Harriet Lerner Quotes - Page 3

Relationships are most likely to fail when we don't address problems or hold our partner accountable for unfair or irresponsible behavior ... the ability to clarify our values, beliefs, and life goals--and then to keep our behavior congruent with them--is at the heart of a solid marriage.

the body, seeking truth, sends a signal. But decoding it, interpreting its meaning, and knowing how to proceed from there is another matter entirely.

Fear has never helped anybody make good choices. It leads to clinging when we should be walking.

Kids want nothing more than for all the important adults in their life to get along.

Feeling inadequate is an occupational hazard of motherhood.

The term girl not only serves to avoid certain anxiety-arousing connotations inherent in the word woman regarding aggression, sexuality, and reproduction, it also serves to impart a tone of frivolousness and lack of seriousness to ambitious, intellectual, and competitive striving that women may pursue.

Love alone is never a good enough reason to marry.

While women once acquired relationship skills to "hook," "snare," or "catch" a husband who would provide access to economic security and social status, the position of contemporary women has not changed that radically. Much of our success still depends on our attunement to "male culture," our ability to please men, and our readiness to conform to the masculine values of our institutions.

It is an act of courage to acknowledge our own uncertainty and sit with it for a while.

What initially attracts us and what later becomes 'the problem' are usually one and the same.

Marriage is the lightning rod that absorbs anxiety and stress from all other sources, past and present. When marriage has a firm foundation of solid friendship and mutual respect, it can tolerate a fair amount of raw emotion. A good fight can clear the air, and it's nice to know we can survive conflict and even learn from it. Many couples, however, get trapped in endless rounds of fighting and blaming that they don't know how to get out of. When fights go unchecked and unrepaired, they can eventually erode love and respect, which are the bedrock of any successful relationship.

The best apology, I think, was from my husband, Steve, who slept with a close friend of mine decades back, when we were committed to being life partners but not yet married. And many of the factors that made Steve's apology so healing are universal. One important thing is that he confessed to the affair, rather than my discovering it. He looked deeply into his own history in terms of why this happened, but he never used that history as an excuse.

The strongest relationships are between two people who can live without each other but don't want to.

We need to hear the sound of our voice for what we think and need.

We commonly confuse closeness with sameness and view intimacy as the merging of two separate I's into one worldview.

Telling a true story about personal experience is not just a matter of being oneself, or even or finding oneself. It is also a matter of choosing oneself.

Intimate relationships cannot substitute for a life plan. But to have any meaning or viability at all, a life plan must include intimate relationships.

Although the connections are not always obvious, personal change is inseparable from social and political change.

As many have observed, it is easy to tell a lie, but it is almost impossible to tell only one.

Intensity is not the same as intimacy, although we tend to confuse these two words.

It's remarkable how many couples can precisely describe their particular pattern of painful fighting, and claim to be helpless to change it.

There are some things for which there is no apology, and on the question of slavery, there is no adequate apology for ripping people out of their homeland and bringing them here in chains. There is no adequate apology for the ongoing horrific legacy of racism.

Believing that all women should want to be mothers makes about as much sense as believing that all men should want to be engineers.

Women are raised to be the nurturers and steadiers of rocked boats, to hold relationships in place as if our lives depended on it. But it shores up your own dignity and integrity if you're able to say, "There are a million things I love about you, and I want our relationship to continue. I forgive you 95 percent, but not this 5 percent."

Being in touch with our bodies, or more accurately, being our bodies, is how we know what is true. Harriet