True connection requires acceptance of your partner’s flaws, imperfections and scars

• I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together. Lisa Kleypas
• We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have. I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way. Let our scars fall in love.”  Galway Kinnell
• The best you can hope for in a relationship is to find someone whose flaws are the sort you don’t mind. It is futile to look for someone who has no flaws, or someone who is capable of significant change; that sort of person exists only in our imaginations. Scott Adams
• People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner’s faults honestly and say, ‘I can work around that. I can make something out of it.’? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it’s always going to pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you. Elizabeth Gilbert
• If you can hang in there through minor and major differences of opinion, through each other’s big and little screwups, year after year, you come to understand that the person you married is really, terribly flawed. There isn’t a human being you can hang out with, day in and day out, for over a decade and not come to the same inescapable realization. Kyran Pittman
• I’m far from perfect, but I’ll be perfect for that imperfect person that’s perfect for me. Amanda Bynes
• Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another! Jane Austen
• We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird.  And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness – and call it love – true love.  Robert Fulghum
• No relationship is perfect, which is why it is so important that it be loving. Robert Brault
• You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not. Jodi Picoult
• Principles for healthy relationships,  Principles for healthy relationships,  Intimacy,  Connection,  Love,  Trust

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Therefore, allow your partner to be exactly as he / she is

• Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you. Dr Wayne Dyer
• The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton
• A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself – to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart. Leo Buscaglia
• Problems in relationship occur because each person is concentrating on what is missing in the other person. Wayne Dyer
• No one is flawless, and if you expect perfection from a partner you are either delusional or narcissistic. Jean Twenge & Keith Campbell
• True love allows each person to follow his or her own path, aware that doing so can never drive them apart. Paulo Coelho
• When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom. John Gray
• When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. Donald Miller
• To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow – this is a human offering that can border on miraculous. Elizabeth Gilbert
• When you struggle with your partner, you are struggling with yourself. Every fault you see in them touches a denied weakness in yourself. Deepak Chopra
• I find the best way to love someone is not to change them, but instead, help them reveal the greatest version of themselves. Steve Maraboli
• It was finally becoming clear to her that love wasn’t about finding someone perfect to marry. Love was about seeing through to the truth of a person and accepting all their shades of light and dark. Love was an ability. Lisa Kleypas
• Love comes when you care more about who the other person really is, rather than about who you think they should become. Marc and Angel Chernoff
• In a true you-and-I relationship, we are present mindfully, nonintrusively, the way we are present with things in nature. We do not tell a birch tree it should be more like an elm. We face it with no agenda, only an appreciation that becomes participation: ‘I love looking at this birch’ becomes ‘I am this birch’ and then ‘I and this birch are opening to a mystery that transcends and holds us both. David Richo
• Don’t settle for a relationship that won’t let you be yourself. Oprah Winfrey
• Acceptance

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Don’t try to change your partner …

• When you remember how hard it is to change yourself, you begin to understand what little chance we have of changing others.

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… but allow your partner to change if they do

• Relationships are never static. They have to evolve over time as the individuals in them change. Sherryl Woods

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Change yourself rather than trying to change your partner

• The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself. Thomas Sprat
• To straighten the crooked you must first do the harder thing–straighten yourself. Buddha
• You can’t change other people. You can only change yourself. Celestine Chua
• Do not meddle with the personal habits and practices of others, though they are your nearest and dearest; these things are none of your business. Nothing can be wrong but your own personal attitude; make that right and you will know that all else is right. Wallace D. Wattles
• Before healing others, heal thyself. Lao Tzu
• Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others. Jacob M. Braude
• The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself. Saint Peter of Alcantara
• Change

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Respect and appreciate your differences

• When you want something more, you can’t enjoy what you already have. For example: When you want your partner to be different –   you can’t respect and appreciate what they already are.  Ajahn Brahm
• When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom. John Gray
• It’s the things in common that make relationships enjoyable, but it’s the little differences that make them interesting. Todd Ruthman
• Diversity,  Uniqueness

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To make a union, there must be two strong, healthy individuals

• I don’t want to be your other half. I believe that one and one make two. Alanis Morissette
• In any relationship in which two people become one, the end result is two half people. Wayne Dyer
• To make one, there must be two. H. Auden
• Let there be spaces in your togetherness. Kahlil Gibran
• And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. Kahlil Gibran
• Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.  Kahlil Gibran

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We need to complete ourselves and not rely on a relationship to fulfil us

