How do I accept my girlfriend for who she is?

When you’re in the thick of a relationship, red flags and intolerance may dominate it more than not, yet you still stay together. Usually, this is because you are *tolerating* your partner, not *accepting* them. “The biggest difference I see in tolerance and acceptance in a romantic relationship has to do with justification for staying together,” Julio Briones, personal crisis manager and CEO of AnswerMan Specialty Services, LLC, tells Bustle. “As a personal crisis manager, one of the functions I serve is helping individuals and families understand the issue of tolerance versus acceptance, so they can work through the situation and stay together, whether one is going to rehab, prison, you name it,” he says.

Briones says he often asks people: “Do you want to try to make this work?” He says this is an important question, because if the couple wants to make it through the trials ahead, they have to accept the situation and their partner, with all their faults. “If a person just tolerates who their partner is, using different justifiers such as, ‘I HAVE to because of the children’ or ‘I HAVE to because it is what is expected after all these years,’ this mentality will usually lead to resentment and, in some cases, bitterness.”

There you have it — the difference between if you’re accepting or tolerating your partner, according to relationship experts. Like Dr. Cohen says above, the key difference is how you feel and think in a given situation.

Nancy Cramer, leadership consultant and founder of Correct Course Counseling, has a guiding philosophy she uses with her clients. “If things do not add up, something is missing,” she tells Bustle. She says one client was constantly getting sideswiped by anger from his partner for no apparent reason; no matter what changes he made to his behavior, he was always facing an angry response. “If you consistently leave conversations and confrontations wondering ‘What just happened?’ then you are in a situation where your partner may be tolerating you instead of accepting you,” Cramer says. “Accepting someone includes appreciating them for who they are and loving them for their differences whereas tolerating someone focuses on their irritating qualities.”

As you can see, the above experts make it easy to tell the difference between whether you’re accepting your partner or tolerating them. Once you determine which one is dominating your relationship, you’ll have to decide how to proceed (or not).

One of the biggest downfalls of getting married is the idea that our partner needs to be different and change certain things to make us happier. After all, if they really loved us, wouldn’t they change anything for us? Well, no. Asking your partner to change is like asking a cat to bark. The glue to any successful marriage is to accept your partner as he or she is, including his idiosyncrasies.

Here are seven ways you can be more accepting of your spouse:

1.   Watch your expectations. When you become frustrated with your partner, check-in with your thoughts. Is this something that your partner really needs to change for you, or can you change your expectation and meet whatever unfulfilled need yourself? Why is it your partner’s job to live according to your expectations?

2.   Use positive thinking. Negative thinking is much easier than positive thinking because it requires no effort. It’s also very self-centered. When we aren’t accepting our partner, it’s the result of seeing the negative in them. Instead of focusing on why someone is the way he is, choose to focus on what’s great about him. Whatever you don’t like about him, you’ll need to learn to fulfill within yourself.

3.   Eliminate black and white thinking. Flexibility is the key ingredient to any lasting relationship. It’s very easy to view the world in black and white with a right and wrong way to do things, but that’s just not realistic. Things don’t have to be right or wrong if you choose to accept them as they are. Stop labeling your way as right way and remember it’s only right for you. What’s right for you may not be right for your partner.

4.   Turn off your inner critic. Our judgments of others are often a result of our personal criticisms. If we stop putting pressure on ourselves to do things the right way, we’ll likely stop putting pressure on others as well. Not judging ourselves is a crucial step to the acceptance of our partner and ourselves.

5.   Stay focused on the present. When we compare situations to the past, we tend to be less accepting. We all make mistakes, so try not to ruminate about what happened before and live accordingly. Give your partner the gift of thinking about the present. Comparing things to the past always hinders an acceptance of the current reality and it destroys marriages.

6.   See things in reverse. Ask yourself how it would feel if your partner judged you and didn’t accept you? How would you feel? When your expectations aren’t being met, keep these questions in mind.

7.   Focus on yourself first. When you’re happy and fulfilled as an individual, you’ll be less critical of your partner. You are 100% capable of meeting your own needs. This takes a lot of pressure off the marriage. It boils down to personal responsibility for self-love. If you love yourself and are responsible for your own happiness, you’re able to love your partner simply for being your partner instead of seeing your partner as a need-meeter. 

Happy marriages are ones in which there are two individually happy and content people coming together. They don’t see their union as something they need in order to feel complete as much as they have a marriage that adds to their already fabulous individual life. Each of us needs to be responsible for our own sense of happiness. Two happy people bring into a marriage increased happiness and flexibility in the collective relationship.

Little life message:   Happy marriages exist between people who do not tug on each other with expectation. Love yourself, take responsibility for yourself, and your marriage will be expansive.

Sherrie Campbell, Ph.D.

Dr. Sherrie Campbell is an author and a licensed Psychologist with more than nineteen years of clinical training and experience. She provides practical tools to help people overcome obstacles to self-love and truly achieve an empowered life. Get her free article on Five Ways to Make Love the Common Ground in Your Communication. She is also a featured expert on a variety of national websites and has a successful practice in southern California. Receive free insights from Sherrie and get involved in her Facebook community with others looking to improve their relationship. For more information visit SherrieCampbellPhD.com.

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