Stop dating potential

There is a piece of relationship advice that sounds sensible but has probably kept more people in unsuitable relationships than we realise:

Look at their potential.

Potential is incredibly seductive because it allows us to fall in love not only with the person standing in front of us, but with the person we can imagine them becoming. We can see the career they could build, the confidence they could develop, the parent they could become, the emotional maturity they could acquire and the life the two of us could eventually have once a few things fall into place.

Perhaps they are brilliant but unmotivated. Talented but inconsistent. Full of ideas but terrible at following through. They desperately want to start a business, change careers, get their finances under control, become healthier, communicate better or finally deal with something that has been holding them back.

You can see exactly what is possible.

The problem is that potential exists almost entirely in the future, while relationships have to be lived in the present.

A much better question is not, what could this person become?

It is:

What does this person repeatedly do with what they already have?

Almost everyone has potential

Potential sounds like a rare and valuable quality until you realise that almost everybody has it.

Most people could become fitter, wealthier, more emotionally mature, more successful, more organised or better at relationships under the right circumstances. Many people have ideas they could turn into businesses, talents they could develop or opportunities they could pursue.

That tells you very little about what they actually will do.

This is why potential is such a dangerous dating criterion. It asks you to give someone credit for outcomes that haven't happened yet.

Someone may have the potential to be extraordinarily successful, but do they consistently work towards anything?

They may have the potential to be a wonderful partner, but what happens when you raise a difficult issue?

They may have the potential to become financially secure, but what do they currently do with the money they have?

They may have the potential to become a fantastic parent, but how do they handle responsibility now?

Potential tells you what is theoretically possible.

Behaviour tells you what is actually happening.

Ambition is different from potential

This distinction came up beautifully in Lesa Milan's recent conversation with Carlos King.

Milan spoke extensively about being attracted to ambition rather than simply money or status. Her argument was that someone didn't necessarily need to have already made it. What mattered was whether they possessed an internal drive to build something.

That is much more interesting than dating someone because you think you can see their potential.

Potential is something you see in them.

Ambition is something they demonstrate themselves.

You shouldn't have to convince an ambitious person to want more for their own life. You may disagree about how they should get there, their plans may change enormously and they may fail repeatedly, but the desire to move forward belongs to them.

That matters because there is an enormous difference between supporting someone's ambition and becoming responsible for activating it.

Listen to the dream, then watch the behaviour

People are very good at describing the person they intend to become.

They are going to launch the business.

Write the book.

Get the qualification.

Sort out their finances.

Leave the job they hate.

Go to therapy.

Stop drinking so much.

Become more present.

Spend more time with the children.

Get serious about their health.

Finally deal with the thing they've been avoiding.

Some of those people absolutely will.

Others will still be describing approximately the same future version of themselves five years from now.

The difference is usually visible in behaviour.

Someone genuinely trying to build a business may still fail, but there will probably be evidence that they're building one. They're researching, testing, learning, contacting people, saving money, creating something or trying different approaches.

Someone genuinely trying to become better at relationships may still become defensive during an argument, but perhaps they return later, apologise, think about what happened and gradually behave differently.

Someone trying to become financially responsible doesn't need to have lots of money. You may simply notice that they know what comes in, understand what goes out and make decisions that reflect the future they're trying to create.

Progress doesn't require perfection. It requires movement.

Behaviour matters more than the size of someone's ambition

Ambition alone isn't enough either.

Someone can have enormous dreams and still be an absolute nightmare to build a life with.

In fact, highly ambitious people can sometimes be particularly convincing because their vision is so compelling. They can describe the company they're going to build, the money they're going to make and the extraordinary life they're going to create with such confidence that you begin emotionally living inside that future too.

This is why ambition needs to be paired with behaviour.

Do they follow through?

Can they tolerate boring work?

Can they persist after the excitement disappears?

Can they make sacrifices for something they claim to want?

Can they change course when something isn't working?

Can they take feedback?

Do they accept responsibility when they make mistakes?

Are they able to delay gratification?

Do their everyday choices make sense in the context of the future they keep describing?

Someone who wants extraordinary things but consistently behaves in ways that make those things less likely isn't showing you ambition in any useful sense. They're showing you aspiration.

There is a difference.

Be careful when you become the engine

One of the clearest signs that you may be dating potential rather than behaviour is that you find yourself becoming increasingly responsible for the other person's progress.

At first, it may feel supportive.

You encourage them.

You help with the CV.

You research the course.

You find the therapist.

You make the spreadsheet.

You introduce them to somebody useful.

You help with the business plan.

You remind them about the application.

You explain why this opportunity would be good for them.

None of those things is inherently problematic. Partners should help each other, and some of the greatest relationships involve two people spotting possibilities for one another that they might never have seen alone.

