How Long Should I Wait and Hope For Change?
When people ask the question “how long should I wait for my spouse to change?” it really encompasses a few questions:
How long is a fair chance? (…because you want to give your spouse a fair chance - and you want others to see that you’ve given your spouse a fair chance)
How long does it take someone to change?
When will what I hope for come true?
How many months before I should give up hope?
It’s a big question, and the annoyingly short answer is: Don’t wait at all. When someone shows you who they are, believe them right away and submit to their desires as revealed through their actions. Most people wait in the wrong place for far too long: one month, three months, six months, a year, five years. All of those time periods are too long to wait when you’re waiting in a holding pattern that involves any attempts on your part to influence or coerce your spouse in hopes that they will change: boundaries designed to punish your spouse instead of protect you; ultimatums that they go to counseling or other such requirements; endless discussions in hopes that one day you’ll say something that finally clicks with them; trying to woo or reward with affection, affirmation, or intimacy; trying to READ with them (trying to Reason, Explain, Argue, or Defend your thoughts, feelings, and actions); or turning it over to God while you try hard to disengage and pray. Any amount of time “waiting” while pursuing these fruitless efforts is too much time.
The truth is that you don’t have to wait or hold out hope at all. Proberbs 22:3 says “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.” What you do have to do is take your focus off of your spouse and just focus on your own growth. When you’re focusing on your spouse (e.g. Are they changing? Is this working? How are they doing?) then you are giving them power over your life. Your life is on hold while you watch them or try to help them. That gives them too much power to dictate how and what you’re doing, and it keeps them at the center of your attention, which they like, but it’s not good for you. Proverbs 13:20 says “a companion of fools suffers harm.” Keeping distance from them (emotionally and/or physically) is the best approach.
Don’t wait, don’t keep hoping. Just start living your life as though you aren’t impeded by your spouse’s behavior. When you “wait” or “hope” you are allowing your actions to hinge on your spouse. What you want (and what you want your spouse to see) is that no one is in control of what you do - you keep moving forward regardless of their behavior.
Why is “how long should I wait?” even a question?
One reason you might get hung up on wanting to know “how long to wait” is that counselors, pastors, or mentors often encourage people to put a timeline on it, fearing that, without a timeline, there’s potentially no end to the boundaries or the separation. But isn’t that the point? If there’s no change, then there’s no end. If there’s change, then the wait is over. Yet the pressure (from people helpers or from your spouse) to put a timeline on it makes it so that, regardless of whether there is change, you have to go back into an unhealthy situation at some point (as though that will make things better). All that a timeline does is that it lets your spouse know that you won’t hold them accountable forever. A timeline makes it easy for them to fake it until the deadline is up.
Another thing about the question “how long?” that you might also get hung up on is wanting to know how much time it will take for someone to change, as though, with enough time, your spouse will automatically change when time is up. But time doesn’t change people - repentance does. Waiting won’t make a difference or give them more of a chance. The truth is that your spouse has already shown you who they are. The question maybe isn’t how much time will it take for them to change - maybe the real question is: how much time do you need in order to accept the truth of who they are? What’s healthy is that when someone shows you who they are, just believe them. Why keep giving them chances to prove they are someone else? “Like tying a stone in a sling is the giving of honor to a fool” (Proverbs 26:8). If you keep giving chances, it’s probably because your spouse is telling you they are someone else, so you are believing their words and looking for evidence that they are telling the truth instead of looking for evidence of what the truth is (as revealed by their actions). Instead of clinging to what they say about themselves, adopt the mindset of “don’t tell me you’ve changed…. show me you’ve changed.” Proverbs 18:7 says “The mouths of fools are their undoing.”
A third reason your might get hung up on the question of “how long?” could be because you want your spouse to change - you want desperately for your spouse to become who you want your spouse to be because it’s what you thought you were getting, it’s what you were promised when you got married, it’s what you imagined, or it’s who your spouse says they are. But waiting for someone to change who hasn’t changed yet is an outright denial of reality. If your spouse, right now, isn’t the kind of person you would want in your life, why are you waiting for them to change into the right kind of person? Just admit the truth and go where they are leading you. They aren’t your kind of person - stop trying to turn them into your kind of person.
You might also get hung up on what other people will think of you if you don’t wait as long as others think you should (or if you wait longer than others think you should before trying to reconcile). It’s common for a spouse to start saying things like “you’re not giving me a chance” or “how can I prove myself to you when we’re barely talking?” and other such statements that imply that you aren’t being fair. It’s a way to get you to loosen up your boundaries so that they don’t have to make changes, they just have to say that they are (and that it takes time, and that they need you to give them a chance, and that they need you to focus on the effort that they’re making instead of how they’re failing, etc.- get all the tactics here).
But the truth is that they’ve had years-worth of chances, right? If they were going to change, they’ve had years to do it - but they didn’t. It’s not like this is their first chance. It’s just the first time they took you seriously. But that’s not your fault. That doesn’t mean that you have to reduce your level of seriousness (and loosen your boundaries) just because they didn’t take you seriously before and they don’t like how seriously you’re taking it now. In fact, think about it, if they didn’t take you seriously before when you weren’t doing what you’re doing now to show how serious you are (boundaries), why do you think that, if you go back to a prior level of seriousness, they will take you more seriously at a level they didn’t take you seriously at before? They won’t. They just want you to think they will. Proverbs 14:9 says “Fools mock at making amends for sin.”
