Quote

In dating, if you say no, your lover goes on to the next person. In marriage, if you say no, the person stays.

Esther Perel

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Esther Perel
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 1
Author
Psychotherapist
Antwerpen
Marriage
Goes
Next
Persons
Person
Stays
Dating
Lover
Lovers

More quotes by Esther Perel

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Most affairs do die a natural death. Today, you look at your partner's phone to find out the weather, and you find out about a lover. It has never been as easy to cheat as it is today, and it has never been harder to keep a secret.
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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.
Esther Perel
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Today, monogamy is one person at a time.
Esther Perel
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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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The secret to desire in a long-term relationship
Esther Perel
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A peer relationship is one where the partners experience an affectionate, companionate coupledom. They are friends. They are the product of the egalitarian model they are good life partners, but are often less sexual.
Esther Perel
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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..
Esther Perel
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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.
Esther Perel
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Sex is about where you can take me, not what you can do to me.
Esther Perel
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You never know your partner as well as you think.
Esther Perel
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Most of us will get turned on at night by the very same things that we will demonstrate against during the day - the erotic mind is not very politically correct.
Esther Perel
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Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning.
Esther Perel
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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.
Esther Perel
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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.
Esther Perel
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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.
Esther Perel
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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.
Esther Perel
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Love enjoys knowing everything about you desire needs mystery.
Esther Perel
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When we seek the gaze of another, it isn't always our partner we're turning away from, but the person we have ourselves become.
Esther Perel
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To look at infidelity from the point of view of sex is a complete narrowing of the phenomenon. There's a reason that the commandment is repeated twice in the Bible - once for doing it and once for thinking about it. We have always created structures and broken structures. It is essential to the human spirit.
Esther Perel
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What is the relationship between love and desire? How do they relate, and how do they conflict? ... Therein lies the mystery of eroticism.
Esther Perel