Eve Rickert > Quotes

“Practicing security means continually turning towards the best version of yourself.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

“Many conflict-resolution professionals stress the value of curiosity, accompanied by active listening. Many conflicts can be avoided or de-escalated if the parties involved are willing to set aside their prejudgments—and the intense feelings connected to them—and ask a question. And then be curious about the actual answer. Not just any question, though. The question should be genuine and open-ended, a serious request for more information about another person's feelings, intentions or motivations. It should not be a choice between predefined alternatives, or an accusation followed by a demand for a response. It should be, as much as possible, unburdened from what you think will be the answer. That means being curious about what it really is.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

“In monogamy, a romantic partner and a sexual partner are, almost by definition, the same person. Emotional intimacy and physical intimacy are so tightly entwined that some self-help books speak of "emotional infidelity" and encourage married couples not to permit each other to become too close to their friends. Advice columnists and television personalities will speak gravely of the dangers that "emotional affairs" pose to a monogamous marriage and ask, "Is emotional infidelity worse than sexual infidelity?" Monogamy can leave surprisingly little room for close friendships, much less nonsexual romances.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

“The key with boundaries is that you always set them around those things that are yours: your body, your mind, your emotions, your time, intimacy with you. You always have a right to regulate access to what is yours. But by the time the boundaries of your self have become blurred with those of your partner, setting boundaries and defining your self feels like taking something away from her that she had come to regard as hers.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

“love itself is malleable and ever-changing. Its intensity and nature varies, and this influences its flow, its mutable forms. Monogamy tells us that successful, "real" relationships all look about the same. Relationships that last a long time are called successes, without regard to misery, and those that”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

“In the book Daring Greatly, shame researcher Brené Brown introduces the idea of "minding the gap." She's talking about the values gap: the space between who we are now and who we want to be. Minding the gap is part of walking toward the horizon we talked about in the previous chapter. There will always be times when we are imperfect, when we fall short of the best possible versions of ourselves. Minding the gap is being aware of where we are now and striving to move in the direction we want to go. That's part of living with integrity.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

“We tend to think of secondary relationships as "new" relationships, without giving thought to the fact that they might endure for years. It's common to hear variations on this theme: "But you can't expect a new partner to have the same rights as a spouse!" True, but relationships don't stay new forever. There was a time when your spouse of fifteen years was your new girlfriend or boyfriend, and a time could come when your relationship with your new partner will also be established. Sure, it's possible that you'll want the same kind of relationship in fifteen years that you wanted at six months, but it's unlikely. Yet couples often seem to hope to keep secondary relationships frozen at that six-month size and shape forever. It doesn't work that way. If you plant an acorn in a flowerpot and the sapling manages to survive, you'll just end up with a broken flowerpot.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

“Relationships nourish us in myriad ways.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity

“Polyamory? What if I feel jealous?” The fact is, at some point you will. Few people are born immune to jealousy.”
― Eve Rickert, Polyamory and Jealousy: A More Than Two Essentials Guide

“safety and security come from knowing that your partner loves, trusts and values you.”
― Eve Rickert, Polyamory and Jealousy: A More Than Two Essentials Guide

“Unfortunately, society has taught us to view commitment only through the lens of sexual exclusivity, which diminishes all the other important ways that we commit to one another.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity

“At the end of the day, the best measure of a relationship isn’t how complicated it is, but rather how much meaning, fulfillment, creativity, intimacy, support and love it brings.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity

“letting each relationship take the shape that best suits it, based on what each person wants, needs, values and offers, and how things develop over time.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity

“In her books Sad Love and Nonmonogamy and Happiness, Jenkins argues that such an idea is very much a creation of white, capitalist (mostly American) society, and that it is meaning, rather than happiness, that defines a life well-lived—and good relationships.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity

“love itself is malleable and ever-changing. Its intensity and nature vary, and this variability influences its flow, its mutable forms.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity

“People, unlike characters in fairy tales, are not static. We live, we grow, we change.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity

“Healthy, supportive romantic lives require not just continual reinvestment but constant awareness of the changes in our partners, our situations and ourselves. Our partners don’t owe us a guarantee that they will never change, nor do we owe anyone such a guarantee. And as we change, so do the things we need.”
― Eve Rickert, More Than Two: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity