Quote

Being who we are requires that we can talk openly about things that are important to us, that we take a clear position on where we stand on important emotional issues, and that we clarify the limits of what is acceptable and tolerable to us in a relationship.

Harriet Lerner

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Harriet Lerner
Important
Emotional
Things
Relationship
Position
Clarify
Stand
Tolerable
Issues
Openly
Clear
Acceptable
Talk
Requires
Take
Limits

More quotes by Harriet Lerner

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Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.
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If you pursue a distancer, he or she will distance more. Consider it a fundamental law of physics.
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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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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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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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Intensity is not the same as intimacy, although we tend to confuse these two words.
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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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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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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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Many of our problems with anger occur when we choose between having a relationship and having a self.
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Men are often (though not always) the pursuers for sex, just like women are often (though not always) the pursuers for conversation.
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What initially attracts us and what later becomes 'the problem' are usually one and the same.
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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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Differences don’t just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us.
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As many have observed, it is easy to tell a lie, but it is almost impossible to tell only one.
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Kids want nothing more than for all the important adults in their life to get along.
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Often when someone apologizes - like a parent who says to a child, I'm very sorry I neglected you when you were a kid - they also ask, Do you forgive me?, because they want the other person to be over it. However, healing can take a great deal of time. And if we forgive too quickly, we cut the process short.
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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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The miracle is that your children will love you with all your imperfections if you can do the same for them.
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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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