The body often contains emotional truths that words can too easily gloss over.
Once divorce carried all the stigma. Now, choosing to stay when you can leave is the new shame.
The smaller we feel in the world, the more we need to shine in the eyes of our partner.
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.
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...
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.
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...
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...
These developments, in conjunction with postwar economic prosperity, have contributed to a period of unmatched freedom and individualism.
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.
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 no longer get work out of our children; today we get meaning.
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...
Despite living in a time of unprecedented sexual freedom in America, the practice of policing sexuality has continued unabated since the days of the Puritans.
The ability to go anywhere in our imagination is a pure expression of individual freedom. It is a creative force that can help us transcend reality.