Quotes About Relationships

To Felicity, she saw now. Love was something that only really happened within the pages of a book. For long periods of Elle's life, she'd thought that was true, too. But it wasn't. It was you and him, the two of you, a team to face the world together, and that was what she'd been looking for all those years; not an idol, or someone to lust after, or someone to fix her

I looked out at the children in the playground below my window: They were running around yelling in the sunshine, and I reflected on how blokes always get the women they want by chasing them until they give in. I'm always amazed that so many men—usually the ugly ones—are convinced they could pull Claudia Schiffer if they were given the chance, while someone gorgeous ... is always convinced blokes don't fancy her. It rarely happens the other way round.

I did my MA on Elizabethan women who demanded to choose their husbands. It really annoys me, that it's basically the same thing today. Who are we going to end up with? [...] It's a race,and everyone else is on the tracks and I'm at the wrong venue, with the wrong shoes on

When we do not put our primary emotional energy into solving our own problems, we take on other people's problems as our own.

Intimate relationships cannot substitute for a life plan. But to have any meaning or viability at all, a life plan must include intimate relationships.

Truth is, nothing you say can ensure that the other person will get it, or respond the way you want. You may never exceed his threshold of deafness. She may never love you, not now or ever. And if you are courageous in initiating, extending, or deepening a difficult conversation, you may feel even more anxious and uncomfortable, at least in the short run.

Why must they share their uncensored reactions?" She was referring to the corrosive criticism that wears couples down as they selectively attend to what bothers them in a partner rather than speaking to what they appreciate and admire. And she was referring to the raw, unbridled emotional exchanges that, when unchecked, erode intimacy and connection in family relationships.

All the assertiveness training and communication skills in the world can't prevent a relationship from becoming fertile ground for silence and stonewalling, or for anger and frustration, or for just plain hard times. No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human. We can influence the other person through our words and silence, but we can never control the outcome. That said, what we can

We commonly confuse closeness with sameness and view intimacy as the merging of two separate "I's" into one worldview.

Our goal will be to have relationships with both men and women that do not operate at the expense of the self, and to have a self that does not operate at the expense of the other.

In my professional work I am struck by how often sibling relationships fall apart around the life-cycle stage of caring for elderly parents, and dealing with a parents death and it's aftermath. Failed apologies have the most serious consequences at stressful points in the life-cycle, and loss is the most challenging adaptational task that family members have to come to terms with.

Yet all of us are vulnerable to intense, nonproductive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family—in particular, losses and cutoffs.

Working to restore our voice with members of our first family can be a terrific learning experience. We didn't choose these difficult folks, but, as adults, how we talk to them is up to us. Observing and changing our part in family conversations is one royal road to change. In other words, if you can learn to speak clearly and to respond in a new way with your difficult mother or sister, then other relationships will be a piece of cake.

Remember that women have a long legacy of assuming responsibility for other people's feelings and for caring for others at the expense of the self. Some of us may care for others by picking up their dirty socks or doing their "feeling work"; some by being less strong, self-directed, and competent than we can be so as to avoid threatening those important to us. Changing our legacy is possible but not easy. Think small to begin with, but think.

Separateness" does not mean emotional distance, which is simply one means of managing anxiety or emotional intensity. Rather, separateness refers to the preservation of the "I" within the "we" - the ability to acknowledge and respect differences and to achieve authenticity within the context of connectedness.

The challenge in all intimate relationships is to preserve both the "I" and the "we" without losing either when the going gets tough. If we're faced with a choice, we need to choose speech over silence, keep our behavior in line with our stated values and beliefs—and save ourselves first.

Neden sorunlar?m?z? ve seçeneklerimizi belirleyip konumumuzu aç?kl??a kavuÅŸturmak yerine, kronik kavgac? ve ÅŸikayetçi kiÅŸiler oluyoruz? Hay?r, kad?nlar kurban edilmiÅŸ, altta kalm?? konumlar?ndan mazoÅŸist bir zevk alm?yorlar. Tam tersine; tahterevalli evliliÄŸinin alt ucunda oturan kad?n, pes etme ve özveride bulunma düzeyiyle doÄŸru orant?l? bir öfke biriktiriyor içinde.

We begin to use our anger as a vehicle for change when we are able to share our reactions without holding the other person responsible for causing our feelings, and without blaming ourselves for the reactions that other people have in response to our choices and actions. We are responsible for our own behavior.

Real closeness occurs most reliably not when it is pursued or demanded in a relationship, but when both individuals work consistently on their own selves. <...> Working on the self includes clarifying beliefs, values, and life goals, staying responsibly connected to persons on one's own family tree, defining the "I" in key relationships, and addressing important emotional issues as they arise.

Differences don't just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us. Indeed, differences are the only way we learn. If our intimate relationships were composed only of people identical to ourselves, our personal growth would come to an abrupt halt.

All of us are vulnerable to intense, non-productive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family—in particular, losses and cutoffs. If we do not observe and understand how our triangles operate, our anger can keep us stuck in the past, rather than serving as an incentive and guide to form more productive relationship patterns for the future.

A marital therapist recently teased me, "Are you writing another book to help women speak up? I'm trying to help my clients be quiet." Then she said more seriously, "Why do people think they have to tell each other everything they feel?

Change is an anxiety-arousing business, both for the one doing the changing and for those affected by the change. Often we fear that another person's move toward new ideas and experiences will create a gulf so wide that we will not be able to reach them.

we reduce anxiety in one relationship by focusing on a third party, who we unconsciously pull into the situation to lower the emotional intensity in the original pair. For