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What initially attracts us and what later becomes 'the problem' are usually one and the same.

Harriet Lerner

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Harriet Lerner
Usually
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Problem
Initially
Attracts
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More quotes by Harriet Lerner

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Anxiety is extremely contagious, but so is calm.
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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Silence can pose a greater threat than the difficult truth.
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Intensity is not the same as intimacy, although we tend to confuse these two words.
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the body, seeking truth, sends a signal. But decoding it, interpreting its meaning, and knowing how to proceed from there is another matter entirely.
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Self-help books for women are part of a multibillion-dollar industry, sensitively attuned to our insecurities and our purses.
Harriet Lerner
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I'm a good example of wanting to apologize only for my precise share of a problem--as I calculate it, of course--and I expect my husband Steve to apologize for his share, also as I calculate it. Since we're not always of one mind on the math, it can lead to the theater of the absurd.
Harriet Lerner
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The happiest people are focused on living their own life (not someone else's) as well as possible.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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Believing that all women should want to be mothers makes about as much sense as believing that all men should want to be engineers.
Harriet Lerner
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No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human.
Harriet Lerner
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We all fear change, even as we seek it.
Harriet Lerner
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Many people value criticism in the early stage of a relationship, but become allergic to it over time. Remember this: No one can survive in a marriage (at least not happily) if they feel more judged than admired. Your partner won't make use of your constructive criticism if there's not a surrounding climate of admiration and respect.
Harriet Lerner
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If you pursue a distancer, he or she will distance more. Consider it a fundamental law of physics.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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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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The bolder and more courageous you are, the more you will learn about yourself.
Harriet Lerner
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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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There are some things for which there is no apology, and on the question of slavery, there is no adequate apology for ripping people out of their homeland and bringing them here in chains. There is no adequate apology for the ongoing horrific legacy of racism.
Harriet Lerner