Introduction

When clients come to therapy, they have different expectations of what change looks like. This article is meant to help clients envision what this change looks like in their relationships or marriages. This also addresses the frustration a partner may experience due to the actions of their partner, who seems bent on refusing to change or does not see or want to see the need for change. It may or may not meet their standards of what constitutes change. My hope in writing this article is to bring the client to the realisation that change can be subtle and silent. I also hope to encourage those who honestly question the changes that their partners profess to have made. It can be challenging to believe that your partner has changed and abandoned the life that caused you misery. Understandably, this can be difficult. I hope to encourage such individuals to view their partners’ changes in a different light. This paves the way for healing the relationship. Change is constant in human existence, and yet it is the one constant thing with which we are not comfortable.

I have on several occasions been asked by my clients, “Do people really change?” This question seeks to establish whether the relationship is salvageable or not. Can your partner change for the better? This article does not discuss the change in which someone who was nice becomes bad. The change I am concerned with is that of someone who was bad becoming good and the subsequent struggle to believe in their partner’s change. As I contemplate on this question sitting in front of my laptop, a Biblical text rings out loud enough for me to not ignore it: “can a leopard change its spots or an Ethiopian the colour of his skin?” I must clarify that applying this biblical text to this discussion is a misinterpretation of the scriptural context. Therefore, I will not discuss that biblical text.

The question my clients asked me was not a philosophical question for them. It was not asked casually either. It was asked in a way that one would ask when something in their life is not working anymore – when one has tried, and tried again and again and is not sure that anything will be different this time around. The client sat across from me, shoulders slightly raised as if bracing for impact, and eyes searching my face for something. Perhaps it was a search for certainty or permission. I noticed the tension in my body as I considered how to respond. This is not because I do not believe in change, but because I know that belief alone is not enough for this client who is asking the question. You may have been in the same position as my clients before or are currently experiencing it. You may not have those exact words. However, something close to it:

• Will this therapy help me?
• Or will I end up discussing the same things again?
• Am I capable of changing?
• Is my partner capable of change?

These are not trivial questions. This is why I experienced some tension before answering the client’s question. And they deserve an honest answer. “Not always in the way we expect”, came my reply. “But yes. People change.” People can change for the better. A relationship that seems destined to fail can be revived. A marriage that is on the rocks can be rescued and thrive afterwards. This is not just another motivational speech that seeks to arouse hope in people. Rather, this is a conviction that is based on the evidence I have seen over the years in the application of psychotherapeutic interventions.That moment has remained with me to this day. It is still fresh to this day, not as a clinical success or failure, but as a mirror. Because the truth is, my conviction about change didn’t come from textbooks or training. It came from watching it happen quietly, almost imperceptibly, in the lives of others and in myself.

The Idea People Have About Change

Many people come into therapy imagining change as something big. A breakthrough. A turning point. They imagine it as a moment when everything suddenly makes sense and feels different. A transformation perhaps. Change is imagined as people walking out of therapy somehow “fixed”, lighter, clearer, and resolved. While these moments can occur, they are not the foundation of change.However, some people find it difficult, if not impossible, to imagine that people can change. And I get it. This is especially true for those who have been betrayed in their relationships. They simply cannot see their partner change. First, they do not understand why the person they loved and committed their lives to has turned out to be the person who makes their lives the most miserable. You trusted your partner. They betrayed you or broke what held you together. You find it difficult to trust them, even when they seem repentant and remorseful. You struggle to ascertain whether this change is believable. The question, “do people really change” in this instance carries a lot of weight. What they are essentially asking is, “Can I trust this person again? What guarantee is there that this person will not break my heart again?”

What Change Actually Looks Like

I have learned that real, lasting change rarely occurs all at once. It builds. As I have come to understand, change is rarely loud. It does not announce itself. It whispers. Change occurs when the client pauses before responding instead of reacting instantly. It’s the moment someone says, “I guess I handled that differently this time.” It’s the shift from “I can’t” to “Maybe I could try.” It is often so subtle that both the client and the therapist almost miss it.

In therapy, change often begins in ways that are easy to overlook. It may appear as follows:

• Pausing for a second before reacting 
• Saying something you would normally keep to yourself. 
• Handling a situation slightly differently than you did previously.

Initially, these moments do not feel significant. In fact, many people dismiss them, thinking that it is not a big deal or that anyone could have done that. However, these small shifts matter more than they seem. Because they are not random, they are signs that something is already changing.

My Own Resistance to Change

Writing this as a therapist feels incomplete if I do not acknowledge that I have not always been comfortable with change myself. There were times early in my career when I wanted clients to change faster than they were ready to change. I disguised it as hope, but underneath it was discomfort. Their pain stirred an urgency in me to move them forward and help them escape the pain and disappointment that they were experiencing. However, my solution-focused training and practice taught me that change does not come from pushing harder. Rather, change comes from noticing what is already shifting. This required me to slow down and trust the process. Trusting the process meant that I had to believe that even the smallest movements mattered. Perhaps most importantly, it required me to let go of the idea that I am the one who creates change. I don’t create change. The clients do. Couples who come to therapy create the changes they want in their relationships or marriages. I play my role, but they create change through their participation. I provide an enabling environment for them to create change.

