Esther Perel Quotes & Sayings

People cheat on each other in a hundred different ways: indifference, emotional neglect, contempt, lack of respect, years of refusal of intimacy. Cheating doesn't begin to describe the ways that people let each other down. — Esther Perel

When we seek the gaze of another, it isn't always our partner we're turning away from, but the person we have ourselves become. — Esther Perel

there is more than a hint of arrogance in the assumption that we can make our relationships permanent, — Esther Perel

Are you asking a question because you want to know the answer or are you asking the question because you want your partner to know that you are having this question? — Esther Perel

At the same time, eroticism in the home requires active engagement and willful intent. It is an ongoing resistance to the message that marriage is serious, more work than play; and that passion is for teenagers and the immature. We must unpack our ambivalence about pleasure, and challenge our pervasive discomfort with sexuality, particularly in the context of family. Complaining of sexual boredom is easy and conventional. Nurturing eroticism in the home is an act of open defience. — Esther Perel

What is the relationship between love and desire? How do they relate, and how do they conflict? ... Therein lies the mystery of eroticism. — Esther Perel

Beginnings are always ripe with possibilities, for they hold the promise of completion. Through love we imagine a new way of being. You see me as I've never seen myself. You airbrush my imperfections, and I like what you see. With you, and through you, I will become that which I long to be. I will become whole. Being chosen by the one you chose is one of the glories of falling in love. It generates a feeling of intense personal importance. I matter. You confirm my significance. — Esther Perel

Today, monogamy is one person at a time. — Esther Perel

Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning. — Esther Perel

Despite a 50 percent divorce rate for first marriages and 65 percent the second time around; despite the staggering frequency of affairs; despite the fact that monogamy is a ship sinking faster than anyone can bail it out, we continue to cling to the wreckage with absolute faith in its structural soundness. — Esther Perel

We no longer get work out of our children; today we get meaning. — Esther Perel

Success, to me, is helping one person or many people counter the isolation and pseudoconnectivity of our lives by boosting their ability to connect to themselves and to others. — Esther Perel

Eroticism challenges us to seek a different kind of resolution, to surrender to the unknown and ungraspable, and to breach the confines of the rational world. — Esther Perel

Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while desire is energized by it. If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected. Love is about having; desire is about wanting. An expression of longing, desire requires ongoing elusiveness. It is less concerned with where it has already been than passionate about where it can still go. But too often, as couples settle into the comforts of love, they cease to fan the flame of desire. They forget that fire needs air. — Esther Perel

Modern love is the enterprise that everyone wants to be a part of, yet there's a fifty percent divorce rate in round one and a sixty-five percent divorce rate in round two. — Esther Perel

It's hard to experience desire when you're weighted down by concern. — Esther Perel

In my community there were two groups of people, There were the ones who did not die and the ones who came back to life. — Esther Perel

Women - - and men - - need to understand that a woman's transition is often much longer. The caretaker must leave the place of orientation to the needs of others to the place where she focuses on herself. — Esther Perel

Like dreams and works of art, fantasies are far more than what they appear to be on the surface. They're complex psychic creations whose symbolic content mustn't be translated into literal intent. Think poetry, not prose, — Esther Perel

Monogamy, it follows, is the sacred cow of the romantic ideal, for it is the marker of our specialness: I have been chosen and others renounced. When you turn your back on other loves, you confirm my uniqueness; when your hand or mind wanders, my importance is shattered. Conversely, if I no longer feel special, my own hands and mind tingle with curiosity. The disillusioned are prone to roam. Might someone else restore my significance — Esther Perel

If you start to feel that you have given up too many parts of yourself to be with your partner, then one day you will end up looking for another person in order to reconnect with those lost parts. — Esther Perel

Everyone should cultivate a secret garden. — Esther Perel

I want to engage people in an honest, enlightened, and provocative conversation about the nature of erotic desire and the intricacies of intimacy and sexuality. The object of my game is to bring nonjudgmental, multicultural understanding to the challenges and choices of modern relationships. — Esther Perel