• When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter. Tom Robbins
• Don’t rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other. Russ Von Hoelscher
• It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone. Marilyn Monroe
• An intimate relationship does not banish loneliness. Only when we are comfortable with who we are can we truly function independently in a healthy way, can we truly function within a relationship. Two halves do not make a whole when it comes to a healthy relationship: it takes two wholes. Patricia Fry
• Before we can have a successful relationship with anyone, we first need a perfect personal relationship. Russ Von Hoelscher
• If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere. Francois de la Rochefoucauld
• Fulfilment

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Eliminate dependency in your relationship

• Eliminate dependency. I may want but I do not need. I am the sunshine of my life and having you in it makes it even brighter. Wayne Dyer
• I finally understand, the only time to be in a relationship is when I don’t ‘need’ to be in a relationship to feel whole. Jilly Robertson
• People need each other and think it is love. There’s no hanging on to, or fencing in, of the other one when one loves. Lester Levensen
• Perfect love casts out fear. Where there is love there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency. I do not demand that you make me happy; my happiness does not lie in you. If you were to leave me, I will not feel sorry for myself; I enjoy your company immensely, but I do not cling. Anthony de Mello
• Tell everyone you know: “My happiness depends on me, so you’re off the hook.” And then demonstrate it. Be happy, no matter what they’re doing. Practice feeling good, no matter what. And before you know it, you will not give anyone else responsibility for the way you feel—and then, you’ll love them all. Because the only reason you don’t love them, is because you’re using them as your excuse to not feel good. Abraham-Hicks
• What is commonly called “falling in love” is in most cases an intensification of egoic wanting and needing. You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person. It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever. Eckhart Tolle
• If you’re not right for yourself, it’s impossible to be right for anyone. Rachel Machacek
• Love lets go. Need holds on. This is the way you can tell the difference between need and love. Let go of expectation, let go of requirements and rules and regulations that you would impose on your loved ones. Neale Donald Walsch
• The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you; but to have another with whom you might share your completeness. Neale Donald Walsch
• Marriage is like a well-built porch. If one of the two posts leans too much, the porch collapses. So each must be strong enough to stand on its own. Deb Caletti
• We must be our own before we can be another’s. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Remember that the best relationship is one where your love for each other is greater than your need for each other. Jackson Brown Jr.
• In a strong relationship, you should love your companion more than you need them. Steve Maraboli
• There are days when you need someone who just wants to be your sunshine and not the air you breathe. Robert Brault
• Independence,  Interdependence

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How do you know he or she is right for you?

• Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep… wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you’re just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky his is to have you…. The one who turns to his friends and says, ‘that’s her.’ Patsy Cline
• And what is the right woman, the right man? Someone who wants to go in the same direction as you do, someone who is compatible with your views and your values– emotionally, physically, economically, spiritually. Miguel Ruiz

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How do you know you are in love with each other?

• Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. Robert Heinlein
• Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
• Love is being stupid together. Paul Valery
• Love is when you can be your true self with someone, and you only want to be your true self because of them. Terri Guillemets
• Love is not blind – it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.  Julins Gordon
• Romantic love

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Secrets to love that lasts

• The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one’s relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident. Sir Hugh Walpole
• Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.  Michael Leunig
• Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep- burning and unquenchable. Bruce Lee
• One does not fall ‘in’ or ‘out’ of love. One grows in love. Leo Buscaglia
• Young lovers seek perfection. Old lovers learn the art of sewing shreds together and of seeing beauty in a multiplicity of patches. American Quilt
• Love is brief, but frequently recurring. Francois de La Rochefoucould
• Love is, above all, the gift of oneself. Jean Anouilh
• There must be a stronger foundation than mere friendship or sexual attraction. Unconditional love, agape love, will not be swayed by time or circumstances. Stephen Kendrick
• Love is more about being the right person than finding the right person. Barbara Bartlei
• The only way love can last a lifetime is if it’s unconditional. The truth is this: love is not determined by the one being loved, but rather by the one choosing to love. Stephen Kendrick
• Love is an act of endless forgiveness; a tender look which becomes a habit. Peter Ustinov
• We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. Tom Robbins
• True love stories never have endings. Richard Bach
• The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands. Alexandra Penney
• That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less. Arundhati Roy
• Love is a little company of two where joy is doubled, grief is divided, and the road travelled together.
• For lack of an occasional expression of love, a relationship strong at the seams can wear thin in the middle. Robert Brault
• Lust is easy. Love is hard.  Like is most important.   Carl Reiner
• Love is being stupid together. Paul Valery
• Love endures when the lovers love many things together and not merely each other. Walter Lippmann
• Love always starts with you. It is a choice that you make, from moment to moment, to look for what is lovable about your partner.  Barbra De Angelis
• We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh. Agnes Repplier

