Women changing men.

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In my limited experience, it seems a lot of women are raised to think that "fixing" their husbands is a responsibility in marriage. They temporarily accept him during the courtship, but still feel its their job to make the man more like her on the inside.

It certainly doesn't help that a lot of men are slackers these days, who'd sooner run out on a woman after impregnating her than choosing to be a responsible father.

I know nothing about Myers-Briggs. I decided to read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus afterwards (another awesome book) which helped me realize that my supposed lack of empathy had more to do with my being a man than some Aspergers diagnosis. I also realized that many of the things that women complain about their men doing is brought up by many men on this forum, and some of us had mistakenly believed it to be part of our diagnosis.

Currently reading. Quiet: The Power of Intoverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susain Cain. and Love Out Loud by Joyce Meyer.

I read that a Man marry's a Woman because he Loves her, therefore he doesn't want her to change into anything else, he wants her to remain the woman he loves, ..........they change! so the man has to spend his time down the shed to avoid this person his lovely wife turned into.

Woman on the other hand, marry a man thinking he has the potential to be turned into something she actually wants......................men do not change.

Show me the boy and I'll show you the man.

It's been my experience that both partners change a little out of the desire to please one another. Sometimes these are even core behaviors--assuming that I can be convinced the behaviors are a problem (and it has happened.) I've changed some of my coping mechanisms over the years to things that are more pro-social, the way I approach relationships, touch and the way I approach problem solving.

I am often dated by men who want to change me, so I'm not sure this is a female behavior (fully 2/3 of the men I've dated have decided at some point that I could be 'trained' or grown out of some of my autistic behaviors, sexual orientation and/or personality.) I've also been dated by women who want to change me.

I'm game for a certain amount of it, if nothing else than because I know that thems the breaks when it comes to being close to another person. Some things won't change, but I except to adapt some.

Funny,I dump my first girlfriend(the high school girl)because
she kept trying to change me,she wanted me to like nsync,
and I didn't want to.so,I dumped her.

My theory on this is that it's certainly possible for people to change if they want to and their partners (or others close to them) can help with that change. Maybe others can even initiate it, but the person still has to want to change. On the other hand, if one person views changing another as a "project", against their will (or even without them recognising it) that's never going to work out well.

GregCav: That is, in fact, a reason that I used to date a lot of "bad boys". I wanted to be treated like a person, not a thing. I can make my own decisions, have my own agenda and desires. I know my own mind.

Anyone who treats me like that has a more than small shot at dating me.

I know someone who is with someone because "he made her spontaneous". Nobody can make you a certain way, and to paraphrase most Republicans in 2012, "you *did* build that".

My ex tried to change me from Aspie to a trophy wife.

You can imagine how well that worked...

onewithstrange: It's a combination of things--treating me like all women are the same and ignoring any differences between me and any other woman, telling me what my opinion and thoughts are and ignoring what I say and do, treating me as if I cannot know or understand the events occurring around me, etc.

An example: let's say that I go out on a date with a guy. If any of the following occurs, I am highly unlikely to believe that I will be able to be a person to the guy I'm on a date with (all examples are from my experiences on dates.)

1. He asks me why I'm not a crazy b***h like all other women are.
2. He is completely uninterested in anything I have to say and talks over me.
3. He tells me that I can't do something I can do because "girls don't/can't do that."
4. He treats me like I'm made out of glass and/or a danger to myself (takes sharp things away from me, acts like I'm a child.)
5. He tells me what I should like (eg "women should like makeup/dresses/etc").
6. He makes all the decisions without consulting me.
7. He decides that we'll be having a certain kind of relationship without consulting me (trufax--I went out on a few dates with one guy over two months and he invited his parents over to meet me without telling me and insisted that I meet my new family.)
8. He speaks condescendingly to me.
9. He treats me like a sex vending machine ("I paid for dinner, so now we have sex." It's why I almost never let men pay for me.)
10. He attempts to get sexual with me without asking or even checking to see if I'm up for it.
11. He spends the date talking about his ex or some other woman in his life.

Any of that s**t happens, and I'm out of there. I should note I've had both nice men and bad boys do the previous, but at least with bad boys I can get laid if I'm willing to put up with it.

I'd prefer sex focus with the ability to listen to me and treat me like an individual. I can't speak for all women, but I'd like some demonstration of the other person being attracted to me at some point in the date. In some ways, your prototypical bad boy is at least very up front about the sex part of it--I don't have to guess why he's on the date with me, or try to perform an end-run around being treated like a mother, sister, the Virgin Mary or a figurine on a shelf. Nice men who engage in those behaviors treat me poorly AND I don't get laid or any sort of signal that they're attracted to me, which blows.

The common thread there is a lack of listening, a lack of consideration and a lack of willingness to pay attention to me and the things I say. If I don't have those things, I might as well be a rack of lamb in a dress (an object)--no thanks.

^ oh dear god, so true.

I know this guy (not someone I am/was dating, just someone I know from work) and he just won't listen/accept anything I tell him about myself, instead he tells me what stuff I would enjoy which is completely opposite of what I do enjoy and which I have pointed out a Million times, but because it doesn't suit him that someone should not like things that he likes, he just disregards it.

My ex said to me early in the relationship that he wasn't really interested in anything I had to say and then proceeded to not let me leave him for the next 8 years.

I am now wondering are there actually any sane men out there at all?