Sexual desire does not obey the laws that maintain peace and contentment between partners. Reason, understanding, compassion, and camaraderie are the handmaidens of a close, harmonious relationship. B...
Once divorce carried all the stigma. Now, choosing to stay when you can leave is the new shame.
It's hard to experience desire when you're weighted down by concern.
Everyday in my office I meet consumers of the modern ideology of marriage. They bought the product, got it home, and found that it was missing a few pieces. So they come to the repair shop to fix it s...
The smaller we feel in the world, the more we need to shine in the eyes of our partner.
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...
Humans have a tendency to look for things in the places where it is easiest to search for them rather than in the places where the truth is more likely to be found.
Le spun adeseori pacienților mei că, dacă ar putea să aducă în relațiile lor conjugale măcar o zecime din îndrăzneala, zburdălnicia și verva pe care le aduc în relațiile lor extraconjugale, viața de a...
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...
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.
These developments, in conjunction with postwar economic prosperity, have contributed to a period of unmatched freedom and individualism.
We no longer get work out of our children; today we get meaning.
There is beauty in an image that highlights a connection to oneself, rather than a distance from one’s partner.
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 acknowle...
At their peak, affairs rarely lack imagination. Nor do they lack desire, abundance of attention, romance, and playfulness. Shared dreams, affection, passion and endless curiosityーall these are natura...
We bitch about our difficulties along the rough surface of our path, we curse every sharp stone underneath, until at some point in our maturation, we finally look down to see that they are diamonds.
You would think that the safety of an established base would make it easier to take these kinds of risks, but no. A secure relationship does indeed give us the courage to act on our professional ambit...
Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance. Excessive monitoring can set the stage for what Stephen Mitchell calls acts of exuberant defian...
Our partners do not belong to us; they are only on loan, with an option to renew—or not. Knowing that we can lose them does not have to undermine commitment; rather, it mandates an active engagement t...
He invites us to recognize that our values evolve as we mature and move from an understanding of ethical and moral issues in black and white absolutist terms to comprehending the gray ambiguity of mos...