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Keep replenishing the love

• To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Theresa
• Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone. It has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new. Ursula LeGuin
• A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. Germaine Greer
• Each coming together of man and woman, even if they have been mated for many years, should be a fresh adventure; each winning should necessitate a fresh wooing. Marie Carmichael Stopes
• Who loves a lot, forgives a lot. Amado Nervo

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Listen – without rushing into giving advice

• When a man can listen to woman’s feelings without getting angry and frustrated, he gives her a wonderful gift. He makes it safe for her to express herself. The more she is able to express herself, the more she feels heard and understood, and the more she is able to give a man the loving trust, acceptance, appreciation, admiration, approval, and encouragement that he needs.   John Gray
• The number one complaint women have in relationships is “I don’t feel heard.” John Gray
• It is difficult for a man to listen to a woman when she is unhappy or disappointed because he feels like a failure. John Gray
• Generally speaking, when a woman offers unsolicited advice or tries to help a man, she has no idea of how critical and unloving he may sound to him. John Gray
• A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him. Brendan Francis
• Listening,  Advice

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Ask, don’t assume

• Ask instead of interpreting or assuming. When people try to guess what others are thinking, their guesses are almost always wrong, and almost always more negative than the actual reality of the situation.  Asking good questions, by contrast, gathers reliable and relieving data. Even bad news is better than no news because it can lead to building realistic clear action plans. Susan Heitler, Ph.D.
• Assumptions are the termites of relationships. Henry Winkler
• It is always better to ask then to make an assumption. Don Miguel Ruiz
• The way to keep yourself from making assumptions is to ask questions. Don Miguel Ruiz

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Be committed

• When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment. Bell Hooks
• We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence. Cornel West
• Commitment is inherent in any genuinely loving relationship. M. Scott Peck
• Commitment

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Affirm, encourage and appreciate

• To love someone is to acknowledge the goodness of who they are. Through loving a person we awaken their awareness of their own innate goodness. It is as though they cannot know how worthy they are until they look into the mirror of our love and see themselves. John Gray
• Commit to complimenting your signficant other for something you appreciate about him or her at least once a week. Make gratitude one of the roots that allow yoru relationship to grow strong. Matthew Kelly
• Encouragement requires empathy and seeing the world from your partner’s perspective. We must first learn what is important to our spouse. Only then can we give encouragement. With verbal encouragement, we are trying to communicate, “I know. I care. I am with you. How can I help?” Gary Chapman
• Affirmation,  Encouragement,  Appreciation

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Give each other space to breathe

• Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.   Leo Buscaglia
• Sometimes two people need to step apart and make a space between that each might see the other anew, in a glance across a room or silhouetted against the moon. Robert Brault
• Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. Rainer Maria Rilke
• Let there be spaces in your togetherness. Kahlil Gibran
• When a man loves a woman, periodically he needs to pull away before he can get closer. John Gray
• Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant and rank. Paulo Coelho
• I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other. Rainer Maria Rilke
• The quickest way to receive love is to give love; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly.
• Spaciousness

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Feel free to think differently but don’t make each other wrong

• We need not think alike to love alike. Ferenc Dávid
• Love is saying, “I feel differently” instead of “you’re wrong.”
• The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands. Alexandra Penney
• Let go of the need to be right

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Talk to each other and share your deepest feelings

• A deadness occurs in relationships when people are no longer willing to tell each other how they really feel. Shakti Gawain
• The biggest challenge for women is to correctly interpret and support a man when he isn’t talking. When a man is silent it is easy for a woman to imagine the worst. John Gray
• When negative feelings are suppressed, positive feelings become suppressed as well, and love dies. John Gray
• Most arguments escalate when a man begins to invalidate a woman’s feelings and she responds to him disapprovingly. John Gray
• The most common way women unknowingly start arguments is by not being direct when they share their feelings. John Gray
• It’s hard to communicate anything exactly and that’s why perfect relationships between people are difficult to find. Gustave Flaubert
• Connection,  Emotions

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Realise there are differences between the sexes

