I recently read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  It is one of the best non-fiction works I've read.  I underlined a lot of it. I posted many quotes on my Facebook & gchat statues. But the one passage I love the most is this:

"I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his hightest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the hightest potential of a man, rather than the man himself and then I have hung onto the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism."

Amen sister!