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dcc4274
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For [erotically intelligent couples], love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning. They know that they have years in which to deepen their connection, to experiment, to regress, and even to fail. They see their relationship as something alive and ongoing, not a fait accompli. It's a story that they are writi..
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time
love-story
marriage
relationships
romance
love
marriage-advice
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Esther Perel |
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2c0e49a
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Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?
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Esther Perel |
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492a23c
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Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.
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separateness
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Esther Perel |
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e08600c
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Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning.
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time
marriage
romance
love
marriage-advice
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Esther Perel |
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c6b6ef0
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Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while desire is energized by it. If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected. Love is about having; desire is about wanting. An expression of longing, desire requires ongoing elusiveness. It is less concerned ..
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Esther Perel |
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2dc0f74
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Our partner's sexuality does not belong to us. It isn't just for and about us, and we should not assume that it rightfully falls within our jurisdiction.
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Esther Perel |
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a56d972
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The grand illusion of committed love is that we think our partners are ours. In truth, their separateness is unassailable, and their mystery is forever ungraspable. As soon as we can begin to acknowledge this, sustained desire becomes a real possibility. It's remarkable to me how a sudden threat to the status quo (an affair, an infatuation, a prolonged absence, or even a really good fight) can suddenly ignite desire. There's nothing like th..
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Esther Perel |
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ba21c20
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It's hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned her sense of autonomy.
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Esther Perel |
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4bf9347
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Everyone should cultivate a secret garden.
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Esther Perel |
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1124280
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Beginnings are always ripe with possibilities, for they hold the promise of completion. Through love we imagine a new way of being. You see me as I've never seen myself. You airbrush my imperfections, and I like what you see. With you, and through you, I will become that which I long to be. I will become whole. Being chosen by the one you chose is one of the glories of falling in love. It generates a feeling of intense personal importance. ..
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Esther Perel |
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670d0a1
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We are afraid that our adult sexuality will somehow damage our kids, that it's inappropriate or dangerous. But whom are we protecting? Children who see their primary caregivers at ease expressing their affection (discreetly, within appropriate boundaries) are more likely to embrace sexuality with the healthy combination of respect, responsibility, and curiosity it deserves. By censoring our sexuality, curbing our desires, or renouncing them..
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Esther Perel |
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a9c3de0
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this is the first time in the history of humankind where we are trying to experience sexuality in the long term, not because we want 14 children, for which we need to have even more because many of them won't make it, and not because it is exclusively a woman's marital duty. This is the first time that we want sex over time about pleasure and connection that is rooted in desire. So what sustains desire, and why is it so difficult? And at th..
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Esther Perel |
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7349d2b
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We're walking contradictions, seeking safety and predictability on one hand and thriving on diversity on the other.
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Esther Perel |
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5549220
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Eroticism thrives in the space between the self and the other.
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Esther Perel |
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6156ef1
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Monogamy, it follows, is the sacred cow of the romantic ideal, for it is the marker of our specialness: I have been chosen and others renounced. When you turn your back on other loves, you confirm my uniqueness; when your hand or mind wanders, my importance is shattered. Conversely, if I no longer feel special, my own hands and mind tingle with curiosity. The disillusioned are prone to roam. Might someone else restore my significance
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Esther Perel |
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77645a1
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Like dreams and works of art, fantasies are far more than what they appear to be on the surface. They're complex psychic creations whose symbolic content mustn't be translated into literal intent. "Think poetry, not prose,"
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Esther Perel |
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89166eb
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Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are.
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Esther Perel |
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3bf9972
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We used to moralize; today we normalize, and performance anxiety is the secular version of our old religious guilt.
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Esther Perel |
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fdbfa04
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It's hard to experience desire when you're weighted down by concern.
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relationships
desire
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Esther Perel |
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fd80c2f
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In my work, I see couples who no longer wait for an invitation into their partner's interiority, but instead demand admittance, as if they are entitled to unrestricted access into the private thoughts of their loved ones
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sex
marriage
mating
sexuality
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Esther Perel |
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cc0e90e
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We expect one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide, and we live twice as long.
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Esther Perel |
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1556907
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We no longer plow the land together; today we talk. We have come to glorify verbal communication. I speak; therefore I am. We naively believe that the essence of who we are is most accurately conveyed through words.
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Esther Perel |
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465f4f9
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Despite a 50 percent divorce rate for first marriages and 65 percent the second time around; despite the staggering frequency of affairs; despite the fact that monogamy is a ship sinking faster than anyone can bail it out, we continue to cling to the wreckage with absolute faith in its structural soundness.
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Esther Perel |
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6d45599
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The more we trust, the farther we are able to venture.
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Esther Perel |
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3edfe0d
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Where there is nothing left to hide, there is nothing left to seek.
