Would you drive to a spot out in the middle of nowhere, leave $200, and drive away?

What if there were a possibility of finding between $500 and $1,000 when you got there?

People do something like this every weekend. It’s called going to Las Vegas.

The analogy is obviously imperfect, but it gets at something that can be surprisingly difficult in relationships: distinguishing what is from what could be. Sometimes we don’t stay invested because of what we’re getting, but because of what we still might get.

Consider the recreational gambler who sets a $200 limit and consciously budgets it as part of the cost of the trip. Once the $200 is gone, they stop gambling. They’re there to have fun, and gambling is part of the fun.

Simple enough.

Or mostly simple.

Maybe they take another $20 out of the ATM. Maybe they use the leftover change in their pocket to play the slots. Harmless, really. Maybe even the best-case scenario, aside from winning.

But winning presents its own problem.

Say someone is good about setting a $200 limit but starts winning. Not crazy amounts—$10 at video poker, $20 at a blackjack table. Two hours in, they’re up $500 and feeling like a baller.

Twenty minutes later their luck turns. An hour after that, they’ve given back the entire $500.

They still have their original $200 budget intact and, all things being equal, should feel fine. But if they’re human, what they’re thinking about is that they were $500 up.

Now walking away is harder.

They want to recapture it.

And technically, they can still gamble the original $200 without violating the limit they set. Maybe they’ll win it back.

There’s the problem.

Maybe.

Maybe the boyfriend who’s always stoned won’t be stoned tonight. Maybe it’s just a phase. Maybe he really will quit. Maybe things will change when he finds a job.

What’s worse than losing $200?

Losing more.

That’s why recreational gamblers set limits. The limit is established before the possibilities of the moment begin negotiating with it.

Relationships can require something similar.

The problem isn’t simply that people fail to set limits. It’s that possibilities can exert enough influence that those limits begin to lean, then shift. What could happen gradually becomes difficult to distinguish from what is actually happening.

“Maybe” draws us toward something real or imagined. And we can project a lifetime’s worth of yearning and unfulfilled wishes onto it.

Things may be disappointing here, but there—just beyond what is happening now—you could be successful, adored, understood, transformed. The relationship could finally become the relationship you imagined it becoming.

That possibility has psychological value of its own.

It’s part of why daydreams can feel so good: they haven’t been disproven yet. Nothing has been foreclosed. Something unresolved can continue to contain almost anything.

You ask someone out nine times and get nine no’s. But maybe the tenth will be a yes.

Maybe it’s just a waiting game.

Then again, maybe the odds are set by the house.

Scarcity can contribute to this. We tend to place greater value on things that are difficult to obtain, and lack itself can intensify desire. The less certain the reward, the more attention we may devote to its possibility.

This is also where confirmation bias can quietly enter the picture. When we badly want a particular outcome, it becomes easier to notice evidence supporting it and discount evidence that doesn’t.

He didn’t get stoned Tuesday.

She was affectionate this weekend.

He said he’s thinking about looking for a job.

She said maybe she wants the same things I do.

None of those things are meaningless. But neither are they necessarily evidence that the larger pattern has changed.

That distinction matters.

Hope and possibility are important parts of relationships. You wouldn’t want to eliminate them even if you could. People change. Relationships change. Sometimes patience, generosity, and another chance are exactly what allow that to happen.

But possibility is not the same thing as evidence.

When deciding whether to remain invested in a relationship—or whether to change a limit you previously set—it can help to ask a fairly simple question:

Am I responding to what is actually happening, or to what I still believe might happen?

The answer doesn’t automatically tell you whether to stay or leave. But it can help restore an important distinction.

A limit is based on what you know.

“Maybe” is a bet on what you don’t.

And sometimes the hardest part is recognizing when you’ve started spending one to purchase the other.