Change: Impact Assessment
March 1, 2012 7:50 AM   Subscribe

Why does change in those around me- even healthy enlightening growth - prove to be so unsettling?

I'm in my mid 30s. (36 in 14 days!).

Guess I'm reaching for some insight into how "normal" it is for me to feel unsettled when friends and family members in my circle make major changes in their lives, even positive ones.

For example, my husband (an athlete in school who graduated into somewhat of a couch potato) took up running and fitness a couple years ago and changed in a profound way - he lost a significant amount of weight, changed his eating habits, etc. He isn't overly pushy with others about his new lifestyle the way some fitness junkies are and obviously the change was good for him, so why does it make me feel a bit unsettled at times?

Another example, my best friend of 4+ years who was in the "don't want children camp" with me knew that she would eventually have them anyway b/c it meant so much to her husband. Only, after she had her first child it turned out she loved it. LOVED IT. She is now the one we used to make fun of- making kissy faces at her baby across the table, collecting fun ideas for crafts and things for them to do together as baby gets older and interactive. It is obviously important and GOOD that she turned out to like motherhood (better for her and baby all around) so why does it get under my skin so much to see this 180 degree change in her?

I could go on with other examples but it's more of the same. Is this an atypical reaction? Is this a sign of some sort of character defect that I feel a bit anxious and unsettled when people around me go through major changes, even good ones? It's not an objective issue of who they are changing into (because i have fitness junkie friends and mommies in my circle that have always been that way and they don't make me feel anxious) but rather the changing itself that I find so disconcerting. Perhaps, like the poster in the question I link to below, I feel like somehow I never really knew these people (and for my friend who turned out to like motherhood i guess she never really knew herself either). I feel like they changed the game, changed the rules, and it makes me feel a little insecure about the damn world. Does this make sense?

I saw this post- http://ask.metafilter.com/205699/What-do-you-do-when-nothing-makes-sense-anymore - which offered a few insights but is not really applicable to my situation.
posted by TestamentToGrace to Human Relations (20 answers total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Do you feel that you're not keeping up with these people? Is there a change that you'd like to effect in yourself that you aren't acting on? When you say "unsettling", that's not a very defined feeling, that's probably something to look at a little deeper.
posted by doctor_negative at 7:59 AM on March 1, 2012 [4 favorites]


Buddhist answer: Because any change makes you realize, even if only on a subconscious level, the impermanence of everything, even something as seemingly as solid and unchanging as "my husband", and that is a scary truth, and very tough to fully accept.
posted by 3FLryan at 8:05 AM on March 1, 2012 [23 favorites]


This sometimes happens to me with friends. I guess you just chalk it up to "people change," but sometimes I think they're selling out -- like a girlfriend who wanted to help poor people and lived in India for six months, and now she's marrying a doctor who drives an Escalade. It's thinking that they're not being true to themselves that makes me react this way.
posted by jabes at 8:15 AM on March 1, 2012


Those who already answered are making excellent guesses, but this is the kind of question you need to answer yourself. Think about what they said and see to what extent it applies to you or doesn't. Think about how you might modify what they said in some ways. Sit with the feeling of discomfort with, say, your husbands changes, and see if you can get a handle on more of what it feels like. Pretend you're a novelist.
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:24 AM on March 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


I would look very closely at what doctor_negative has said. Jealousy may be too strong a word -- it could be more a feeling of "should I be doing/have done this?"

Both of your examples are things that society says we should be doing as we age. Could you feel like these people were your cohorts, the people who felt like you and supported you? Now that they've changed, are you feeling alone?

Just some things to think about, I think. I know that's the scab I first try to pick at whenever I feel this way.
posted by AmandaA at 8:32 AM on March 1, 2012 [4 favorites]


Everyone has fear/anxiety about change, whether in themselves or in their friends or in their environment. Why do you think "old" people are always so afraid? Because to them, everything is changing at an astonishin pace due to the time acceleration you feel as you age.

Perhaps you wish you could make changes like that, secretly, but have fears/anxieties/other commitments that are keeping you from making those changes. Who knows?
posted by some loser at 8:38 AM on March 1, 2012


Fear that people will change and that they won't care about you anymore, or that your relationship will change and that you'll lose something.

Guilt - we live in a society where we're always bombarded by messages about 'self-improvement' and the moral duty to always strive for Excellence, so it can be really hard to believe that you're doing/having/being enough even if you're happy with yourself.

Gender - women are socialized to have a....flexible...sense of self. So it can feel really threatening when others change because that feels like just one more demand, or more pressure for you to change - ie, women are often socialized to feel bad about saying no and to take responsibility for a really silly range of things, and this translates into reading everything as a demand on you. (For instance, this morning I realized that I felt responsible for whether my housemates noticed that our sidewalk was icy - if I didn't send them an email telling them that it was icy and that I didn't think the salt was doing any good, I would be negligent...even though no one is responsible for telling me stuff like that...so powerful and irrational is socialization!)

