Tamsen Fadal

Let's go to mistake number three, believing the fantasy of potential.

This one's going to sting.

I have to warn you that because I know so many of us, myself included, have fallen for it.

It's a mistake of dating someone's potential instead of like what's really going on there.

And it's what I did in my first marriage.

It's what I did in one of the longest relationships I had.

You guys have probably heard me on social media refer to as Mr. Big.

Here's what it looks like.

He's inconsistent.

He doesn't call when he says he's going to.

He doesn't show up when he says he's going to.

And you tell yourself, oh, once he's less busy with work, he's going to show up.

He's emotionally unstable.

But you say he just needs the right woman to try to bring him out of it.

And then my personal favorite, he's not ready now, but maybe in a year or two he will be.

I did this.

I stayed in relationships far too long because I was in love with who the man could be or could become and not who he actually was showing me all the time.

And I told myself all sorts of stories about growth and potential when in reality, nothing was changing at all.

It was like, when I go back and look at it now, I'm like, what was I doing?

But I know what I was doing.