Hope Lost, Hope Found
Building hope, even if your spouse has lost it
“You gotta have hope!” I’ve heard that phrase so many times in my career. It is delivered to someone who is feeling pretty decimated by some bad news. Sure, hope is a great thing.
But as far as I can see, telling someone they have to have it has never led to having it.
In fact, more often than not, I hear the response, “How am I supposed to have hope, given this?”
Now sure, they mean that as a dismissive statement of impossibility. They see their situation as being impossible for hope to exist.
Which is perhaps why hope has been the subject of philosophers, theologians, and psychologists, for so long. Some wonder if hope is even something we should entertain (the nihilists), and others see it as something coming from faith (theologians). Which is perhaps why the whole subject of hope gets a bit murky and confusing for those of us trying to live our lives in the face of struggles (marital or otherwise). Is hope something you have or don’t have? Is it something you can build or discover? Heck, what IS it even??
What I do know from experience is that humans do not do well without hope. Nor does false hope help us much to move forward. So, we need hope. But realistic hope.
When we don’t have hope, there isn’t really much reason to move forward. And we start looking for hope in other directions. We need hope that badly. Not having it, we get stuck… and look for hope wherever it might come… even if that place is neither helpful nor healthy.
I asked a client, “Why did you start that affair? I suspect you knew it was a bad choice, that it would likely end badly, and that it was against your own morals.” He looked at me and said, “I gave up on marriage, felt stuck… maybe even dead. I needed some hope, some since of life. That was what the affair gave me. A little bit of hope. Sick as that is, I was so desperate to feel some hope for something feeling better.”
That is the power of hope… or a search for hope. People can act in ways that are counter to their own values and morals, if they are desperate for finding hope.
One of my favorite authors is Viktor Frankl. He was the author of Man’s Search for Meaning, recounting his time in a concentration camp. The book also lays out the importance of meaning and hope. In a concentration camp, one might imagine both are in short supply. But Frankl saw people clinging to both. He noticed those who lost hope, writing, “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future - his future - was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay.”
Wow, we waded in deep there, right?
I want to set the stage, though, for what happens when hope is lost… or even when someone gives up on hope in one place, and looks for it elsewhere (for example, lost hope in marriage, hoping for divorce to fix it).
You with me so far?
So, what is hope? It is a belief in a future moment that is better in some way from this point. Having hope for a better day tomorrow, for example. Or hope in a treatment to beat some infirmity. Or hope that a relationship can be better than it is right now.
It involves a better future. And if someone has a firm hold on that, they can go through tough moments to get there. But you have to have hope that things will improve, in order to go through challenges and tough times.
At the beginning of my career, it was pretty much, “Hope is a good thing. You need it. So get some hope.” There just wasn’t much on how to get there – how to “have hope.” Or more importantly, how to build and hold hope.
Then, I stumbled onto a psychology researcher, Charles Richard Snyder, “Rick.” It was in the early ‘90’s and Snyder had been doing research since the 1980’s on this very subject. I found his research and realized it was what you need to build and hold hope. His research took hope out of the esoteric and made it operational.
Let me give you the formula and walk you through it. Then, I have a bonus section on how to plug this into your efforts on your marriage.
The Hope Formula:
Hope = Goals + Pathway + Agency
It starts with having a goal, right? When you think about it, that is the beginning point. If you think back to that definition of hope, it is the belief that something is going to be better at some point. That “being better” involves some sort of goal. What is going to be better? How? That is the goal.
Many times, when I talk with people, they have some goal in mind… but they stop right there. This isn’t about hope, but about wishing. They wish things would get better. They can imagine what it might be like. They just don’t move beyond that.
Which brings in the next piece of the formula: Pathway.
Can you see a pathway to get there? Do you know how you might get to your goal? The strategies, the actions, the methods, the way to get there? Nothing happens if you don’t know the path to get there.
Let’s say I have a goal of going to the beach. I have a goal. Do I know how to get there? I could pull out a map, or even put it into my phone’s GPS and let that tell me how to get there. And maybe I have to decide on how I might travel – car, bike, bus, train, plane… walk?? I mean, they are all methods I could use to get there. So, I pick my mode of transportation and know the path to get there. Check, check.
Still, nothing has happened. I have the first two pieces of the puzzle. And that might be wishful daydreaming. I know my goal, the way I could do it… and here I still am. No closer. And maybe I won’t get any closer.
Maybe you know people who are planners, but never execute. I have an acquaintance that wants to write a book. Has wanted to do it for years. This person has a goal – even knows the subject and the title for the book! And there has been plenty of prep. My acquaintance has read multiple books on writing a book. This person has bought a few devices to write on… a computer (too confining), a laptop (too bulky), a tablet (too cramped).
So, what’s missing?
That last element. The willingness to actually take action, to follow the pathway to the goal. Agency.
I know people who have a goal, and are raring to go; they just don’t know how to do it. So, they have goal and agency, but no pathway. That is a matter of education and learning.
I know people who have a goal and pathway, but no agency. That one is tough. You can’t make someone want to do something badly enough to take action. But sometimes, their desire is there… they just have something blocking them from action.
How about you? What part of the equation is missing for you? Goal? Pathway? Agency?
This process of self-examination is a great way to assess what is holding you back from hope. What is it that keeps you stuck and frustrated (a sign of waning hope)? What is it that has you, perhaps, despondent and hopeless? Knowing the equation, it is easier to create a path to hope… and therefore, a path toward your goal.
And if you have a goal, you have a pathway, and you have agency… but you are still not taking action, then we look at what is blocking agency from action.
And now… not to be a downer… but… just because you have hope, even built hope, doesn’t guarantee your goal is achieved. Picking a goal and working toward it has never been a guarantee of achieving the goal. Using the Hope Formula does not magically align everything in your favor. There are still other elements at play.
But let me just turn that around for a moment: without hope – having a goal, having a path, and having agency – you are not likely to get there. Having hope doesn’t guarantee you get every goal you want. It’s just that not having hope certainly lowers getting there. Sure, you might get lucky and it just drops in your lap. But for the most part, that just isn’t how things work.
So, what if your spouse has lost hope? And how can you make a shift for yourself, find hope, build on hope, and use that to improve your marriage (and your life)?
I have some resources that can help below, for paid subscribers. If you want to make a shift, join today for a free copy of my book, Beyond The 3 Barriers, and a couple of audio trainings on actualizing hope.