If you are asking this question, you are probably exhausted. You have likely been through enough cycles of hope and disappointment to fill years of your life. Part of you wants someone to tell you yes, it will get better — and part of you already suspects that the honest answer is more complicated than that.
This article is going to give you that honest answer. Not to hurt you, but because you deserve clarity — and because clarity, even when it is painful, is far more useful than false hope.
Why We Keep Believing It Will Change
The hope that things will get better is not a flaw in your thinking. It is a completely natural response to a relationship that has real moments of warmth, connection and genuine feeling alongside the harm.
Abusive relationships rarely feel bad all the time. If they did, leaving would be straightforward. What makes them so difficult is the cycle — tension, incident, reconciliation, calm — and the reconciliation and calm phases are what keep hope alive. When someone is loving, remorseful and attentive after a period of harm, that feels like evidence that the good version of them is the real one. That the bad version was an aberration. That with enough love, patience or understanding, the good version will eventually win out permanently.
That hope is understandable. In most cases, though, it is also what keeps people trapped.
What the Evidence Actually Shows
Research into behaviour change in abusive relationships has been consistent for decades. Genuine, lasting change is possible — but it is uncommon, it takes a very long time, and it requires specific conditions that most abusive relationships never meet.
For change to be real, it must start with full accountability. Not “I’m sorry you felt hurt” or “I wouldn’t act like that if you didn’t push me.” Full, unqualified acknowledgement that the behaviour was wrong and that the responsibility belongs entirely to them.
Sustained engagement with a structured programme must follow — not a few sessions of couples counselling, not a promise to try harder, not a period of good behaviour after a serious incident. Specialist perpetrator programmes run over many months for good reason. Behaviour entrenched over years does not shift quickly or easily.
Most critically, the motivation for change must be genuine and internal. People who engage with change programmes to avoid consequences — to stop you leaving, to satisfy a court order, to manage their image — rarely sustain that change once the pressure lifts.
The Cycle Is Designed to Renew Hope
One of the most important things to understand about the abuse cycle is that the reconciliation phase — the apologies, the affection, the promises — is not necessarily conscious manipulation. Regardless of intent, it functions as manipulation all the same.
Each time the cycle completes and things feel better, your nervous system registers relief. That relief feels like evidence that the relationship can be good. It reinforces the belief that the problem is solvable, and it resets the clock — making the next incident feel like a setback rather than a pattern.
This is why so many people describe feeling more bonded after conflict than before it. The cycle does not just cause harm — it actively rebuilds attachment at the same time.
When People Do Change
It would not be honest to say change never happens, because sometimes it does. Some people who have caused harm in relationships genuinely transform their behaviour over time.
What those cases tend to have in common is telling. The person took complete ownership without being pushed into it. They engaged seriously with specialist support over a sustained period. They accepted consequences rather than fighting them. The change showed up not just in the relationship but across their entire life — in how they treated everyone, not just the person they were trying to keep.
That is a high bar. It is meant to be. The harm caused by abuse is serious, and the standard for genuine change should reflect that.
What “Better” Usually Looks Like in Reality
For many people in abusive relationships, things do get better — but not in the way they hoped. Better comes when they leave. Better arrives when the exhausting work of managing someone else’s behaviour, moods and emotions is no longer their daily reality. Rediscovering who they were before the relationship reshaped them is where it often truly begins.
That is not the better you were probably hoping to hear about. But it is real, it is lasting, and for the vast majority of people who have been through this, it is where genuine recovery starts.
The Question Worth Sitting With
Rather than asking whether your partner will change, it can help to ask something different: what would have to be true for you to feel safe?
Not hopeful. Not cautiously optimistic. Actually safe.
If the answer requires your partner to become a fundamentally different person, that is worth sitting with honestly. People can develop and grow. Core personality does not rewrite itself.
You Are Not Responsible for the Answer
Whatever the future holds for your partner, you cannot determine it. Loving someone harder does not create change. Being patient enough, understanding enough or forgiving enough cannot do the work that only they can do.
What you can do is be honest with yourself about what you are experiencing, what you need and what you deserve. Feeling safe, respected and genuinely at ease in a relationship is not an unrealistic standard. It is the baseline — and wanting it is something you are entirely allowed to do.