The Shift to Solution-Focused Thinking

When I began practising from a solution-focused perspective, something changed for my clients and me. This is the change that I observed. Instead of me asking the client “What’s wrong?” I started asking, “What’s already working, even a little?” I know that sometimes the pain may be so great that one cannot see moments when things were already working. It is difficult to find anything good in a relationship when one is undergoing a depressingly terrible experience. Therefore, I do not force anyone to see these moments. With time and patience, the client can find these moments. What I did was to listen for exceptions instead of analysing the problems in depth. The exceptions are brief moments when the problem loosens its grip.Initially, this shift felt almost too simple. Could this be the beginning of the change? However, I saw it happen. A client who believed they were “always anxious” admitted there were ten minutes each day when they were not. We explored those ten minutes, expanded them, and gave them weight. Another client who was convinced that they were “bad at relationships”, described one conversation that went well. We stayed with that. Not failures, but possibilities. Slowly, something remarkable unfolded for the client. They began to view themselves differently.

Change as Recognition, Not Reinvention

I have come to believe that people do not need to become someone new for us to believe that they have changed. On the contrary, these people need to recognise parts of themselves that have been overlooked, dismissed, or buried. Therefore, my goal in every therapy session is not to construct a new identity for someone. I am there to help them notice what is already there. I am there to show them the strengths that they have minimised. I am there to help them see choices they did not realise they were making, as well as moments of resilience they brushed aside. Thus, change becomes less about transformation and more about alignment.

When I say that change is about alignment, I am not lowering the bar. I’m refining it. Alignment means:

• Your actions begin to reflect what matters to you.
• Your internal experience becomes less contradictory to how you live your life.
• You recognise your capacity, where you once saw only limitations.

This may appear small from the outside. However, from the inside, it can be profound. I’ve seen clients:

• Speak up once after years of silence.
• Set a single boundary.
• Choose not to engage in a familiar destructive pattern.

If measured against “transformation”, it may seem insufficient. If you understand it as alignment, it is significant. That may sound less grand, but it is more honest. In my experience, this is more sustainable. I do not sell or frame therapy as transformation because this can unintentionally create a gap between expectations and lived reality. Framing therapy as a transformation may lead the client to think the following:

• “If I were really changing, it would feel bigger than this.”
• “Why am I still struggling if therapy is supposed to transform me?”
• “Maybe I’m the problem.”

I have sat with enough clients to know that some of the most meaningful changes feel almost underwhelming at first. They don’t arrive with a sense of “I’ve transformed.” They arrive as “Huh… I handled that differently.”

I would not dismiss the term “transformation” outright. What I would like to ask is what you mean when you talk about transformation. If by transformation, you mean the following:

• A client no longer experiences distress at all.
• A personality overhaul.
• A complete reinvention

Then, I would argue that it is not only unrealistic, but it can also be quietly harmful. However, we may be using different terminologies but speaking the same language if transformation means the following:

• A shift in the way clients relate to their thoughts.
• Increased agency in their choices
• A different narrative about themselves

A Moment That Stayed with Me

An example that I can give to illustrate this is one where a client comes to therapy, convinced that nothing in their life is working. The client speaks in absolutes—always, never, and nothing. However, in a session, almost in passing, the client mentions getting out of bed on a particularly difficult day. The therapist pauses. “That sounds important.” The client shrugged. “It’s not. I had to.” However, staying with that point, the therapist explores the following questions:

What does it take to get out of bed?
What does this say about you?
What would it mean if that small act is not dismissed?

Over time, this moment became a turning point. Not because getting out of bed solved everything but because it disrupted the narrative of helplessness. The client began to see themselves not as someone who could not cope but as someone who was already coping to some extent.

The Quiet Invitation of Therapy

If you are reading this and wondering whether therapy is “for you”, I will not tell you that it will change your life overnight. It might not. What therapy might do for you is something both simpler and more profound. It may help you notice the parts of your life that are already beginning to change. It might give you the language for things you have felt but never articulated. It might help you see patterns that you have been too close to recognise. Therapy might create a space where small shifts are not dismissed but are amplified. Sometimes, that is enough to start everything else. You can contact me if you wish to undergo couples therapy with me to experience this change.

Returning to the Question

The question that I asked at the beginning of this article is something that I often ponder. “Do people really change?” If I were asked the same question today, I might answer it differently than I did before. This is how I might answer it: “Change is already happening. The question is whether we’re paying attention to it.” I might answer it that way because, in my experience, change is not something therapy imposes. This is something that therapy reveals.

Why This Matters

As a therapist, I do not sit across from clients as someone who has mastered change. I sit there as someone who has learned to notice, trust, and help others see change in themselves. If there is one thing that I hope a reader takes from this, it is this: You do not have to wait until you are “ready” or “sure” or “broken enough” to begin. Sometimes, the first step is not changing your life. It is simply being willing to look at your life and marriage differently. And that, quietly, is where change begins.

I hope this has been helpful in conceptualising change. I will delve further into this topic in my upcoming e-book. The e-book is a practical guide to hope, trust, and growth for women in cross-cultural relationships. The book includes practical reflections on the same. Please let me know if you would like me to inform you when it becomes available. Until then, do not despise the days of small beginnings.