• The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them. Simone de Beauvoir
• Women need to feel loved and men need to feel needed. Rita Mae Brown
• To feel better Martians go to their caves to solve problems alone. To feel better Venusians get together and openly talk about their problems.  John Gray
• Men are motivated and empowered when they feel needed. Women are motivated and empowered when they feel cherished. John Gray
• Men feel cherished when they are needed. Women feel cherished when they are loved. John Gray
• A man’s sense of self is defined through his ability to achieve results. A woman’s sense of self is defined through her feelings and the quality of her relationships. John Gray
• To feel better Martians go to their caves to solve problems alone. To feel better Venusians get together and openly talk about their problems.  John Gray
• A women under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood. A man wants to make improvements when he feels he is being approached as the solution to a problem rather than as the problem itself.  John Gray
• Just as women are afraid of receiving, men are afraid of giving. John Gray
• A woman should not be judged for needing reassurance that she is loved just as a man should not be judged for needing to withdraw. John Gray
• Men want space while women want understanding. John Gray
• Men primarily need trust, acceptance, appreciation, admiration, approval, and encouragement. Women primarily need caring, understanding, respect, devotion, validation, and reassurance.  John Gray
• A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears. Woodrow Wyatt
• Just as a man is fulfilled through working out the intricate details of solving a problem, a woman is fulfilled through talking about the details of her problems. John Gray
• The battle of the sexes

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Help and support each other

• When a man hears a demanding tone, no matter how politely you phrase your request, all he hears is that he is not giving enough. His tendency is then to give less until you appreciate what he is already giving. John Gray
• Men are much more willing to say yes if they have the freedom to say no. John Gray
• When you ask a man for support and you do not reject him for saying no, he will remember that, and next time he will be much more willing to give. John Gray
• In the most flourishing relationships, partners evoke the best in each other, helping them to come closer in reaching their ideal selves. Sonja Lyubomirsky
• If you need something from somebody always give that person a way to hand it to you. Sue Monk Kidd
• Helpfulness

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Make deposits into the emotional bank account

• The Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust you build up in a relationship. Much like a financial bank account, deposits are made and withdrawals are taken from an Emotional Bank Account. When you do something positive for another person, it can be a major deposit for that person. Deposits build a reserve of goodwill and trust. On the other hand, when you do something negative toward another person, you make a withdrawal. When withdrawals exceed deposits, the account is overdrawn, and the level of trust deteriorates. With your relationships, it’s vital that you make continual deposits in order to sustain a high level of trust. Stephen Covey
• Each relationship requires a unique type of deposit. Some relationships equate hugs, compliments, and small gifts with deposits.  For other relationships, dependability and pulling your weight are the primary deposits.  Stephen Covey
• We mistakenly assume that if our partners love us they will react and behave in certain ways- – the ways we react and behave when we love someone.  John Gray
• The quality of the relationship depends on what you put into it. Keeping promises, being courteous and kind, offering support, listening and taking time for the other person are just a few ways to make deposits.  Stephen Covey
• Our most constant relationships, like marriage, require our most constant deposits into the Emotional Bank Account. Stephen Covey
• The best way to make your spouse and children feel secure is not with big deposits in bank accounts, but with little deposits of thoughtfulness and affection in the “love account. Zig Ziglar

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Nurture intimacy

• When a man loves a woman, periodically he needs to pull away before he can get closer. A man automatically alternates between needing intimacy and autonomy. The man grows to understand his own cycles and reassures her when he pulls away that he will be back. John Gray
• The opposite of Loneliness is not Togetherness, It’s Intimacy. Richard Bach
• There’s nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood. And understanding someone else. Brad Meltzer
• Jason once told me that eye contact is the most intimacy two people can have — forget sex – – because the optic nerve is technically an extension of the brain, and when two people look into each other’s eyes, it’s brain- to-brain.  Douglas Coupland
• Among men, sex sometimes results in intimacy; among women, intimacy sometimes results in sex. Barbara Cartland
• Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still. Robert Sternberg
• For a relationship to flourish, there must be intimacy. It takes an enormous amount of courage to say to your partner, “This is me. I’m not proud of it — in fact, I’m a little embarrassed by it — but this is who I am.” Bill Hybels
• Passion can never purchase what true love desires: true intimacy, self-giving, and commitment.
• My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don’t really know me. Garry Shandling
• I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship. Brené Brown
• Intimacy

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Nurture romance

• Sometimes the shortest distance between two points is a winding path walked arm in arm. Robert Brault
• Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze. Elinor Glyn
• Romance is dead – it was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece. Lisa Simpson, The Simpsons
• Maybe our generation is more about sex, but it feels like romance is dying out. Orlando Bloom
• Romance,  Romantic love

