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Wherever you find a wife and mother-in-law slugging it out, you'll find a son who's not speaking up to either his mother or his wife.

Harriet Lerner

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Harriet Lerner
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More quotes by Harriet Lerner

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Many of our problems with anger occur when we choose between having a relationship and having a self.
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Anxiety is extremely contagious, but so is calm.
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It is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable so you avoid doing or saying the thing that will evoke fear and other difficult emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run but, it will never make you less afraid.
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The term girl not only serves to avoid certain anxiety-arousing connotations inherent in the word woman regarding aggression, sexuality, and reproduction, it also serves to impart a tone of frivolousness and lack of seriousness to ambitious, intellectual, and competitive striving that women may pursue.
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If what we are doing with our anger is not achieving the desired result, it would seem logical to try something different.
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Women ... have long been discouraged from the awareness and forthright expression of anger. Sugar and spice are the ingredients from which we are made. We are the nurturers, the soothers, the peacemakers, and the steadiers of rocked boats.
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Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others.
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Kids want nothing more than for all the important adults in their life to get along.
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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.
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No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human.
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It's a cliché, but also a deep truth (as cliché's tend to be), that you can't love another person very well if you don't love yourself.
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If you want a recipe for relationship failure, just wait for the other person to change first.
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Every time I open Facebook, I see a post with something like, We must forgive or be prisoners of our own bitterness and hate. People think that forgiveness is all-or-nothing, but this myth hurts people. You can forgive 10, 97, or 14 percent. Forgiveness is complicated.
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Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to.
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You can't evaluate a prospective partner if you insulate your relationship from your family and friends--and his.
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Intensity is not the same as intimacy, although we tend to confuse these two words.
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Relationships are most likely to fail when we don't address problems or hold our partner accountable for unfair or irresponsible behavior ... the ability to clarify our values, beliefs, and life goals--and then to keep our behavior congruent with them--is at the heart of a solid marriage.
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Although it's not useful to drown in despair, it's also not useful to keep a 'positive attitude' when this means concealing or denying real emotions.
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Women are raised to be the nurturers and steadiers of rocked boats, to hold relationships in place as if our lives depended on it. But it shores up your own dignity and integrity if you're able to say, There are a million things I love about you, and I want our relationship to continue. I forgive you 95 percent, but not this 5 percent.
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The happiest people are focused on living their own life (not someone else's) as well as possible.
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