the right proportions at exactly the right times.

I can change him.

He forgot my convocation date but remembers the exact way I like my coffee, two sugars, specific ratio of milk to espresso, never from chain stores because I mentioned once three years ago that I preferred independent cafes. He shows up four hours late but shows up, which counts for something, which is more than his father ever did, which is why he struggles with punctuality and commitment and basic respect for other people's time but it's not his fault, it's his father's fault, it's his mother's fault for staying with his father, it's society's fault for not giving him the therapy he needs, it's everyone's fault except his because holding him accountable would mean acknowledging he's choosing this, that every late arrival is a choice, that every broken promise is a decision, that his patterns aren't fate but selection, aren't damage but preference for maintaining damage because change is hard and staying the same is easier especially when women like me make it easy by accepting his excuses and calling them explanations.

But I can change him.

I have evidence. Last Tuesday he allowed me talk to his sister which he never does, which means he's ready for more closeness more commitment, more of what I've been begging for in ways I've convinced myself aren't begging. Last month he met my mother, briefly, accidentally, when she showed up unannounced and he couldn't flee fast enough, but he was polite, charming even, which proves he can be different when he wants to be, when the situation demands it, when the cost of his usual behavior is too high even for him.

These are data points.

Evidence of capacity.

Proof that the man I'm imagining isn't hallucination but prophecy, that buried beneath this current version, the one who ghosts me for days then reappears with explanations that explain nothing, who says he needs space but seems to need specifically my space, who wants independence but wants me waiting patiently for whenever he decides independence is lonely and my devotion is convenient, exists the man he could be, the man he's almost been during our best moments, the man I've seen glimpses of when his guard is down and he whispers things he'll deny saying tomorrow, things like "I don't deserve you" which I'm supposed to argue against but actually, sometimes I think he's right, not because he doesn't deserve me but because I deserve someone who doesn't need convincing of his own worthiness, who doesn't make me responsible for his self-esteem and his healing and his growth and his basic functioning as an adult human in adult relationship.

But I can change him.

My friends stage what they call brunch but feels like intervention. They arrive armed with mimosas and concern, with love disguised as judgment, with questions that aren't really questions but accusations dressed in concern's clothing.

"When was the last time he took you on an actual date?"

“Why doesn't he flow well with your family members?”

"Why does he only text after 11 PM?"

“Why does he not wear his wedding ring or act like a married man outside?”

Cut him a slack, haven't we only been married for two years? He's still adapting to it.

"Don't you think it's weird that after two years we've never met his friends or seen him with any?"

"Why are you always the one compromising, apologizing, adjusting, accepting less than you want and calling it love?"

And I have answers. Defenses. Explanations that satisfy no one but me because I need them to be satisfied, need to believe there are reasons beyond the obvious reason which is that he's showing me exactly who he is and I'm refusing to believe him because believing him means leaving and leaving means admitting failure and I don't fail, I persist, I endure, I love harder when loving should be easier, I double down when I should fold, I stay when I should run because running is what everyone else does and I'm not everyone else, I'm the woman who understands him, who sees past the surface to the wound, who recognizes that his cruelty is fear and his distance is self-protection and his inability to love me properly is just proof that he's never been loved properly and someone needs to teach him and that someone is me.

I can change him.

I've been reading books. Attachment theory. Love languages. How to love a wounded man. How to heal generational trauma. How to be enough for someone who's convinced he's not enough. I'm acquiring expertise in subjects I never planned to major in, becoming fluent in languages of dysfunction, earning advanced degrees in making excuses for grown men who won't make excuses for themselves because I'm doing it for them.

I cook his favorite meals on days when I haven't heard from him, when he's gone radio silent again, when I'm supposed to be studying for exams or working on my thesis or having my own life but instead I'm preparing food he might not show up to eat because maybe if I'm useful enough, necessary enough, if I prove my value through service and patience and accepting whatever fraction of his attention he's willing to spare, he'll see what he has, what he's risking, what he'll lose if he keeps treating me like I'm optional instead of essential.

I can change him because I've already changed so much of myself.

