For some reason, many of us think that when we’re in a relationship with someone that they need us to see potential in them and to have faith.

Now it’s not that I’m killing off hope and optimism but sometimes when we’re betting on potential, we’re taking a blank piece of paper, designing our ideal man and our ideal relationship, and pinning it on our current man.

It’s not that you shouldn’t have faith in someone but there’s a big difference between trusting someone and having faith that they’ll act in their own and your best interests when you’re in a committed relationship with them…and having faith that someone will be more than they currently are, not because they want to be and are trying to be, but because you want them to be so it will fit in with your idea of the type of relationship you should get from them…even if it’s not on offer.

As I’ve said before in the numerous posts on betting on potential, you’re either stuck in the past or dreaming in the future.

I wish he’d go back to what he was like in the beginning.

When he’s got his sh*t sorted out, things will be so much better and he’ll be able to love me the way I want.

Here’s the deal: the man he has been consistently is likely to be the man you’ll get.
Actions speak louder than dreams, illusions, and potential.

Trust is about having faith in how others will act but you learn what to expect from someone’s consistent behaviour, so this is what you have to use as your frame of reference when determining how much faith you should have in them.

It’s nice that you see such greatness in him, but it’s time to get real.
Everybody, well certainly most people, acts their best at the beginning of the relationship. It’s called the honeymoon period for a reason! Then you relax and get to know each other and the relationship builds.

Or…with certain people, ie Mr Unavailables and assclowns, they control the relationship by blowing hot and cold, so that they can manage down your expectations. When you expect, need, or want more than they are prepared to give or offer, they withdraw in some way.

Even though they may have told you that the sun shines out of your bum, they want to marry you and have babies with you, at the beginning of the relationship, the novelty has worn off, and reality has kicked in.

When they blow hot again, there is a temporary feeling of newness but eventually the normality kicks in again and they get nervous about having to give and be too much in the relationship, so they act like assclowns so that things come down a notch or two to a comfortable level.
It doesn’t matter if they said that you are the sun, moon, and the stars five years ago if for the past four years they’ve been boomeranging in and out of your life/messing you around/cheating, whatever.

It is time to adjust your vision of things and put them in line with the reality and consistency of the person that they are.

It is time to accept.

Half of the problem with unhealthy relationships is created by resisting acceptance.

There’s no point seeing a dream relationship when you’re living a crappy reality and have had a crappy past, even if there have been fleeting highs. What basis do you have for this?

If you’re with someone for two years and they act like a twat for eighteen months, that means that you’re trying to capture the initial 25% and extend that to the majority.

You’re thinking ‘Well he was so funny and charming and loving and blah blah blah back then so obviously he’s capable of being this way’

We teach each other what to expect from each other and how to treat us. What is the point in expecting greatness where someone consistently delivers disappointment?

Talk about setting yourself up for pain!

 
Here’s the other problem: if you don’t get with the reality, you can’t actually have a real relationship and you don’t actually get to know the real person.

It’s like having a relationship in your head.

The other person thinks “It doesn’t matter what I say or do, she’s not interested in me. She’s interested in what I could be/what she wants me to be, and this woman is not really interested in ‘me’.”

The guys with less integrity and conscience say “I’ve shown her the way I am and/or told her the way the land lies and she just doesn’t want to accept it so I am free to do what I want and if she gets burnt along the way, that’s not my problem…..”

They might even say “Maybe if she was prepared to stop pushing her idea of things on me and just let things be, I might actually want a relationship with her!”

It all boils down to:

“She’s not interested in ‘me’ and I’m tired of the weight of her hope and potential. I just want to be and intend on being me”

Things change and it’s unfortunate and a bit of a pain in the arse, but it happens. Part of the relationship experience is ensuring that the hope and potential that you see is actually grounded in reality and that when things change, rather than get stuck in the past like a broken record sticking to our guns about what they were, or floating into the future and building sandcastles in the sky, you accept the reality.

You place too much faith in these guys, and others, because in lacking faith in yourself, you want them to have faith in you.

You see potential in them because it then gives potential in you. This is why when they fail to live up to the potential, we internalise and wonder what we did wrong rather than wondering whether the belief in them and the supposed potential was misplaced.

Back in part two.

Your thoughts? Do you bet on potential? Are you hoping things will get back to the way they used to be? Do you see platinum where there’s copper?

 

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