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Nurture trust and understanding

• Over time, any deception destroys intimacy, and without intimacy couples cannot have true and lasting love. Bonnie Eaker Weil
• Two people can only live as one when each is prepared to give and receive trust and understanding. Above that lies respect. Helen Hollick
• When mistrust comes in, love goes out. Irish Sayings
• Trust,  Understanding

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Nurture kindness and generosity

• Little kindness and courtesies are so important. In relationships, the little things are the big things. Stephen Covey
• Mutual caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in the other’s achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without undue thought of gain. Fred Rogers
• Kindness,  Generosity

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Watch out for these destructive forces on relationships

• Cheating and lying aren’t struggles, they’re reasons to break up. Patti Callahan Henry
• Over time, any deception destroys intimacy, and without intimacy couples cannot have true and lasting love. Bonnie Eaker Weil
• When mistrust comes in, love goes out. Irish Sayings
• It’s hard to trust someone the 2nd time around after they already gave you one reason not to trust them. Amarjeet Das
• When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Catherine Gilbert Murdock
• Assumptions are the termites of relationships. Henry Winkler
• Love cannot live where there is no trust. Edith Hamilton
• If I seek to fulfill my own needs at the expense of my partner, we are sure to experience unhappiness, resentment, and conflict. The secret of forming a successful relationship is for both partners to win. John Gray
• Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. Anaïs Nin
• He says, “You’re always late.” She says, “You’re always rushing me.” One point for him. One point for her.  Total score: zero.  Michael P. Nichols
• Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. K. Rowling
• …the opposite of love is not hate — it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn. If somebody hates me, they must “feel” something … or they couldn’t possibly hate. Therefore, there’s some way in which I can get to them. Leo F. Buscaglia

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Sonja Lyubomirsky’s recommended rituals for happy relationships

• Spend five minutes every day expressing appreciation or gratitude for particular behaviors.
• Before you part in the morning, find one thing that each of you is going to do that day. When you meet again in the evening, have a “reunion conversation” in a low stress setting and listen.
• Every week, try to do at least one thing that supports your partners roles or dreams. The goal should be to honor and respect each other and each other’s life dreams and interests, even if you don’t share them all.
• Schedule several hours together once a week and make it a dedicated ritual. Ideally share an experience together.
• Create a media-free zone in your house and reserve it for conversations.
• Express admiration, appreciation and affection. One of the key conclusions of two decades of research on marriage is that happy relationships are characterised by a ratio of positive to negative affect of five to one. This means that for every negative statement or behaviour, there are at least five positive ones.
• Take delight in your partner’s windfalls and successes. Social psychologists have shown that what distinguishes good and poor relationships is not how the partners respond to each other’s disappointments but how they respond to good news.
• Source: The How of Happiness – by Sonja Lyubomirsky

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Thoughts on conflict and arguments in relationships

• Most couples have not had hundreds of arguments; they’ve had the same argument hundreds of times. Gay Hendricks
• One of the first things a relationship therapist learns is that couples argue to burn up energy that could be used for something else. In fact, arguments often serve the purpose of using up energy, so that the couple do not have to take the courageous, creative leap into an unknown they fear. Arguing serves the function of being a zone of familiarity into which you can retreat when you are afraid of making a creative breakthrough. Gay Hendricks
• Every couple needs to argue now and then. Just to prove that the relationship is strong enough to survive. Long- term relationships, the ones that matter, are all about weathering the peaks and the valleys. Nicholas Sparks
• Most arguments escalate when a man begins to invalidate a woman’s feelings and she responds to him disapprovingly. John Gray
• A lovers’ quarrel is always about every quarrel you ever had. Robert Brault
• There are times when two people need to step apart from one another, but there is no rule that says they have to turn and fire. Robert Brault
• Sticks and stones are hard on bones, aimed with angry art, words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart. Phyllis McGinley
• When you struggle with your partner, you are struggling with yourself. Every fault you see in them touches a denied weakness in yourself. Deepak Chopra
• One of the deepest feminine pleasures is when a man stands full, present, and unreactive in the midst of his woman’s emotional storms. When he stays present with her and loves her through the layers of wildness and closure, then she feels his trustability, and she can relax. David Deida
• Nothing that your partner does is personal. Your partner is dealing with her own garbage. If you don’t take it personally, it will be so easy for you to have a wonderful relationship with your partner. Miguel Ruiz
• In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Your woman will test you. This will never end. This is the secret. You will never get out of it. Finding a different woman won’t get you out of it. Neither will therapy, money or sexual mastery. David Deida
• Every moment of your life is either a test or a celebration. The same is true about every moment with your woman, only doubly so. Not only is her simple existence a test for you, but one of her deepest pleasures in intimacy is testing you, and then feeling you are not moved off course by her challenge. The most erotic moment for a woman is feeling that you are Shiva, the divine masculine: unperturbable, totally loving, fully present, and all-pervading. She cannot move you, because you already are what you are, with or without her. She cannot scare you away, because you already penetrate her in fearless love, pervading her heart and body. She cannot distract you, because your one-pointed commitment to truth will not bend to her wiles. Feeling this hugeness of love and freedom in you, she can trust you, utterly, and surrender her testing in celebration of love.  Until she wants to feel you as Shiva again. And then the testing will begin anew. In fact, it is precisely when you are most Shiva-like that she will most test you.  David Deida
• Conflict management

