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Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance.

Esther Perel

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Esther Perel
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 1
Author
Psychotherapist
Antwerpen
Expression
Longer
Trouble
Looms
Free
Monogamy
Form
Compliance
Enforced
Loyalty

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We know desire is rooted in absence and yearning. What you don't have is often ten times richer than what you actually experience. An affair is a perfect erotic plot because it fits the erotic equation of psychotherapist Jack Morin: Attraction plus obstacle equals excitement..
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Our partner's sexuality does not belong to us. It isn't just for and about us, and we should not assume that it rightfully falls within our jurisdiction.
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It's our imagination that's responsible for love, not the other person.
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Today, monogamy is one person at a time.
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In desire, there must be some small amount of tension. And that tension comes with the unknown, the unpredictable. You can close yourself off at home and say, Whew, at last I'm in a place where I don't have to worry, or you can keep yourself open to the mystery and elusiveness of your partner.
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Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the one you are with you are not liking the person you have become.
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You never know your partner as well as you think.
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Affairs can be powerful detonators. They can invigorate a marriage that's flat, jolt people out of years of complacency. Fear of loss rekindles desire, makes people have conversations they haven't had in years, takes them out of their contrived illusion of safety.
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In my community there were two groups of people, There were the ones who did not die and the ones who came back to life.
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The secret to desire in a long-term relationship
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There is no neediness in desire ... there is no caretaking in desire. Caretaking is mightily loving, [but] it's a powerful anti-aphrodisiac.
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You know what happens to sex in marriage? Instead of inviting desire, you monitor it. Especially men: You let her sleep late, you take the kids to the park, and all that time you're thinking, Tonight I'll get some. That doesn't work.
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Sex is about where you can take me, not what you can do to me.
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Women want to talk first, connect first, then have sex. For men, sex is the connection. Sex is man's language of intimacy
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Are you asking a question because you want to know the answer or are you asking the question because you want your partner to know that you are having this question?
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Today, our sexuality is an open-ended personal project it is part of who we are, an identity, and no longer merely something we do.
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Erotic intelligence stretches far beyond a repertoire of sexual techniques. It is an intelligence that celebrates curiosity and play, the power of the imagination, and our infinite fascination with what is hidden and mysterious.
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Romantics value intensity over stability. Realists value security over passion. But both are often disappointed, for few people can live happily at either extreme.
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Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.
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Success, to me, is helping one person or many people counter the isolation and pseudoconnectivity of our lives by boosting their ability to connect to themselves and to others.
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