I used to have standards. Boundaries. A clear sense of what I deserved and what I wouldn't tolerate. I used to believe love should feel good more often than it feels terrible. I used to think relationships required two people trying instead of one person trying enough for both. I used to be someone who would read this story and think "she should leave" but now I'm living this story and leaving feels impossible because I've invested too much, stayed too long, forgiven too much, ignored too many warnings to admit now that everyone was right and I was wrong and this isn't love, this is sunk cost fallacy with prettier packaging, this is stubbornness disguised as devotion, this is my ego refusing to admit defeat dressed up as my heart refusing to abandon hope.

I can change him.

Except.

Except last night he didn't come home and wouldn't answer my calls and this morning he strolled in like absence is acceptable, like worry is my problem not his, like I'm supposed to be grateful he came back at all instead of angry that he left without explanation. And when I tried to talk about it, tried to express how scared I was, how disrespected I felt, how this pattern keeps repeating and I keep accepting and nothing changes, he looked at me with those storm-colored eyes and said the thing he always says, the thing that works every time even though I know it works, even though I can see the manipulation even as I'm falling for it:

"You knew who I was when we started this. I told you I'm not good at this. If you want something different, maybe you should find someone different."

And I should.

I should find someone different.

Someone who shows up on time and means it when he says he loves me and doesn't need a translator for basic human emotions and treats my heart like it's valuable instead of like it's emergency equipment he only uses when his is failing. Someone who doesn't need changing because he's already put in the work, already grown up, already learned how to be a partner instead of a project.

But I don't find someone different.

But what happens to the ‘Mrs’ before my name?

I say: "I don't want someone different. I want you. I just want you to try."

And he says: "I am trying."

And I believe him because I need to believe him because if he's not trying then what am I doing? If his best effort is this insufficient then what does that say about his capacity? And if his capacity is limited then my transformation project is doomed and I've wasted prime years of my life trying to sculpt a man from clay that was never meant to hold shape, that collapses back into formlessness the second I stop molding, that requires my constant touch to remain even temporarily functional.

I can change him.

I whisper it to myself at night while he sleeps beside me, while his breathing is even and his face is soft and he looks like the man I'm trying to create instead of the man he actually is. I whisper it during his absence, which is more frequent than his presence. I whisper it to my reflection in the bathroom mirror at 2 AM when I'm crying again over the same thing I cried about last week and last month and last year because nothing changes except my capacity to accept what I shouldn't accept, my willingness to call dysfunction love, my ability to paint red flags in shades of fuchsia pink and convince myself I'm seeing something beautiful instead of something dangerous.

I can change him.

But.

But what if I can't?

What if the only person I can change is me?

What if I stopped trying to make him different and started trying to remember who I was before I met him, before I decided his potential was more important than my peace, before I learned to twist myself into shapes that would fit his dysfunction, before I became someone who accepts the unacceptable and calls it patience, someone who mistakes suffering for devotion, someone who's so committed to being the woman who stayed that she forgot to ask whether staying was actually the victory or actually the surrender?

What if I can't change him and these four words I keep repeating like prayer aren't protection but prison, aren't hope but delusion, aren't love but fear—fear of being wrong, fear of starting over, fear of admitting that the emperor has no clothes and the relationship has no future and I've been in love with a ghost, with potential, with the man he could be instead of the man he is right now in this moment where he's hurting me again and I'm forgiving him again and we're both pretending this is sustainable?

I can change him, I tell myself.

I can change him, I tell my friends.

I can change him, I tell my mother.

I can change him, I tell God during prayers I barely believe anymore because if God loved me wouldn't He change this man for me, wouldn't He soften his heart and heal his wounds and make him capable of the love I'm pouring into him like water into sand, endlessly, hopelessly, watching it disappear without nourishing anything?

I can change him.

The words taste like ashes now.

Like lies I'm telling myself.

Like the last line of defense between me and the truth that everyone else sees clearly:

He doesn't want to change.

And I can't make him.

And staying won't save him.

It will only destroy me.

But I can't say that out loud yet.

So I say: I can change him.

And I stay.

And I hope

And I break a little more every day.

And I call it love.