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Esther Perel |
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4783aec
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Love is an exercise in selective perception
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relationships
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Esther Perel |
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b443c4f
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Proust, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
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Esther Perel |
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e30f0ba
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And what is true for human beings is true for every living thing: all organisms require alternating periods of growth and equilibrium. Any person or system exposed to ceaseless novelty and change risks falling into chaos; but one that is too rigid or static ceases to grow and eventually dies. This never-ending dance between change and stability is like the anchor and the waves. Adult relationships mirror these dynamics all too well. We seek..
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Esther Perel |
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36f26d4
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The "symptom" theory goes as follows: An affair simply alerts us to a preexisting condition, either a troubled relationship or a troubled person."
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Esther Perel |
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0904127
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We don't like to be intimate alone. Some couples take this one step further, confusing intimacy with control. What passes for care is actually convert surveillance. .. When the impulse to share becomes obligatory, when personal boundaries are no longer respected, when only the shared space of togetherness is acknowledged and private space is denied, fusion replaces intimacy and possession co-opts love.
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Esther Perel |
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b55113a
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It takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it.
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Esther Perel |
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62c4c46
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The extended family, the community, and religion may indeed have limited our freedom, sexual and otherwise, but in return they offered us a much-needed sense of belonging. For generations, these traditional institutions provided order, meaning, continuity, and social support. Dismantling them has left us with more choices and fewer restrictions than ever. We are freer, but also more alone. As Giddens describes it, we have become ontological..
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Esther Perel |
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1019347
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Today, our sexuality is an open-ended personal project; it is part of who we are, an identity, and no longer merely something we do.
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Esther Perel |
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5a3d578
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there is more than a hint of arrogance in the assumption that we can make our relationships permanent,
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Esther Perel |
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5fb286d
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At the same time, eroticism in the home requires active engagement and willful intent. It is an ongoing resistance to the message that marriage is serious, more work than play; and that passion is for teenagers and the immature. We must unpack our ambivalence about pleasure, and challenge our pervasive discomfort with sexuality, particularly in the context of family. Complaining of sexual boredom is easy and conventional. Nurturing eroticis..
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marriage
passion
eroticism
sexuality
pleasure
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Esther Perel |
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ba3ba6d
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The shift from shame to guilt is crucial. Shame is a state of of self-absorption, while guilt is an emphatic, relational response, inspired by the hurt you have caused another.
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Esther Perel |
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4ad7525
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If we think of eroticism not as sex per se, but as a vibrant, creative energy, it's easy to see that Stephanie's erotic pulse is alive and well. But her eroticism no longer revolves around her husband. Instead, it's been channeled to her children. There are regular playdates for Jake but only three dates a year for Stephanie and Warren: two birthdays, hers and his, and one anniversary. There is the latest in kids' fashion for Sophia, but on..
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Esther Perel |
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9b38506
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If someone is counting on children to bring them peace of mind, self-confidence, or a steady sense of happiness, they are in for a bad shock. What children do is complicate, implicate, give plot lines to the story, color to the picture, darken everything, bring fear as never before, suggest the holy, explain the ferocity of the human mind, undo or redo some of the past while casting shadows into the future. There is no boredom with children..
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Esther Perel |
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35b0e0f
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In our consumer culture, we always want the next best thing: the latest, the newest, the youngest. Failing that, we at least want more: more intensity, more variety, more stimulation. We seek instant gratification and are increasingly intolerant of any frustration. Nowhere are we encouraged to be satisfied with what we have, to think, "this is good. This is enough."
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more
modern-life
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Esther Perel |
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1175c08
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Love is an exercise in selective perception, even a delicious deception as well, though who cares about that in the beginning?
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Esther Perel |
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b8d0b42
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The smaller we feel in the world, the more we need to shine in the eyes of our partner.
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relationships
partner
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Esther Perel |
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d322c4c
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It is always astonishing how love can strike. No context is love-proof, no convention or commitment impervious. Even a lifestyle which is perfectly insulated, where the personality is controlled, all the days ordered and all actions in sequence, can to its own dismay find that an unexpected spark has landed; it begins to smolder until it is finally unquenchable. The force of Eros always brings disturbance; in the concealed terrain of the hu..
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Esther Perel |
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6a3c166
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Oscar Wilde wrote, "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is getting what one wants, and the other is not getting it." When"
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Esther Perel |
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98fd0f4
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Erotic intimacy is the revelation of our memories, wishes, fears, expectations, and struggles within a sexual relationship. When our innermost desires are revealed, and are met by our loved one with acceptance and validation, the shame dissolves. It is an experience of profound empowerment and self-affirmation for the heart, body, and soul. When we can be present for both love and sex, we transcend the battleground of Puritanism and hedonis..
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Esther Perel |