Eroticism thrives in the space between the self and the other. — Esther Perel

Acceptance doesn't mean predictability. Sex isn't always for 11 at night - - it's also 'meet at a hotel room at noon'. What you feel during dating can exist at home, if you don't suffocate it. — Esther Perel

Erotic intelligence stretches far beyond a repertoire of sexual techniques. It is an intelligence that celebrates curiosity and play, the power of the imagination, and our infinite fascination with what is hidden and mysterious. — Esther Perel

Excitement is interwoven with uncertainty, and with our willingness to embrace the unknown rather than to shield ourselves from it. But this very tension leaves us feeling vulnerable. I caution my patients that there is no such thing as safe sex. — Esther Perel

Any person or system exposed to ceaseless novelty and change risks falling into chaos; but one that is too rigid or static ceases to grow and eventually dies. This never-ending dance between change and stability is like the anchor and the waves. — Esther Perel

The whole fauna of human fantasies, their marine vegetation, drifts and luxuriates in the dimly lit zones of human activity, as though plaiting thick tresses of darkness. Here, too, appear the lighthouses of the mind, with their outward resemblance to less pure symbols. The gateway to mystery swings open at the touch of human weakness and we have entered the realms of darkness. One false step, one slurred syllable together reveal a man's thoughts. - Louis Aragon — Esther Perel

Our partner's sexuality does not belong to us. It isn't just for and about us, and we should not assume that it rightfully falls within our jurisdiction. — Esther Perel

As long as men completely dominate business and political life, as long as women are economically dependent on men, as long as the burden of child care falls wholly on women's shoulders (toppling even the most egalitarian couples), you cannot speak of a liberated female sexuality. — Esther Perel

Eroticism. Though I doubt that they ever used this word, they embodied its mystical meaning as a quality of aliveness, a pathway to freedom — Esther Perel

The ability to go anywhere in our imagination is a pure expression of individual freedom. It is a creative force that can help us transcend reality. — Esther Perel

We used to moralize; today we normalize, and performance anxiety is the secular version of our old religious guilt. — Esther Perel

A # peer relationship is one where the partners experience an affectionate, companionate coupledom.
They are friends. They are the product of the egalitarian model; they are good life partners, but are often less sexual. — Esther Perel

We're walking contradictions, seeking safety and predictability on one hand and thriving on diversity on the other. — Esther Perel

There is no sex without a cue. People who date have their cues at home, before they meet. You think about where to go, what to eat, what to do and say. Sometimes the cue is short - - just before we reach the bar - - but sex is never just spontaneous. Spontaneity is a myth. — Esther Perel

The attraction of dating is that you don't take yes for granted - - you're fully engaged, there's seductiveness, tension. — Esther Perel

Today, our sexuality is an open-ended personal project; it is part of who we are, an identity, and no longer merely something we do. — Esther Perel

Sex is about where you can take me, not what you can do to me. — Esther Perel

Affairs can be powerful detonators. They can invigorate a marriage that's flat, jolt people out of years of complacency. Fear of loss rekindles desire, makes people have conversations they haven't had in years, takes them out of their contrived illusion of safety. — Esther Perel

You know what happens to sex in marriage? Instead of inviting desire, you monitor it. Especially men: You let her sleep late, you take the kids to the park, and all that time you're thinking, "Tonight I'll get some." That doesn't work. — Esther Perel

For [erotically intelligent couples], love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning. They know that they have years in which to deepen their connection, to experiment, to regress, and even to fail. They see their relationship as something alive and ongoing, not a fait accompli. It's a story that they are writing together, one with many chapters, and neither partner knows how it will end. There's always a place they haven't gone yet, always something about the other still to be discovered. — Esther Perel