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Break ups

• It’s disconcerting to realize how little you have to say to someone who once occupied such a prominent place in your bed. Sue Grafton
• Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together.
• Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time. Maya Angelou
• Once you find someone to share your ups and downs, downs are almost as good as ups. Robert Brault
• There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found while journeying east and west – the only folks we really wound are those we love the best. We flatter those we scarcely know, we please the fleeting guest, and deal full many a thoughtless blow To those who love us best. Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• Sometimes you have to get to know someone really well to realize you’re really strangers. Mary Tyler Moore
• I would rather a romantic relationship turn into contempt than turn into apathy. The passion in the extremities make it appear as though it once meant something. We grow from hot or cold, but lukewarm is the biggest insult. Criss Jami
• Break-up,  Heartbreak

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More thoughts on relationships

• Still, she knows one thing for certain: never judge a relationship unless you are the one wrapped up in its arms. Alice Hoffman
• Maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates and guys are just people to have fun with. Candace Bushnell
• A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
• Dreams bring clarity and focus to our relationships. If you are going to build a future together, you have to know each other’s dreams. Matthew Kelly
• When in doubt about whose turn it is to take out the trash, go ahead and take it out. Richard Carlson
• Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations.  Don’t over-analyze your relationships.  Stop playing games.  A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.  Leo F. Buscaglia
• The more connections you and your lover make, not just between your bodies, but between your minds, your hearts, and your souls, the more you will strengthen the fabric of your relationship, and the more real moments you will experience together. Barbara De Angelis
• If you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best. Marilyn Monroe
• Trouble is part of your life, and if you don’t share it, you don’t give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough.  Dinah Shore
• Without a single thought, two hands collide, and the world finally makes sense again.  Kayla Dawn
• So often the end of a love affair is death by a thousand cuts, so often its survival is life by a thousand stitches. Robert Brault
• We mistakenly assume that if our partners love us they will react and behave in certain ways – the ways we react and behave when we love someone.  John Gray
• You can’t stop loving or wanting to love because when its right, it’s the best thing in the world. When you’re in a relationship and it’s good, even if nothing else in your life is right, you feel like your whole world is complete. Keith Sweat
• Any relationship primarily built on physical attractiveness is predestined to be short lived. Zig Ziglar
• Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never ever the same. Flavia Weedn
• Nowadays love is a matter of chance, matrimony a matter of money and divorce a matter of course. Helen Rowland
• I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward, or it dies. Woody Allen
• Every man knows that his highest purpose in life cannot be reduced to any particular relationship. If a man prioritizes his relationship over his highest purpose, he weakens himself, disserves the universe, and cheats his woman of an authentic man who can offer his full, undivided presence. David Deida

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On a lighter note

• Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. Phyllis Diller
• We have a strange and wonderful relationship. He’s strange and I’m wonderful.
• I want a 100% kind of relationship, and I’m willing to give it 50%. Jarod Kintz
• Eventually, if you’re lucky in life, you find someone with the same chemical imbalance you have.  Robert Brault
• Relationships give us a reason to live. Revenge. Ronny Shakes
• When I want to end a relationship I just say, ‘You know, I love you. I want to marry you. I want to have your children.’ Sometimes they leave skid marks. Rita Rudner
• Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted make-up. Marian Keyes
• If a woman is upset, hold her and tell her how beautiful she is. If she starts to growl, retreat to a safe distance and throw chocolate at her.
• A foolish man tells a woman to stop talking, but a wise man tells her that her mouth is extremely beautiful when her lips are closed. Helen Rowland

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