Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships

You don't think your way to a new way of living. You live your way to a new way of thinking.

Our mistakes and regrets are not barriers to becoming who we can be; they are a necessary ingredient.

We tell ourselves that intimacy (and marriage) takes two people who are willing to work at it-but, unfortunately, we rarely have the slightest inkling of our "job" assignments in this project.

Did I pick the right person? This question inverts the starting and ending points. We do not pick our perfect match because we ourselves are not perfect. The universe hands us a flawless diamond—in the rough. Only if we are willing to polish off every part of ourselves that cannot join do we end up with a soul mate.

Nobody’s Ready for Marriage—Marriage Makes You Ready for Marriage

as partners become better able to self-confront and self-soothe, they have less need to control each other. They can maintain their own emotional stability and worry less about what their partner is doing. They stop expecting their partner to understand them and focus more on understanding themselves, which, in turn, reduces defensiveness and combativeness, and encourages good will and growth rather than resistance and stagnation.

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.

People don’t want to calm down because then they see things they sort of knew but didn’t want to face.

The truth is liberating—but only when you have the courage to live it.

We approach romance like a privileged form of suffering that makes us feel more alive—living dangerously, magnificently, and tragically.

For most of Western civilization low sexual desire has been considered a goal rather than a problem.

Our self-made crises are custom-tailored, painstakingly crafted, and always fit perfectly.

Borrowed functioning artificially inflates (or deflates) your functioning. Your “pseudo self” can be pumped up through emotional fusion, which makes poorly differentiated people doggedly hang onto each other. Two people in different relationships can appear to function at the same level although they have achieved different levels of differentiation. The difference is that the better differentiated one will more consistently function well even when the partner isn’t being supportive or encouraging. Before they came to see me, Bill claimed that there was “nothing wrong” with him. As long as he had Joan’s “support” and controlled how intimate they were, he functioned well on a superficial level. Joan, however, went through difficult self-doubts and depression. And when she was in her deepest depths, Bill was kinder, more considerate, and empathic. Somehow Bill seemed the more stable of the two. But things changed when Joan emerged from her unhappiness. As she began to function more autonomously, Bill’s functioning seemingly diminished. As she developed more self-respect, he became more insecure. As she needed his validation less, he feared losing her more. Still, Bill wasn’t about to support or stroke Joan in ways that didn’t enhance his own status or that might require him to confront himself.

When we think of people giving up on their marriage, divorce usually comes to mind. But many people who give up on their marriage (or themselves or their partner) don’t leave; they stay in the comfort cycle—until their marriage presents the inevitable dilemma: venture into the growth cycle or face divorce, loss of integrity, or living death. Validating and soothing each other has its place in marriage—but not when you’re dependent on it. You get stuck in the comfort cycle because neither of you has the strength or motivation to break out. That’s when the other side of the process comes in: holding onto yourself (self-confrontation and self-soothing).

hatred and aggression—and carnivorous sexual intent—aren’t our “dark” side. Our dark side is the side that denies its own existence.

Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Graham Crackers were originally marketed as a cure for carnal strivings and masturbation.

Cellulite and sexual potential are highly correlated.

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.

The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.

I have learned something about quality research, and also that the emotional prices involved in making “expedient” and “pragmatic” concessions often far exceed the effort needed to stand behind my own convictions.

Is anybody really ready to get married? I doubt it. Nobody's ready for marriage. Marriage makes you ready for marriage!

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.

It is the power patriarchal societies try to diminish by infantalizing women by calling them doll, chick, babe, and girl regardless of their age.