You never know your partner as well as you think. — Esther Perel

In desire, there must be some small amount of tension. And that tension comes with the unknown, the unpredictable. You can close yourself off at home and say, "Whew, at last I'm in a place where I don't have to worry," or you can keep yourself open to the mystery and elusiveness of your partner. — Esther Perel

The grand illusion of committed love is that we think our partners are ours. In truth, their separateness is unassailable, and their mystery is forever ungraspable. As soon as we can begin to acknowledge this, sustained desire becomes a real possibility. It's remarkable to me how a sudden threat to the status quo (an affair, an infatuation, a prolonged absence, or even a really good fight) can suddenly ignite desire. There's nothing like the fear of loss to make those old shoes look new again. — Esther Perel

We are afraid that our adult sexuality will somehow damage our kids, that it's inappropriate or dangerous. But whom are we protecting? Children who see their primary caregivers at ease expressing their affection (discreetly, within appropriate boundaries) are more likely to embrace sexuality with the healthy combination of respect, responsibility, and curiosity it deserves. By censoring our sexuality, curbing our desires, or renouncing them altogether, we hand our inhibitions intact to the next generation. — Esther Perel

In committed sex, in marriage, people don't feel the need to seduce or to build anticipation - - that's an effort they think they no longer need to do now that they have conquered their partner. If they're in the mood, their partner should be too. — Esther Perel

Mystery is not always about travelling to new places, it is about looking with new eyes. — Esther Perel

Women want to talk first, connect first, then have sex. For men, sex is the connection. Sex is man's language of intimacy — Esther Perel

On some level we trade passion for security, that's trading one illusion for another. It's a matter of degree. We can't live in constant fear, but we can't live without any. The fear of loss is essential to love. — Esther Perel

Oscar Wilde wrote, "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is getting what one wants, and the other is not getting it." When — Esther Perel

I got rid of my motorcycle when Jimmy was born. I'm not allowed to die in a bike crash anymore. — Esther Perel

I have more than thirty thousand hours of family and relationship counseling experience under my belt. Over the years, I have seen changes in relationship trends walk through my therapy office doors. My richest gifts are translating the complexities of love and desire in modern relationships into something simple and accessible. I can offer informed advice that makes people feel comfortable, knowledgeable, and confident. — Esther Perel

And what is true for human beings is true for every living thing: all organisms require alternating periods of growth and equilibrium. Any person or system exposed to ceaseless novelty and change risks falling into chaos; but one that is too rigid or static ceases to grow and eventually dies. This never-ending dance between change and stability is like the anchor and the waves. Adult relationships mirror these dynamics all too well. We seek a steady, reliable anchor in our partner. Yet at the same time we expect love to offer a transcendent experience that will allow us to soar beyond our ordinary lives. The challenge for modern couples lies in reconciling the need for what's safe and predictable with the wish to pursue what's exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring. — Esther Perel

The secret to desire in a long-term relationship — Esther Perel

Very often we don't go elsewhere because we are looking for another person. We go elsewhere because we are looking for another self. It isn't so much that we want to leave the person we are with as we want to leave the person we have become. — Esther Perel

The smaller we feel in the world, the more we need to shine in the eyes of our partner. — Esther Perel

Despite living in a time of unprecedented sexual freedom in America, the practice of policing sexuality has continued unabated since the days of the Puritans. — Esther Perel

The more we trust, the farther we are able to venture. — Esther Perel

The body often contains emotional truths that words can too easily gloss over. — Esther Perel

In dating, if you say no, your lover goes on to the next person. In marriage, if you say no, the person stays. — Esther Perel

This litany of disenchantment notwithstanding, I believe there's an additional layer to our libidinal demise that has to do with our culture's deep ambivalence around sexuality. While we recognize the importance of sex, we nonetheless vacillate between extremes of excessive license and repressive tactics: "Don't do it till you're married." "Just do it when you feel like it." "It's no big deal." "It's a huge deal." "You need love." "What's love got to do with it?" It's an all-or-nothing approach to sex. Porn — Esther Perel

