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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.

Harriet Lerner

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Differences don’t just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us.
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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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If you want a recipe for relationship failure, just wait for the other person to change first.
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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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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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Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to stop trying to be helpful.
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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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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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The happiest people are focused on living their own life (not someone else's) as well as possible.
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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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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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We all fear change, even as we seek it.
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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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Those of us who are locked into ineffective expressions of anger suffer as deeply as those of us who dare not get angry at all.
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The first world we find ourselves in is a family that is not of our choosing.
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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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