Quotes About Connection

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

The caring, protective elements that foster love often block the unselfconsciousness that fuels erotic pleasure.

We have hundreds of virtual "friends" but no one we can ask to feed the cat. We are a lot more free than our grandparents were, but also more disconnected.

At one time you pursued Stephanie with great creativity, but no more. There's an assumption—and you're not alone—that we need only pursue what we don't yet possess. The trick is that in order to keep our partner erotically engaged we have to become more seductive, not less.

When we cordon off our erotic interiors, we are left with sex that is truncated, devoid of vibrancy, and not particularly intimate. What people fail to see is that dull, boring sexual relationships are often a consequence of shutting down the imagination in just this way.

Erotic intelligence is about creating distance, then bringing that space to life.

When people live on top of each other, there is no isolation to transcend, and they are far less interested in embracing western, middle-class ideals of intimacy. Their lives are entwined enough as it is.

trust is also a leap of faith—"a risk masquerading as a promise,"7 as Adam Phillips writes.

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.

When people become fused—when two become one—connection can no longer happen. There is no one to connect with. Thus separateness is a precondition for connection: this is the essential paradox of intimacy and sex.

Erotic, emotional connection generates closeness that can become overwhelming, evoking claustrophobia. It can feel intrusive. What was initially a secure enclosure becomes confining. While our need for closeness is almost as basic as our need for food, it carries with it anxieties and threats that can inhibit desire. We want closeness, but not so much that we feel trapped by it.

Erotic excitement requires that we be able to step out of the intimate bond for a moment, turn toward ourselves, and focus on our own mounting sensations. We need to be able to be momentarily selfish in order to be erotically connected.

temporalmente

Rather than inhibiting a couple's sexuality, recognizing the third has a tendency to add spice, not least because it reminds us that we do not own our partners. We

Today we have sex because we're in the mood, we feel like it—hopefully, with each other; preferably, at the same time; and ideally, with unflagging passion for decades on end.

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 imbue our partner with godly attributes and we expect him or her to uplift us from the mundane to the sublime, we create, as Johnson puts it, an "unholy muddle of two holy loves"4 that cannot help but disappoint.

It's hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned her sense of autonomy. Maybe he can love her, but it's clearly much harder for him to desire her. There's no tension.

There is beauty in an image that highlights a connection to oneself, rather than a distance from one's partner.

I've observed an interesting connection between my patients' responses to betrayal and the type of justice they are likely to seek. Some mourn the loss of the connection. "I'm hurt because I lost you." Others mourn the loss of face. "I can't believe you made such an idiot of me." One is a relational injury; the second, a narcissistic one. Wounded hearts; wounded pride.

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

The romantics refuse a life without passion; they

We look to our partner as a bulwark against the vicissitudes of modern life. It is not that our human insecurity is greater today than in earlier times. In fact, quite the contrary may be true. What is different is that modern life has deprived us of our traditional resources, and has created a situation in which we turn to one person for the protection and emotional connections that a multitude of social networks used to provide.

Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity.