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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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Silence can pose a greater threat than the difficult truth.
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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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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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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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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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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.
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Anxiety is extremely contagious, but so is calm.
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deception and 'con games' are a way of life in all species and throughout nature. Organisms that do not improve their ability to deceive - and to detect deception - are less apt to survive.
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Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to.
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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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If you pursue a distancer, he or she will distance more. Consider it a fundamental law of physics.
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Through words we come to know the other person--and to be known. This knowing is at the heart of our deepest longings for intimacy and connection with others. How relationships unfold with the most important people in our lives depends on courage and clarity in finding voice.
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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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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.
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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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Intensity is not the same as intimacy, although we tend to confuse these two words.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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