Esther Perel ON: Finding Love & the Real Reason Couples Break Up

Every relationship is made up of my relationship to myself as I am with you and my relationship with you while I don't lose myself. It's both and. It's how I hold onto me and how I hold on to you, vice versa. How I hold on to you without losing me and how I hold onto myself without losing you. That's the dance.

Love is a verb. It's not a permanent state of enthusiasm. It's not about finding the right person; it's about being the right person.

Love is something that you actively cultivate. You nourish it. You do things that express it that show the other person that you're thinking of them, that they're important to you, that you carry them inside of you even when they're not there. To just think it's an in or out is very, very narrow.

This is one of the hidden truths of relationships: If you want to change the other, change yourself.

Behind many criticisms is a wish. Ask for the wish; don't give the criticism, or you will never get to wish.

The temptation is to say 'How do I make my partner different?' And I say, start with the one thing you can control: 'Is there anything I can do different that is more likely to elicit a different response from my partner?' It's the one thing you can control is you. Start there.

Lockdown, quarantine, pandemics, disasters are relationship accelerators. What it means is that when you deal with a massive global event like this, it puts you in touch with mortality ... Life is short. Life is fragile. And so you begin to rearrange your priorities. What truly matters? Who is really important? Who are the few people I'm going to make sure to stay in touch with?

If you ask boring questions, you will feel that people are boring.

A relationship dances between the need for security and stability & the need for novelty and exploration and risk-taking and experiences.

Difficult conversations, when you get through them, you feel emboldened, you feel more trusting, and you feel more confident.