His Potential is Not a Great Partner!

One of the great things about being a woman is that we see the potential in everyone. We see it in our friends, siblings, co-workers, spouses, boyfriends and children.

This ability to see the potential in people is a huge gift we share with the world. We believe in people. As a coach, it’s a gift I’m honored to express everyday. I do see the potential in people; they pay me to see it and help them express it.

The gift of seeing the potential in someone becomes a problem when we try to have a relationship with the potential in the person and not the person as they are today.

Why is it a problem? Because you’re actually having the relationship in your head and not living it in your heart. You’re creating a fantasy man. A man you want him to be, a man he is capable of being, but isn’t being now.

Let me give you some examples:

Suppose you’re dating a man who you know can be successful in his chosen profession. Suppose that right now, he’s just coasting. He’s not trying to get promoted; he’s just enjoying life and doing what he needs to do to get by. That’s fine, unless you want to be with a man who is successful. If you do, then you will push him, try to analyze him or motivate him or maybe nag him.

What you aren’t doing is having a relationship with the man he is today, someone who is content where he is now. You’re trying to have a relationship with his potential. And he’s not there. This relationship you are having in your head will fall apart because it isn’t real.

Let’s look at another scenario where a woman wants to have children and sees her husband’s potential to be a great father. He’s not ready. He doesn’t want to have children. She keeps pushing; he digs his heels in even deeper. But she knows he’ll make a great father. You know where that marriage is headed, to the marriage counselor’s office, if not divorce court.

A third “potential” scenario is a woman who stays with a man who isn’t nice to her. Maybe he started off nice, but now he’s not kind. He ignores her boundaries, is critical, rude and inconsiderate of her feelings. And she stays with him because she remembers him as he was – kind. But now he’s not and she’s trying to have a relationship with the part of him that has the potential to be kind. But she’s really having a bad relationship with someone who isn’t.

She’s fooling herself and isn’t really having a relationship at all. She’s caught up in a fantasy. It’s not a good relationship. An unkind man or woman isn’t capable of being a good partner and co-creating a good relationship. You can’t partner with their potential.

My Advice

Here’s the advice I have for you if you see their potential and want them to be living their potential. Accept them as they are! If you can do that, great, stay in the relationship. If they want to change, great. They’ll do it if they want to. If you can’t accept them as they are, move on. Don’t stay and frustrate yourself and make him feel badly about himself. He is who he is. And that needs to be enough for you, or move on.

My Suggestion

You can see their potential, you can believe in them, but accept them as they are. Let them be who they are. And most important, have the relationship with them as they are.

Unless they are paying you to push them to express their potential, just see it, know it and keep believing in them.

Let him be who he is. He’s going to anyway, you might as well enjoy him and quit trying to fix him. It’s a lot more fun and he might surprise you.

And if you want to work on someone’s potential, work on your own! If you can see it in others, it means you’ll be able to see it in yourself. If you’re having trouble envisioning it and expressing it, give me a call. Or call a friend, another coach or a favorite older person.

Who knows, if you give expression to your potential, you might set an example for him. He’ll see what potential looks like and the joy you’re experiencing by living it. That might encourage him to take the leap.

Don’t let your potential go to waste! Let it flourish. You’ll be electrified at the joy of expressing it.

Imagine the possibilities

© Carol Chanel