“Stop thinking of yourself as an infant with an infant’s supposed mentality (e.g., “fears of abandonment”). Think of yourself as a adult with an infant’s resilience harnessed to your increased abilities to survive and cope. It is reasonable and necessary to expect adults to self-soothe and self-regulate better than infants.”
― Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships
― Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships
“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up.
Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love.
So if you love a flower, let it be.
Love is not about possession.
Love is about appreciation.”
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Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love.
So if you love a flower, let it be.
Love is not about possession.
Love is about appreciation.”
―
“Monogamy operates differently at different levels of differentiation. I didn’t know this until I saw it with my clients. We think of monogamy as an ironclad agreement containing no ifs, ands, or buts. But it is really a complex system with rules and dynamics of its own. Differentiation changes monogamy by returning genital ownership to each partner. Emotional Siamese twins act as if their partner’s genitals are communal property.”
― Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships
― Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships
“If there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don't snuff it out, don't be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we'd want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste! (p. 225)”
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“When we stand up and confront ourselves in ways our parents have not, a desire for justice makes it harder to forgive them in some ways. However, the increased differentiation this endeavor provides allows one to better self-soothe, to validate one’s own experience, thereby unhooking the need for confession from one’s parent. At this point, forgiveness becomes an act of self-caring and a deliberate decision to get on with one’s life.”
― Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships
― Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships
Chris’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Chris’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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