Another reason that people get hung up on “how long should I wait?” is that they want to know: is it OK to call it quits? The answer is: yes. Stop playing God. You don’t play God better than God himself. When you keep trying to make something work that isn’t working, you’re trying to have control over something that you don’t have control over. And even God doesn’t do that - even when he could have control over it. What I mean is that God could control how someone thinks or feels or acts, but he doesn’t. He chooses not to control that. If God chooses not to control it, you should, too. When it’s clear that your spouse isn’t invested in the relationship, call it what it is - call it quits. Stop trying to force something to happen that even God doesn’t force. You can’t be more patient, more forgiving, or more tolerant than God.
But if you really want a timeline for how long you should wait for change, here’s what you need to know: The game is going to continue to be played until you’re done playing it, and then it’s over. That’s how long you should wait - until you’re done playing the game. Usually this is when people feel like they’ve done everything they can to save the marriage. It’s when they’ve enforced boundaries with increasingly more severe consequences until the only logical consequence left is divorce. As you keep moving forward, maintaining and enforcing boundaries, and observing your spouse’s behavior, your path will lead to a logical conclusion - either your spouse will repent or you will have reached the end the road with them. There is no timeframe that indicates "it's been long enough" - rather, the sense that "it's been long enough" comes from within you. People choose to stay based on what they're willing to tolerate or navigate. When you stop being willing to continue to play, the game is over - and the waiting is over. 1 Corinthians 5:5 says “hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.”
How long does it take someone to change?
How long does it take someone to change? Well, it takes no time at all if they really are changing. It takes time to prove change, because patterns are revealed over time. But as soon as someone realizes they need to change and they decide to do it, they can start doing things that indicate that they are changing: catching themselves in the act of doing wrong, apologizing, pursuing growth, being positive, expressing appreciation, and honoring your thoughts and feelings and opinions (all the things in this “best gift” article).
But what people tend to do instead when they say they are changing, is they tend to continue to do all the things they used to do, they just do them differently. They TALK about the effort they’re making without putting in any effort. They SAY they are sorry without making amends. They stop yelling when they’re angry, but they’re still angry. They do something good once and try to pawn it off as a new pattern (and accuse you for not noticing if you didn’t throw a party when they did it). (Read all the ways a spouse tries to look like they’re changing when they’re not). When someone decides to change, it’s obvious - there’s a shift in their energy toward prioritizing that change. If you don’t see that shift, and there is no pattern of change, and change doesn’t become their priority, then their heart isn’t in it. You have to have the mindset of “there is no ‘try’ - there’s ‘do' or ‘don’t’.” James 4:17 says “If anyone knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”
But maybe you want to make sure you’re giving them a fair chance. Then you have to ask the question “What is a fair chance?” Here’s the answer: There’s a saying that goes like this: “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me.” A fair chance is one opportunity for your spouse to get it right after having gotten it wrong. If you give them one pass and they blow it the next chance, they’re out of chances. They’ve revealed who they are. What more do you need?
Now I’m not saying it is like this all the time with everybody, but we’re talking here about someone who already has an established pattern of sinful behavior and you’re giving them another chance to prove themselves. In reality you aren’t cutting them off after their second chance, you’re cutting them off after their gazillionth chance because you’ve probably been trying to address their behavior for years. Matthew 18:15-17 says that you should point out someone’s fault between the two of you and, if they don’t listen, bring it before witnesses, and if they still don’t listen, tell the church, and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would treat someone who doesn’t know God. You’ve given them all their chances.
How long should I hope?
Regarding holding out hope for change…. honestly, you never have to give up hope. You just have to change what that hope does to your behavior. You can continue to hope that someone will change for the rest of your life - just as long as your hope for their change isn’t getting in the way of you moving forward in your life. If hoping means that you are waiting or helping or debating or discussing or engaged in trying to make your hopes come true in any way, then you are going about hope the wrong way. It’s not about doing things to make your hope a reality - it’s about continuing to live in reality while you observe your spouse’s life to see if there’s been any change.
If what you’re worried about is separating too soon or filing for divorce too soon, don’t overlook the fact that divorce doesn’t become final in a day - or even in a month. Many people resist filing for divorce because it feels like the nail in the coffin, but in reality, it’s simply another period of time that your spouse is being given to change. Filing for divorce doesn’t finalize it. It lets your spouse know that they have a limited amount of time to prove that they are engaged in the marriage before the courts say it’s over. But even once it’s over, that doesn’t mean it’s too late for your spouse to change. Your spouse can still change after a divorce if they’re committed to really changing. Just because you’re divorced doesn’t mean your spouse is out of time. It just means you’re moving forward with your life.
But really, it’s OK to wait
All of that - all of that “don’t wait for change” and “it doesn’t take any time at all to change” - that’s just from a logical perspective. From an emotional perspective, it may be important for you to feel like you’ve done everything you can to try to make it work, so don’t feel pressure to call it quits. Just because logically your spouse doesn’t deserve any more time doesn’t mean that you don’t give them more time. Many people find that they are able to accept the end of the marriage better when they know that they’ve done everything they possibly can to try to make it work. So, whatever you’re doing, it’s the way you’re meant to do it, and God has a plan that you can trust is good, because the truth is, as you try to change your situation and remain open to how God is leading you, you will find that… hope isn’t found in our situation changing… it’s found in our situation…
Want to know what to do while you’re waiting? Schedule a Breakthrough Session.
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