Mohammad Noroozi

“In a couple allowing each other aloneness is part of allowing each other to explore, have interests, and play. One puts oneself in the other's place through sympathetic imagination. Each person recognizes that "my partner has to do this to be who (s)he is". Each can tolerate the idea "you will forget about me, will forget I'm alive" for some stretch of time, and each accepts, supports, and respects that. At the same time, they share an understanding: "I need you to come back and remember I'm alive and that I need things from you". In a good relationship we are constantly calibrating and adjusting the elastic band of distance and closeness. Sometimes it's pulled tighter and sometimes it's more slack. But the security built over time allows for solitude and immersive experience.”
― Daphne de Marneffe, The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together

“When we’re self-aware, we reflect on the source and effect of our emotions. When we’re self-responsible, we face our impact on the other person and commit to adjusting our behavior. People who want to stay married can live with a lot—a lot of limits, a lot of annoyances, even a lot of deprivations. But feeling they are being heard is one of the basic requirements for feeling loved. And the flip side is also true: not feeling heard is what people find most corrosive to their sense of trust and potential in marriage. Self-awareness means we’re listening to ourselves. Self-responsibility means we’re listening and responding to the other.”
― Daphne de Marneffe, The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together

“When you can’t feel or act in a way that connects you to your bigger-picture goal of warmth and harmony, it’s worth attempting a “bottom-up” rather than a “top-down” strategy, focusing on the in-the-moment possibilities for awareness, kindness, and responsiveness. A finer-grained attention to what you are each doing to cause bad interactions can enable you to notice what each of you could do differently and gently lead you away from dwelling in a miasma of emotional negativity that toxifies the whole relational atmosphere. Attention to process, not outcome; awareness in the moment; tuning in to your own emotional weather—these are valuable mindfulness techniques under any circumstances, but they are particularly important to creating the moments of repair or attunement that can then promote a more positive big picture. As”
― Daphne de Marneffe, The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together

“I’d go so far as to say that, even when the offending behaviors don’t seem to be budging, what makes the biggest difference between hope and hopelessness is whether partners demonstrate self-awareness and self-responsibility—acknowledging their impact on each other, and taking responsibility for trying to do something different.”
― Daphne de Marneffe, The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together