Quotes About Intimacy

Most of us learn early on to think of love as a feeling. When we feel deeply drawn to someone, we cathect with them; that is, we invest feelings or emotion in them.

Erotic attention often serves as the catalyst for an intimate connection between two people, but it is not a sign of love.

In truth, true love is all about work.

How different things might be if, rather than saying I think I'm in love, we were saying I've connected with someone in a way that makes me think I'm on the way to knowing love.. Or if instead of saying I am in love we said I am loving or I will love.

Without trust there can be no genuine intimacy and love.

In a world without love the passion to connect can be replaced by the passion to possess.

The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in the other.

Most men are on quest for the ready-made perfect woman because they basically feel that problems in a relationship can't be worked out. When the slightest thing goes wrong, it seems easier to bolt than talk.

If women and girls in patriarchal culture are taught to see every male, including the males with whom we are intimate, as potential rapists and murderers, then we cannot offer them our trust, and without trust there is no love.

Trust is the heartbeat of genuine love. And we trust that the attention our partners give friends, or vice versa, does not take anything away from us—we are not diminished.

Do not expect to receive love from someone else you do not give yourself

to holding on, to knowing again that moment of rapture, of recognition where we can face one another as we really are, stripped of artifice and pretense, naked and not ashamed

When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery—that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are. . . . This kind of unmasking—speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges—is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply. —JOHN WELWOOD

To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships.

Most of us prefer to have a partner who is lacking than no partner at all. What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love.

When we choose to love we choose to move against fear--against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect-to find ourselves in the other.

Many men, especially, often turn away from true love and choose relationships in which they can be emotionally withholding when they feel like it but still receive love from someone else. Ultimately, they choose power over love.

He tells her that it is not that he does not want her to be a girlfriend but that he can see that she is not interested. She tells him that she cannot be interested when it seems that she is only a way for him to announce his own rebellion.

Since true love sheds light on those aspects of ourselves we may wish to deny or hide, enabling us to see ourselves clearly and without shame, it is not surprising that so many individuals who say they want to know love turn away when such love beckons.

He had always been emotionally unavailable and not at all interested in love either as a topic for discussion or a daily life practice, but he was absolutely confident that he had something meaningful to say on the subject.

We fail at romantic love when we have not learned the art of loving

Affection is only one ingredient of love...

intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are...This kind of unmasking-speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges-is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply.

Discipline and devotion are necessary to the practice of love, all the more so when relationships are just beginning.