Finding Motivation to Continue When You Feel None
In behavioral economics, there’s a phenomenon called the “expectancy effect.”
You expect something to work, and—surprise—it’s more likely to.
Not because the thing itself changed, but because you did. Your behavior adapts.
You show up differently. You make different choices, even in the smallest moments.
And those small moments—those are the ones that quietly bend the arc of a life.
Now apply that to a marriage sitting in the wreckage of an affair.
You’ve got two people—shell-shocked, arms crossed, emotionally bleeding out.
Trust is in the negative.
Intimacy feels like a distant planet.
Every look is loaded, every silence says more than words ever could.
But then something small happens.
One of them—maybe the injured partner, maybe the betrayer—starts to want something different.
They don’t just hope blindly; they expect, in some tentative, trembling way, that this could work.
Not because they’re certain, but because they’re willing to believe.
And when that expectation takes root—behavior changes.
Take Jake and Allie.
Jake had been unfaithful.
It was an emotional affair that turned physical—something he convinced himself “wasn’t serious” until it blew up everything he thought was stable.
When Allie found out, she collapsed. First in tears. Then in silence. Then in rage.
Jake sat next to her during our couples program, watching her cycle through disbelief, sorrow, fury, and numbness.
He was drowning in shame. Part of him wanted to disappear—make it easier for her to start over.
But one afternoon, using tools she learned in our betrayed partner program something shifted.
“If there’s even a 1% chance you’ll stay,” he told her, voice shaking, “I’m not going anywhere.”
He didn’t say it like a sales pitch. He said it like a vow.
That was the moment hope shifted him.
It wasn’t that Allie forgave him right then and there. She didn’t.
But something about that moment changed the climate of their connection.
Jake stopped defending.
Stopped minimizing.
He started holding space for her grief.
When she cried, he didn’t say, “I’m sorry, but—” anymore.
He just said, “I’m here. I get it. You’re right to feel this.”
That was the moment Jake’s hope stopped being abstract.
It became behavioral.
He started writing her letters—not about what he wanted back, but about what he finally understood.
He dove deep into the work of our program for unfaithful spouses, and what came out on the other side wasn’t just remorse.
It was responsibility.
He showed up to the calls.
He asked the hard questions.
He initiated transparency.
He didn’t just try to repair the marriage—he worked to rebuild himself.
Then there’s Nicole.
Her husband had cheated six months before she started the betrayed partner program.
She’d kicked him out.
He moved into his brother’s basement.
Everyone—her sister, her best friend, the internet—told her the same thing:
“You don’t have to take this.”
And she believed them. She knew she didn’t.
But that didn’t stop her from aching.
From missing the life they had before the affair.
From missing him.
That’s the thing no one tells you about being the injured partner—you can be furious and still miss the person who broke your heart.
Nicole expected nothing.
And for six months, she got exactly that—nothing but isolation, replays of the betrayal, and conversations with herself in the shower that always ended in tears.
But one day, after beginning the betrayed partner program, something softened.
She caught herself wondering what it might look like—not to stay, but to see.
Just see. What kind of man he’d be now, if given the chance to show it.
So she emailed him. No promises. Just one line: “Are you still willing to talk?”
He responded within 10 minutes.
They met at a public park.
She laid out the boundaries—clear, fierce, unflinching.
And he agreed. Without negotiating. Without defending.
He cried when she told him the worst parts of what his betrayal had done to her.
“I don’t need you to fix this,” she said. “I need to see that it matters to you.”
It did.
That was the beginning—not of resolution, but of recovery.
Nicole’s hope wasn’t naïve. It was structured. Informed.
She had the roadmap and the language from our couples program to name her needs and hold the line.
And because of that, his remorse had room to show up and do something useful.
They rebuilt slowly.
Not with flowers and big speeches, but with weekly progress, ownership of pain, and his willingness to answer hard questions without flinching.
He enrolled in the program for unfaithful partners, and it changed him.
That’s the expectancy effect in a nutshell: belief shaping behavior, behavior shaping outcomes.
Hope is the emotional version of that.
When you believe there’s a path through the wreckage, you start moving differently in the rubble.
You don’t wait to be rescued.
You pick up a brick. You clear a path.
You make eye contact and say, “Let’s try again.”
And the more you do that, the more real the path becomes.
What began as fragile hope becomes movement.
Movement becomes momentum.
And momentum?
That’s what saves marriages—not perfection. Just forward motion.
But here’s the trickier part—the expectancy effect doesn’t demand proof before it kicks in.
It runs on something else entirely: risk.
You’re betting on something invisible.
You’re acting like the future is better before there’s evidence it will be.
That’s not delusion—it’s courage.
A couple sitting in the ruins of infidelity is actually standing on a knife’s edge between two stories: one where it ends here, and one where it becomes the beginning of something stronger.
Hope nudges you toward the second story.
It doesn’t write it for you—but it puts the pen in your hand.
And the truth is, couples who heal often look different even before they feel different.
They speak with a little less venom.
They hold eye contact for one second longer.
They ask questions like, “What did it mean?” instead of just “How could you?”
These aren’t breakthroughs. They’re footholds.
But footholds lead to climbs.
And climbs—slow, sweaty, uncertain—can take you somewhere entirely new.
It’s worth saying: the expectancy effect works in the other direction, too.
If you believe healing is impossible, if you treat your pain like a terminal diagnosis, then you’re less likely to show up, to stay open, to do the work.
And the relationship begins to behave in accordance with your expectations.
That’s why hopelessness isn’t just sad—it’s dangerous.
Because it collapses the bridge before you’ve even tested its strength.
So no, hope isn’t just a soft, feel-good emotion. It’s not a Hallmark card or a poster in a therapist’s office with a sunrise in the background.
Hope is movement. Hope is momentum. Hope is the behavioral shift that gives healing a place to land.
And if you’ve lost hope?
If you feel helpless, if you feel like it’s already too late?
Then you're exactly who we created this for.
That’s who we help. You’re not behind. You’re not broken.
You’re exactly where healing starts.
Because some of the strongest couples we’ve ever worked with began where you are now—numb, tired, and convinced it might be over.
But they reached out anyway. And everything changed.
You can create your own self-fulfilling prophecy—one where healing is possible, trust is rebuilt, and love doesn’t just survive, but deepens.
To discover more about saving yourself and your marriage join us in one of our programs for couples, the unfaithful and the injured spouse here.
References:
Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 193–209.
Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (1994). Guilt: An interpersonal approach. Psychological Bulletin, 115(2), 243–267.
Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2007). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change. New York: Guilford Press.
