Quotes About Communication

Neutralizing each other's complexity affords us a kind of manageable otherness.

Spontaneity is a fabulous idea, but in an ongoing relationship whatever is going to "just happen" already has. Now they have to make it happen.

In our efforts to protect ourselves from intimate betrayal, we demand access, control, transparency. And we run the risk of unknowingly eradicating the very space between us that keeps desire alive. Fire needs air.

Q: Are there any secrets to long-lasting relationships?     A: Infidelity. Not the act itself, but the threat of it. For Proust, an injection of jealousy is the only thing capable of rescuing a relationship ruined by habit. —Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life The bonds of wedlock are so heavy that it takes two to carry them, sometimes three. —Alexandre Dumas

When I ask her if her open marriage isn't painful, she answers, "Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's not. But monogamy—which we never negotiated, by the way—was painful, too.

By telling them not to touch I was mapping a space that would give her room to go after him. That, in turn, would give him the feeling of being desired.

For these couples, fidelity is defined not by sexual exclusivity but by the strength of their commitment.

These couples, in their own ways, have chosen to acknowledge the possibility of the third: the recognition that our partner has his or her own sexuality, replete with fantasies and desires that aren't necessarily about us. When we validate one another's freedom within the relationship, we're less inclined to search for it elsewhere.

Infidelity hurts. But when we grant it a special status in the hierarchy of marital misdemeanors, we risk allowing it to overshadow the egregious behaviors that may have preceded it or even led to it.

Rather than looking at sex as an exclusive outgrowth of the emotional relationship, I've come to see it as a separate entity. Sexuality is more than a metaphor for the relationship—it stands on its own as a parallel narrative.

In this setup, the pressure is always on the non-talker to change, rather than on the talker to be more versatile. This situation minimizes the importance of nonverbal communication: doing nice things for each other, making attentive gestures, or sharing projects in a spirit of collaboration.

With the revelation of an affair, suddenly the scoreboard of a marriage is lit up: the giving and the taking, the concessions and the demands, the allocation of money, sex, time, in-laws, children, chores. All the things we never really wanted to do but did in the name of love are now stripped of the context that gave them meaning.

temporalmente

When you pick a partner, you pick a story, and then you find yourself in a play you never auditioned for. And that is when the narratives clash.

Intimacy is "into-me-see." I am going to talk to you, my beloved, and I am going to share with you my most prized possessions, which are no longer my dowry and the fruit of my womb but my hopes, my aspirations, my fears, my longings, my feelings—in other words, my inner life. And you, my beloved, will give me eye contact. No scrolling while I bare my soul. I need to feel your empathy and validation. My significance depends on it.

When we channel all our intimate needs into one person, we actually stand to make the relationship more vulnerable.

Affairs have a lot to teach us about relationships—what we expect, what we think we want, and what we feel entitled to.

Deprived of enigma, intimacy becomes cruel when it excludes any possibility of discovery. Where there is nothing left to hide, there is nothing left to seek.

Couples therapist Michele Scheinkman emphasizes how important it is to hold a dual perspective that encompasses the differentiated experiences of the couple, something they are unable to do for themselves at this time.

We interpret the lack of sexual interest as proof that women's sexual drive is inherently less strong. Perhaps it would be more accurate to think that it is a drive that needs to be stoked more intensely and more imaginatively—and first and foremost by her, not only by her partner.

Betrayal in the digital age is death by a thousand cuts.

In our world of instant communication, we supplement our relationships with an assortment of technological devices in the hope that all these gizmos will strengthen our connections. This social frenzy masks a profound hunger for human contact.

When you ask people if they are monogamous, I suggest you ask them first what their definition of monogamy is.

From his perspective, things are clear. "I want to rebuild with you, not rehash the same things over and over." I have explained to him that repetition helps restore coherence and is intrinsic to healing;