Quotes About Relationships

Our marriage is successful because it's built not on an unattainable fantasy of perfection, but out of the realization that love is created, not presented.

the upside of being a therapist's child is that nothing gets shoved under the rug; the downside

Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest. Spouses often forget this, upping the ante on their suffering—I had the kids all day. My job is more demanding than yours. I'm lonelier than you are. Whose pain wins—or loses? But pain is pain.

and I'm not sure if it's all of your annoying questions or the sadistic silences you put me through—but I feel like you get me, you know? And I don't want your head to get too big or anything, but I thought, you have a more complete picture of my total humanity than anyone else in my life.

It's no coincidence that people who had angry parents often end up choosing angry partners, that those with alcoholic parents are frequently drawn to partners who drink quite a bit, or that those who had withdrawn or critical parents find themselves married to spouses who are withdrawn or critical.

Projective identification is like tossing a hot potato to the other person. The man no longer has to feel his anger, since it's now living inside his partner.

Some people hope that therapy will help them find a way to be heard by whoever they feel wronged them, at which point those lovers or relatives will see the light and become the people they'd wished for all along. But it rarely happens like that.

How easy it is, I thought, to break someone's heart, even when you take great care not to.

High-functioning patients are those who can form relationships, manage adult responsibilities, and have a capacity for self-reflection.

The inability to say no is largely about approval-seeking—people imagine that if they say no, they won't be loved by others.

Loss of trust is harder to repair.

Relationships in life don't really end, even if you never see the person again. Every person you've been close to lives on somewhere inside you. Your past lovers, your parents, your friends, people both alive and dead (symbolically or literally) - all of them evoke memories, conscious or not. Often they inform how you relate to yourself and others. Sometimes you have conversations with them in your head; sometimes they speak to you in your sleep.

A half shelf-life for a woman is about thirty-five. The real shelf life is forty. Once you're forty and dating online, no guy who wants to have kids is willing to even meet you. Divorced guys who already have kids will meet a forty-year-old, but many of them have had vasectomies.

You know what three words are even more romantic to me than 'I love you'?" "You look beautiful?" he tried. "No," his wife said. "I understand you.")

more real in his life is allowing him to let others be more real too.

If you'd asked me when I started as a therapist what most people came in for, I would have replied that they hoped to feel less anxious or depressed, to have less problematic relationships. But no matter the circumstances, there seemed to be this common element of loneliness, a craving for but a lack of a strong sense of human connection. A want. They rarely expressed it that way, but the more I learned about their lives, the more I could sense it, and I felt it in many ways myself.

Above all, I didn't want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion — an apt phrase, given John's worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people's feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty.

think about how common it is, even in everyday situations, to be jealous of a spouse and how taboo it is to talk about that. Aren't we supposed to be happy for their good fortune? Isn't that what love is about?

symbolically or literally)—all of them evoke memories, conscious or not. Often they inform how you relate to yourself and others. Sometimes you have conversations with them in your head; sometimes they speak to you in your sleep.

Now I keep in mind that none of us can love and be loved without the possibility of loss but that there's a difference between knowledge and terror.

Being the cool girl feels like shit.

There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest. Spouses often forget this, upping the ante on their suffering—I had the kids all day. My job is more demanding than yours. I'm lonelier than you are. Whose pain wins—or loses?

Just because she sends you guilt doen't mean you have to accept delivery.

These were often the same people who later admitted that they also glanced at pinging phones during sex or while sitting on the toilet. Upon learning this, I placed a bottle of Purell in my office.)