When Change is not on the Agenda

It can be extremely painful to realise that change is not on the agenda. You can have been holding out for days, months, even years, with the promise of change repeatedly told to you. Yet, change does not always prove to be what is on the agenda.

It was a vivid dream, that finally made what was kept hidden be put clearly to the front of her mind. There was little if any room for anything but seeing clearly what the dream revealed. All the hope that had been held on to was actually to flower as false hope. All the promises of effort and change were just words and going to remain just words.

It can and is extremely painful to realise that change is not on the agenda. Years invested, were years to be never recovered. Dreams and plans held on to and hoped for, were never going to eventuate. The expectations and the anticipations were all simply just that; expectations, and not actual real life occurrences. The pain and heartache of what was actually on the agenda cut deep.

Where once upon a time there was complete emotional trust, now there was a sense of defensiveness needed. Where once upon a time, words could be deemed to be coated in truth and reliability, now they seemed to be just simply that: words. It was hard to have trust, to have respect, to anticipate feeling loved and cherished ever again, because change truly was not at all present and on the agenda.

People often don't realise until it is too late what they have lost. They can claim to be blindsided. They can protest innocence. They can claim to be completely in the dark about the fraction that entered into their relationship, all the while the reality of their actions, and the consequences of their actions, are looking them squarely and finally fully in the face. When necessary change was continually withheld from being on the agenda, the reality of the resulting consequences finally come literally home to roost.

Perhaps it is primary human nature to protest our innocence. We desire to retain some cloaking of self deception because to face up to ourselves, and our words and actions, is ultimately sometimes too unpleasant to be confronted by. It suits to cast about for blame. It suits to cast about for reasons to justify our own lack of true commitment. It suits to never admit that change was not on our personal agenda, at the expense of what the relationship could have been.

Change involves a commitment to address habits. Change involves conscious thought and conscious behaviour. When it comes to breaking free from habits, particularly addictive or compulsive habits, it takes more than just a verbal promise to set the new in place. Time always reveals what is at the heart of any intention. Time always reveals the truth of words that were spoken. Time leaves a permanent and definitive record of whether change was ever really on the agenda.

For those experiencing the fallout of a lack of true change to revive and restore a relationship, the pain and heartache is real. The underlying devastation may be cloaked for a while in continued busyness, simply because the reality is so terribly and utterly painful. To have invested time in hope, to have invested time in patience, to have been willing to have just that bit more expectation and anticipation than was really perhaps deserved from the first and second significant signs of dysfunction creeping in, it all wounds terribly and extremely deeply. Change sometimes is just not on the agenda to ensure a relationship is saved, and the resulting wounded are deeply, extremely deeply, wounded and left to try and pick up some semblance of the pieces.