#231: Why You Can't Love Someone Into Changing
On Attachment
Stephanie Rigg
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, we explore the belief that if someone truly loved you, they would have changed — and why this story so often keeps people stuck in self-blame, rescuing, and self-abandonment. We look at the saviour complex, how it develops, and why real change has far more to do with timing and capacity than with how lovable or devoted you are.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why “if they loved me, they would’ve changed” is such a convincing story
- How the saviour complex shows up in relationships
- The line between compassion and self-abandonment
- Why people change when they’re ready — not when we love harder
If this resonates, you can register for my free training on healing anxious attachment here.
Transcript
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| 0:20.1 | Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking |
| 0:25.7 | about the savior complex and the trap of why wouldn't they change for me. So this episode was |
| 0:33.5 | prompted by a question that I got a couple of weeks ago on Instagram from someone in my |
| 0:38.9 | stories saying, I can't get over telling myself that my ex would have changed for me if I were |
| 0:46.8 | different, better, more lovable, whatever, any of those stories. I'm sure that many of you |
| 0:51.9 | listening have experienced that in one form or another. |
| 0:56.0 | This story of why wouldn't they change for me? If they loved me, they would have changed. |
| 1:01.7 | If they cared, they would have changed. If it really mattered to them, they would have changed. |
| 1:06.9 | They would have done the work. And it can be such a convincing story that we can tell ourselves. |
| 1:12.2 | But as we're going to talk about today, there's a lot more in that than meets the eye. |
| 1:18.0 | And it tends to be rooted in our own sense of unworthiness and in adaptive patterns that we've |
| 1:25.7 | probably had in place for a long time around needing to caretake |
| 1:30.2 | others and this sense of like if I can rescue them or keep them stable or make them happy, |
| 1:36.8 | then I will have demonstrated my worth and I'll know that I am good and loveable. |
| 1:42.5 | So there's a lot to it and we're going to talk about why this pattern might show up for you, |
| 1:47.2 | what some of the underlying pieces are that often give rise to this pattern, |
| 1:52.2 | what it costs you to tell yourself this story and to enact this pattern of trying to rescue people |
| 1:59.1 | in your relationships, and some hard truths around |
| 2:02.5 | the reality, which is that people change when they're ready to change, that it's so much more |
| 2:07.4 | about timing and capacity than it is about how much someone loves you or how much you matter |
| 2:13.1 | to them. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before we get into today's |
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