How to cope with people when they change?

You may have noticed this, time and again. People change! People change without informing you that they have changed a new leaf. 

Many a times you may have not even noticed that they have changed until you get hurt by what they say or do.

What do you do in such circumstances?

Here are a few tips to make your life easier:

Forgive them! You need to do this more for yourself than anyone else.

Stop immediately attributing their behavior to their personal character. Most of the time the behavior change could be due to situation or circumstances.

If you feel that the person is important, and you want to maintain your relationship with him or her, critique, openly and honestly.

Critique in a manner that you attack the person’s behavior and not the person itself.

Make the person aware that you were hurt by his or her behavior.

If the person repeats his or her behavior, get into critiquing again.

At some point tell the person, if the behavior is continuing, that it is becoming a relationship issue and would need evaluation, whether the relationship should continue or not.

Cut the relationship if the person is not willing to correct himself or herself. You could decide whether the relationship is cut, for the time being, or forever.

While you are attempting to do these remedial measures, you also need to develop certain criteria for behavior classification-The ones you are prepared to pardon and stay in the game to continue the relationship and the ones you are prepared  to pardon but discontinue the relationship.

Examples where you may want to discontinue the relationships are:

·         Cheating

·         Robbing

·         Physical abuse

·         Sexual abuse

·         Demeaning and constant harassment

·         Treating you like a thing and not as a human

 The  list could be longer for you or shorter. You have to decide. Developing such criteria can save you a lot of pain.

A thumb rule to remember always is to forgive, no matter what, but never forget.