Desire to change yourself but lack of time or energy.

Change is scary, right? If someone doesn't want children - really seriously doesn't want them- and then does a total 180, what does that mean for big questions about "what is a person?" "what can we know about ourselves?" "how stable is personality?" Now, it's easy to say that those questions are too high-falutin' for the average Jane to care about, but IME average folks do care about those questions, they just don't use academic language to express them. In short, if your friend becomes someone totally different, what if YOU suddenly change? What if all your cherished beliefs about yourself are totally contingent? Scary, eh?
posted by Frowner at 8:46 AM on March 1, 2012 [5 favorites]


If you could have them go back to he way they were, would that please you? why?
If you change, what would you like your friends to think?
posted by Postroad at 9:07 AM on March 1, 2012


Based on what you have said, I would assume that the following might explain why you dislike seeing other people change:

-Sense of betrayal. Dislike towards the unfamiliar: You knew someone as the couch potato, but they have changed their ways. So, who are they now?
-Fear that you will stay the same, meanwhile everyone else will improve their lives by doing things like living healthier and achieving goals

...

For what it's worth, I think a lot of people feel similarly when people in their innermost circles change. This is largely because you have developed a static image of certain people. The idea that this is how they are, this is how they will always be, and you will always know what to expect because these people are never changing (from your perspective).

It's common to fear change. It's okay to develop static images of other people too. But, it's 'healthier' to change your framing towards this.

You need to realize that people are always changing even when the changes aren't evident. You have already realized something by saying "I feel like somehow I never really knew these people (and for my friend who turned out to like mothehood, I guess she never really knew herself either." This is true to an extent, it's very difficult to know someone to the point where you know everything about them. But, this doesn't have to be perceived in an all-or-nothing lens.

Instead, view it from the perspective that you know certain things about this person, but this person is not static and therefore, this person might change either for the better or worse. Their ideologies might change with new experiences or new knowledge. Your friend didn't realize how much she liked motherhood until AFTER she had a kid. Their desires might change too with time, new experiences, and age. But, this isn't a 'bad' thing.

Most people don't even know everything about their own identity and ideologies (that's something that we figure out through life), so it's difficult for you to know everything about this person. After all, we are always changing. But change can be a good thing!

*Note, this can apply in many different situations and with many different people. I just used the motherhood example since that's one of the examples that you included.
posted by livinglearning at 9:29 AM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


The 180 change from he anti-baby friend is disturbing - she spent a lot of timing sharing a very specific self with you and it turns out she was wrong (which may feel to you as though she wasn't sincere, or at least not being thoughtful.) The rest of it, though, seems to be people improving themselves and evolving. That's normal and good and also very much something they, themselves, did (excepting hubby who no doubt benefited from your support!)

In general, this sounds like a "it's not about you" problem. The Buddha is as good a path as any to settle yourself.

Also, how unsettled are you really? Your tone is very compassionate and generous - it seems like this is a little niggling feeling, not something that's eating you up.

Minor doubts and confusion about all sorts of things are normal.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 9:33 AM on March 1, 2012


Best answer: I'm going to guess you're interpreting these changes as criticisms. ("Why aren't you more fit?" "You'd be so much more fulfilled if you were a mommy!") You may also fear these changes indicate people are evolving away from you. ("You are not sexypants enough for me anymore." "All my friends are mommies now.")

Change is probably not criticism, but it can mean evolution in relationship dynamics. You may benefit from some time spent analysing if those fears apply to you.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:34 AM on March 1, 2012 [4 favorites]


Best answer: If I experienced the friend/baby scenario myself, I'd find it unsettling. My friend, who shared my minority view of parenthood and had fun spoofing it with me, had a kid of her own and became the totally-into-it mom that I had so much trouble relating to? It's a loss.

My husband is so anti-exercise that he says it's "against his religion." His eating habits aren't extremely unhealthy, but he does love his chips and dips, hamburger and fries. If he started doing a lot of physical activity and loving it, and also eating healthy foods, it would be very weird for me. It would feel like part of his identity was deleted and replaced by its opposite.

The changes you talked about don't affect just your friend and your husband; they affect how you view them and how you interact with them. I think it would be odd if you adjusted effortlessly.
posted by wryly at 9:41 AM on March 1, 2012


Okay, this is going to sound a little self-helpish but it can't be helped.

We use other people as mirrors for ourselves. The human animal is inherently social and needs others to reflect its desires, beliefs, and values. In a sense, our identities are a conglomeration of our relations to everyone around us. E.g., "I'm my mother's daughter, I take care of her and make her proud for raising me well." Or "I'm a smart fellow. I have well-reasoned ideas that other people come to me for." Even the act of declaring oneself to be a contrarian or independent thinker has a lot of 'the other' in it – "I am the sort of person who does not do what is commonly accepted."

So yes, I would say it is normal in the extreme to have strong personal reactions to other people making life transitions. Their choices – and let's be clear, these are choices; your anti-baby friend who gave in to motherhood chose to make that change – make statements about who they are. Your ego is processing their changed social status to figure out what it means about you, who you are, what your place is, et cetera.

