Is False Hope Better Than No Hope At All?

Currently someone very close to me is in the middle of breaking up with her fiancé. It is very difficult and stressful. They live together and her fiancé is trying to break her down by continuing to talk about the situation. The relationship has been bad for a long time and ending it is really a blessing to all involved. However, her fiancé keeps rehashing everything over and over trying to change her mind. Many of us have been in the same situation. We think if we just keep talking that maybe we will say the right thing and that other person who is letting us go will change their mind. However, the continuous talking usually makes the other person want to run away even faster. I think of the Warner Brothers cartoon with Pepe LePew and the cat that is trying furiously to get away. Even as we go through the break up process there are moments that seem like maybe just maybe things can work. We can think that there is a glimmer of hope. Most of the time the other person is just giving false hope to get the other person off their back. Hope is important. It is the current expectation of a future event. The idea that somewhere down the road something we desire will happen. Sometimes hope is all some of us have. Yet, in relationships we can sometimes be lured into believing there is hope even when there is not. We can interpret things completely different that the other person. Many times in relationships we can create our own false hope. If we hang out enough, have enough things in common, exchange enough emails or phone calls eventually things will change, but they don’t . I think even when we do this we know deep down that things will never work out. It is said that people change, but rarely do they. When it comes to the false hope syndrome I think women suffer more from it than men. For some reason we will put up with a lot and believe that things in relationships are going to change when many times they don’t. I often ponder why such intelligent creatures can be so deluded at times. I have to admit that I have been guilty of creating my own false hope. Sometimes it is just easier to hang on to a sense of hope than to admit that things will never be what you want them to be. Because hope can be the reason we get out of bed in the morning. Hope can keep us going. Hope can be motivating and energizing and being in a hopeless state is depressing. In a world that seems to be desperate for hope I can’t help but wonder is false hope better than no hope at all?