Can’t Stop Changing Your Partner in Love? The Meng Hexagram’s "匪我求童蒙" (It Is Not I Who Seek the Youthful Fool) Reveals You Can’t Force Someone to Grow

A young girl came to me, saying her boyfriend had no drive to improve. She asked if the "unable to teach" theme of the *Meng* (Youthful Folly) hexagram in relationship contexts matched her situation.

She showed me a spreadsheet she’d made — a three-year "transformation plan" for him: get a professional certification in the first year, switch jobs in the second, save for a down payment in the third. The sheet was beautifully laid out, even scheduling weekly study hours down to the minute.

Three years passed. The spreadsheet was still there, but he hadn’t moved an inch.

"Am I using the wrong method?" she asked.

I told her the method was fine — she was just pointing in the wrong direction. There’s a line in the *Meng* hexagram that speaks exactly to this.

Meng Hexagram: A Spring Emerging Beneath the Mountain

Hexagram Judgment: *亨。匪我求童蒙，童蒙求我。初筮告，再三渎，渎则不告。利贞。* (Success. It is not I who seek the young fool; the young fool seeks me. At the first divination I give him warning. If he asks a second or third time, that is importunity, and I give no warning. Perseverance is favorable.)

The hexagram is *Gen* (Keeping Still, Mountain) above and *Kan* (The Abysmal, Water) below — mountain on top, water below. Spring water seeps out from beneath the mountain, blocked by the rock, unable to flow freely, with no clear direction.

That is *meng* (youthful folly). It does not mean stupidity — it means something that has not yet awakened.

You cannot dig a spring out from the outside of a mountain; you can only wait for it to find its own crack through the rock.

"It is not I who seek the young fool; the young fool seeks me"

This line is the core of the *Meng* hexagram, and it cuts the deepest when applied to relationships.

It is not the teacher who begs the unenlightened person to learn — it is the unenlightened person who comes seeking the teacher.

The ancients used this to talk about who holds the initiative in education: if a student has no desire to learn, even the greatest teacher is useless.

Applied to romance, it means: if he doesn’t come to you asking for guidance, anything you "teach" him is wasted breath.

Note the key: it’s "doesn’t come asking", not "doesn’t do as you say". He might nod along perfectly, saying "I get it, I get it" — but he’s never once asked you, "What should I do?"

Agreeing is being pushed forward. Asking is choosing to walk forward on his own.

"At the first divination I give him warning. If he asks a second or third time, that is importunity, and I give no warning"

Answer him the first time he asks. By the third time, it’s become disrespectful pestering — so you stop answering.

This isn’t the teacher being petty. It’s that someone who asks three times never wanted to change in the first place — they just want to be comforted.

This dynamic plays out constantly in relationships.

First time she says, "You need to fix this habit." He says, "Okay."

Second time she says, "Why are you doing this again?" He says, "I’ll fix it, I’ll fix it."

Third time, before she even opens her mouth, he cuts in: "Here we go again."

By the third time, what you’re saying doesn’t matter anymore — it’s just a fight over who wins and who loses.

The *Meng* hexagram’s answer is blunt: if it’s importunity, stop speaking. This isn’t the silent treatment — it’s shifting the dynamic from "I have to convince you" to "you figure this out for yourself".

Six in the Third Place: "She sees a man of wealth, and loses her own person"

Line Text: *勿用取女，见金夫，不有躬，无攸利。* (Do not take such a maiden: when she sees a man of wealth, she loses her own person. Nothing is favorable.)

Throwing yourself at someone with money and status, losing yourself in the process — that brings no benefit.

This line speaks to the opposite trap: instead of trying to change your partner, you change yourself to fit what you think they want.

You nudge your boundaries back a little, tweak your likes and dislikes, cut off your friends, quit your job. By the end, you don’t even remember who you used to be.

The *Meng* hexagram puts it plainly: *无攸利* (no benefit). There’s nothing good to gain from it.

Why "I’m doing this for your own good" turns into exhaustion

Because hidden in those five words is an unspoken assumption: I know better than you.

At first it’s true — you really do know more than he does. But say it enough times, and it hardens into a dynamic: I’m above, you’re below.

No one wants to stay in the "below" position long-term. He might go along with it on the surface, but he keeps a mental tally of every slight. Once the tally is full, he’ll turn around and pick apart every flaw of yours he can find.

In relationship contexts, the *Meng* hexagram warns of exactly this dangerous dynamic: teacher and student is an unequal relationship. And unequal relationships don’t last.

Three quick checks you can use right now

First: has he ever主动 asked you, "What should I do?" Not "Do you think this is okay?" — "What should I do?" The first asks for validation; the second asks for a way forward.

Second: how many times have you brought up the same issue? If it’s more than three, stop. Stopping isn’t giving up — it’s giving him back his own agency.

Third: when you say "I’m doing this for your own good", are you actually helping him — or just proving you’re right? Deep down, you already know the answer.

Epilogue

Later, that girl did one thing: she deleted the spreadsheet.

She told her boyfriend, "I’m not going to plan your life for you anymore. Figure out what you want for yourself, and come tell me when you know."

He froze for a long time, then asked, "Are you breaking up with me?"

She said no. "I just don’t want to be your teacher anymore."

Six months later, he signed up for a training course on his own.

That’s what the *Meng* hexagram says about relationships: you can walk beside someone as they grow, but you can’t grow for them.

When a spring breaks through from beneath a mountain, it finds its own crack.