Stop Falling in Love With Potential

You can't build a relationship with the person someone keeps promising they'll eventually become.

I have a friend who is dating a man she describes almost entirely in the future tense.

He's going to communicate better.

He's going to make more time for her.

He's going to stop disappearing whenever things get difficult.

He's going to figure out what he wants.

Eventually.

I asked her something recently that I don't think she particularly enjoyed.

“Do you like the relationship you have now?”

She started telling me about the relationship they could have.

And there it was.

Potential.

Possibly one of the most dangerous things a hopeful person can fall in love with.

Because potential is beautiful.

Potential has no bad habits. It never forgets your birthday, leaves you waiting for a phone call, or says something cruel during an argument. Potential is the version of someone who has already learned every lesson you're currently begging them to learn.

Potential is very easy to love.

The person standing in front of you can be more complicated.

I think that's why we sometimes start filling in the gaps ourselves.

He's inconsistent now, but he'll settle down when work gets easier.

She doesn't communicate now, but she'll learn once she trusts me.

He isn't ready for commitment now, but eventually he'll realize what we have.

Maybe.

People change.

I've changed.

I hope I keep changing.

But there is a difference between supporting someone's growth and making their growth a requirement for your happiness.

That's the part I keep coming back to.

If someone never changes, would you still want the relationship you're in?

Not if they become more emotionally available.

Not if they finally commit.

Not if they stop doing the thing that keeps hurting you.

Exactly as they are today.

Would you choose this?

It's an uncomfortable question.

Because sometimes the answer forces us to admit that we're not actually in love with the relationship.

We're in love with its renovation plans.

And I've done this in ways I didn't recognize at the time.

I've taken promises seriously because I wanted to believe intention was the beginning of change.

Sometimes it is.

But intention without action eventually becomes another promise you're waiting on.

I don't think someone has to be finished growing before they're worthy of love.

None of us are finished.

The person I am today will hopefully embarrass the person I become ten years from now in at least a few ways.

Growth is part of being alive.

But you should not have to spend a relationship waiting for someone to become capable of participating in it.

There is a difference.

Someone actively working on themselves looks different from someone repeatedly telling you they will.

Growth has evidence.

Maybe they start the difficult conversation instead of avoiding it.

Maybe they make the appointment.

Maybe they change the behavior.

Maybe they apologize differently because this time the apology comes with something besides words.

You can see movement.

Potential asks you to imagine it.

And imagination can keep us somewhere much longer than reality ever could.

That's what worries me.

Because the future version of someone can become the reason we keep accepting the present version.

Another month.

Another chance.

Another conversation.

Another promise that this time things will be different.

Eventually you have to stop asking who someone could become and look at who they repeatedly choose to be.

Not on their best day.

Not after an argument when they're afraid you'll leave.

Not during the week after they promised to change.

Across time.

Patterns are honest that way.

I don't want someone to love the potential version of me either.

I don't want to spend my life wondering whether the person beside me is waiting for me to become easier, quieter, softer, more successful, less complicated, or whatever version of myself would finally make me enough.

I want to be loved while I'm becoming.

But I also want to be accountable for how I love people while I'm becoming.

Maybe that's the balance.

We can believe people are capable of growth without requiring ourselves to wait indefinitely for it.

We can see someone's potential without confusing it with their reality.

We can hope they become everything they say they want to be.

And still decide we can't build our life around the possibility that someday they will.

You don't have to stop believing in someone.

Sometimes you just have to stop betting your future on them.

Words of Wisdom

Fall in love with who someone consistently is, not only with who you believe they could become. People deserve room to grow, but you deserve a relationship that exists in the present tense. Believe in someone's potential if you want to, but don't make your happiness dependent on whether they ever reach it.

Until next Tuesday.

— S.