My husband deals with pain; I deal with pleasure. They are intimately acquainted. — Esther Perel

If someone is counting on children to bring them peace of mind, self-confidence, or a steady sense of happiness, they are in for a bad shock. What children do is complicate, implicate, give plot lines to the story, color to the picture, darken everything, bring fear as never before, suggest the holy, explain the ferocity of the human mind, undo or redo some of the past while casting shadows into the future. There is no boredom with children in the home. The risks are high. The voltage crackling. - Anne Roiphe, Married — Esther Perel

Because the erotic frisson is such that the kiss that you only imagine giving,can be as powerful and as enchanting as hours of actual lovemaking. As Marcel Proust said, it's our imagination that is responsible for love, not the other person. — Esther Perel

We liken the passion of the beginning to adolescent intoxication - both transient and unrealistic. The consolation for giving it up is the security that waits on the other side. Yet when we trade passion for stability, are we not merely swapping one fantasy for another? As Stephen Mitchell points out, the fantasy of permanence may trump the fantasy of passion, but both are products of our imagination. — Esther Perel

The extended family, the community, and religion may indeed have limited our freedom, sexual and otherwise, but in return they offered us a much-needed sense of belonging. For generations, these traditional institutions provided order, meaning, continuity, and social support. Dismantling them has left us with more choices and fewer restrictions than ever. We are freer, but also more alone. As Giddens describes it, we have become ontologically more anxious. — Esther Perel

The mom doesn't become sexy; the woman does. You have to retrieve the woman from the mother. And she may need to separate to do that: a bath, a walk. She must cordon off an erotic space. — Esther Perel

It's hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned her sense of autonomy. — Esther Perel

When we are children, play comes to us naturally, but our capacity for play collapses as we age. Sex often remains the last arena of play we can permit ourselves, a bridge to our childhood. Long after the mind has been filled with injunctions to be serious, the body remains a free zone, unencumbered by reason and judgment. In lovemaking, we can recapture the utterly uninhibited movement of the child, who has not yet developed self-consciousness before the judging gaze of others. — Esther Perel

The very ingredients that nurture love - mutuality, reciprocity, protection, worry, responsibility for the other - are sometimes the very ingredients that stifle desire. — Esther Perel

When there is nothing left to hide, there is nothing left to seek. — Esther Perel

There is no neediness in desire ... there is no caretaking in desire. Caretaking is mightily loving, [but] it's a powerful anti-aphrodisiac. — Esther Perel

Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the one you are with; you are not liking the person you have become. — Esther Perel

Love is an exercise in selective perception — Esther Perel

Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. — Esther Perel

Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are. — Esther Perel

In my work, I see couples who no longer wait for an invitation into their partner's interiority, but instead demand admittance, as if they are entitled to unrestricted access into the private thoughts of their loved ones — Esther Perel

Romantics value intensity over stability. Realists value security over passion. But both are often disappointed, for few people can live happily at either extreme. — Esther Perel

Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all? — Esther Perel

Modern relationships are cauldrons of contradictory longings: safety and excitement, grounding and transcendence, the comfort of love and the heat of passion We want it all, and we want it with one person. Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act that we achieve intermittently at best. It requires knowing your partner while remaining open to the unknown, cultivating intimacy that respects privacy. Separateness and togetherness alternate, or proceed in counterpoint. Desire resists confinement, and commitment mustn't swallow freedom whole. — Esther Perel

Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance. — Esther Perel

We see what we want to see, what we can tolerate seeing, and our partner does the same. Neutralizing each other's complexity affords us a kind of manageable otherness. We narrow down our partner, ignoring or rejecting essential parts when they threaten the established order of our coupledom. We also reduce ourselves, jettisoning large chunks of our personalities in the name of love. — Esther Perel

Most of us will get turned on at night by the very same things that we will demonstrate against during the day - the erotic mind is not very politically correct. — Esther Perel

There's something very full in knowing that your partner accepts you as is. — Esther Perel