Is it narcissistic? Sure. But we are a narcissistic species.
posted by deathpanels at 10:13 AM on March 1, 2012 [5 favorites]


I think when a spouse makes a major change there's always unsettlement and even fear -- now that he's working out so much, how will that affect our family time? Will he make new friends that don't like me and be pulled away from me? Will he be judgmental that I'm not in great shape? Are his priorities going to change? And I think that's true of any new thing in a spouse's life -- even a change in job -- that takes up a significant amount of time and emotional energy.

With your friend, I've had two friends like this, who were SUPER-ANTI-CHILDREN, had children, and then became SUPER-PRO-CHILDREN. And what I feel is this dire, burning urge to say "I told you so." Even though I certainly did NOT tell them so, and would not have told them so. I rolled my eyes at the both of them because they were so over-the-top adamant -- one took her dogs to a museum in order to throw a fit when they wouldn't let her dogs in because "children are just the same as dogs, and you let people bring their children in there!" The other is just a very high-intensity human being who didn't want kids and was sure she'd be an awful mom. I wasn't sure of that, but it wasn't my place to say anything about it. Anyway, the first one now has (horrible monster) children she brings to black tie events and makes scenes about how anywhere adults go (badly behaved) children should be equally welcome. The second is now equally intense about parenting as she was about not being a parent. And she says things like, "Why didn't anyone tell me X was okay when I was struggling with being so super-intense about only doing this the One Right Way?" And I, as a person of more moderate passions, usually smile and say, "Dude, I did tell you that, like six times." She just doesn't hear it.

Anyway, it gives me that feeling of wanting to say "I told you so," even though I never told them nothin'. My second friend is able to make some fun of herself about how intense she used to be about NOT having kids and how intense she is now about being super-mom, so it makes the whole thing more tolerable and even a little amusing. You might talk to your friend a little (not in an accusing way! in an amusing way), and that might help.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:09 AM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Are these unsettling changes always going from "things I like/identify with" to "things I don't like/identify with"? Or would you feel just as unsettled if a friend came around to your view on something? Let's say you really love videogames or comic books, and a friend always pooh-poohed them. Now suddenly the friend loves them too - would that bother you?

If it's only "change AWAY from my views" that bothers you, there may be some feelings of defensiveness here. You've lost one more ally from your team and maybe you feel like you're holding a minority position to begin with, and now you feel even more alienated from the rest of society. It hurts to lose allies, especially ones you thought you could count on.
posted by Quietgal at 11:40 AM on March 1, 2012 [8 favorites]


This is Totally normal. I was shocked when I discovered all sorts of resistance in myself to a friend quitting smoking. Obviously a good change, but it felt like a betrayal, and I had to stop myself from saying, "but you're a smoker" - which made me realize it had everything to do with identity and relationships.

He quit, was still his awesome self otherwise, and I adjusted. At least with your husband, you're likely to do the same.
posted by ldthomps at 11:45 AM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Do you mean you experience the feeling of nostalgia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia
posted by spunweb at 12:42 PM on March 1, 2012


Any sort of significant change like this results in a "what does this mean for me" reaction. You become worried about whether you still have a place or role in that person's life, whether you'll continue to like them or start to not like them, etc.

This is very common and you'll see it most often in conversations when someone mentions the new thing they're doing and the other person dismisses it or puts it down by saying something along the lines of "But you'll get hurt/that's stupid". Mostly it's not that person being awful but rather a knee-jerk reaction to that sudden sense of fear (what does this mean for me).

It's a very good thing to question who we are and what we want and how we go about things but, yes, it can be very unsettling as well.

This would be a good opportunity for you to think about the kinds of things that you might want to do with your life that you haven't been doing - is there anything you want to change?
posted by mleigh at 1:16 PM on March 1, 2012


It might be related to fears of abandonment. If people are capable of unexpected and unpredictable changes, they might change how they feel about you.
posted by gentian at 3:01 PM on March 1, 2012 [2 favorites]


Do you know what you want our of life?

I don't and when I see people around me make changes such as the ones you've mentioned, it makes me feel like everyone else is finding their calling and I'm still treading water with no real defined happiness or goals in life. I have to remind myself that in the paths these people have chosen, they also have their own little setbacks and sacrifice other things to focus on the new change.

I also feel liek I don't know people anymore when they make personality changes like that. I'm the type of person that bonds with my close friends over commonalities so when they change and become so different than me, silences replace constant conversation. I enjoy the company of others tha tare differnt than myself, but it never really gets to teh level of a close friend (and I usually only have 1 maybe 2 close friends at any given time in my life). these changes in people are often a sad signal to me that another close friend is falling back into the realm of "acquaintance". It's just something you have to accept about yourself and let yourself develop new close friends organically (have patience!) because nothing is as godawful depressing as actively trying to find a close friend.
posted by WeekendJen at 4:08 PM on March 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


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