The question is what happens after you've helped.

Do they take the opportunity and run with it?

Or do you have to keep pushing?

Because there is a point at which support quietly becomes management.

You stop standing beside someone's ambition and start supplying it.

You become the strategist, motivator, organiser and accountability system for a life that isn't actually yours.

Then, if you stop pushing, everything stops.

That's important information.

Don't confuse loving someone with believing in them indefinitely

There is something incredibly loving about seeing possibilities in another person.

Sometimes we genuinely do see strengths in our partners that they cannot yet see in themselves. A good relationship can give someone enough security, encouragement and practical support to do things they might never have attempted alone.

But belief needs some contact with reality.

If you have been believing in someone's future for years while their behaviour remains largely unchanged, it may be worth asking whether you're in a relationship with the person or with your prediction of who they'll eventually become.

This is particularly difficult when there is always a plausible reason things haven't happened yet.

They haven't found the right opportunity.

Work has been stressful.

Money has been tight.

The timing hasn't been right.

Their childhood made this difficult.

They haven't had enough support.

They just need another chance.

Any one of those things may be completely true. Life circumstances genuinely affect what people can achieve, and progress is rarely neat or linear.

The question isn't whether someone has achieved everything they hoped to achieve.

The question is whether their behaviour shows that they are participating in their own life.

Look at direction, not destination

This is also why dating ambition plus behaviour shouldn't become another way of saying, Only date successful people.

Someone can be at the beginning of their career and be an extraordinary partner. They can be rebuilding after redundancy, changing industries, raising children, studying, recovering financially or simply still figuring out what they want.

Another person can have an impressive title, enormous salary and beautiful home while being completely stagnant.

Current position and direction are not the same thing.

If you're trying to understand where someone is going, look at the pattern rather than the snapshot.

What have they done over the last few years when things haven't worked?

Do they adapt?

Do they learn?

Do they blame everyone else?

Do they finish things?

Do they make decisions?

Can they recover from failure?

Do they keep promises to themselves?

Do they take responsibility for improving situations they're unhappy with?

The answers tell you considerably more than whether they have reached some arbitrary milestone by a particular age.

Apply the same standard to emotional potential

We tend to talk about potential in relation to careers and money, but emotional potential may be even more consequential.

Someone can have the potential to be a wonderful partner.

Perhaps you see flashes of enormous tenderness and emotional intelligence. They can be incredibly loving when things are good, and occasionally you have conversations that make you think, There you are. That's the person I know you can be.

Then conflict happens and everything disappears again.

This is where it is particularly important to look at patterns.

If someone says they want to communicate better, are they learning how?

If they know they become defensive, are they doing anything about it?

If they apologise for the same behaviour repeatedly, does the behaviour eventually change?

If they know something from their past is affecting the relationship, are they willing to address it?

Again, nobody needs to become perfectly emotionally regulated before deserving love. We are all works in progress, and most long relationships involve watching each other grow through some fairly unattractive stages.

But there should be some relationship between insight and behaviour.

An apology without eventual change can become another form of potential. It keeps asking you to invest in the person somebody promises they are becoming.

You are allowed to evaluate the relationship you actually have

One of the hardest things about dating potential is that leaving can feel unfair.

You can see how good the relationship could be.

Perhaps you know exactly what would need to change. Maybe the gap between what you have and what you want seems tantalisingly small.

If they could just become more consistent.

If they would finally deal with their finances.

If they would communicate.

If they could commit.

If they would take their career seriously.

If they would get help.

If they would stop doing that one thing.

Then everything could be wonderful.

But compatibility cannot be based entirely on the condition that somebody eventually becomes different.

You are allowed to evaluate a relationship using the person who exists now.

Not because people can't change.

People change enormously.

But meaningful change belongs to the person doing it.

Look for evidence, not perfection

None of this means you should only date the finished product. There is no finished product.

A good partner will have weaknesses, unfinished plans, insecurities, bad habits and things they haven't figured out yet. So will you.

The point is not to find someone who already has everything.

It is to pay attention to the relationship between what they say matters to them and how they actually live.

If they say family matters, how do they treat family?

If they say their career matters, what do they do about their career?

If they say financial security matters, what does their financial behaviour look like?

If they say your relationship matters, what happens when maintaining it requires effort rather than words?

If they say they want to change something about themselves, what happens after the conversation ends?

You don't need perfection.

You need enough evidence to know that you're not the only person investing in their future.

Potential can be exciting. Ambition can be attractive. Dreams can give a relationship an enormous sense of possibility.

But the safest thing to build a life around is considerably less glamorous.

Look for someone whose behaviour already contains evidence of the person they say they want to become.

Because you can support someone's growth, encourage their ambition and build extraordinary things together, but you should never have to spend a relationship dragging somebody towards a future that only you can see.