Quotes & Sayings About Change In A Relationship

Over the years, however, the research evidence keeps piling up, and it points strongly to the conclusion that a high degree of empathy in a relationship is possibly the most potent and certainly one of the most potent factors in bringing about change and learning. — Carl Rogers

All I'm telling you to do is to be smart about it. Know that if this man isn't looking for a serious relationship, you're not going to change his mind just because you two are going on dates and being intimate. You could be the most perfect woman on the Lord's green earth-you're capable of interesting conversation, you cook a mean breakfast, you hand out backrubs like sandwiches, you're independent (which means, to him, that you're not going to be in his pockets)-but if he's not ready for a serious relationship, he going to treat you like sports fish. — Steve Harvey

To invoke Jesus' name is to place yourself in his presence, to open yourself to his power, his energy. The prayer of Jesus' name actually brings God closer, making him more present. He is always present in some way, since he knows and loves each one of us at every moment; but he is not present to those who do not pray as intimately as he is present to those who do. Prayers a difference; 'prayer changes things.' It may or may not change our external circumstances. (It does if God sees that that change is good for us; it does not if God sees that it is not.) but it always changes our relationship to God, which is infinitely more important than external circumstances, however pressing they may seem, because it is eternal but they are temporary, and because it is our very self but they are not. — Peter Kreeft

You find that you have to do many things, more than just lift up the camera and shoot, and so you get involved in it in a very physical way. You may find that the picture you want to do can only be made from a certain place, and you're not there, so you have to physically go there. And that participation may spur you on to work harder on the thing, ... because in the physical change of position you start seeing a whole different relationship. — Jay Maisel

Marriage has historically, as long as there's been human history, meant a man and a woman in a relationship for life. Once we change that definition, then where does it go from there? — Mike Huckabee

All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete,or a scientist, or an independent business creator. in service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self. Becoming a parent is one of these basic human transformational deeds. By this act, we change our fundamental relationship with the universe- if nothing else, we lose our place as the pinnacle and end-point of evolution, and become a mere link. The demands of motherhood especially consume the old self, and replace it with something new, often better and wiser, sometimes wearier or disillusioned, or tense and terrified, certainly more self-knowing, but never the same again. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Assimilated by the deceit of its divine origin, its tenets are reward for obedience, punishment for transgression, both holding good for all time (this world and another). This moral code is a dramatised burlesque of the conceptive faculty, but is never so perfect or simple in that it allows latitude for change in any sense, so becomes dissociated from evolution, etc; and this divorce loses any utility and of necessity for its own preservation and the sympathy desired, evolves contradictions or a complication to give relationship. Transgressing its commandments, dishonesty shows us its iniquity, for our justification; or simultaneously we create an excuse or reason for the sin by a distortion of the moral code, that allows some incongruity. (Usually retaing a few unforgiveable sins- and an unwritten law.) — Austin Osman Spare

And so the second answer: you are everything. Take away even the tiniest relationship and you are diminished as well; add one and you are increased; change any being in this cosmos, and you are altered as well. You are, therefore, everything: a web of relationship, each containing all. — Charles Eisenstein

The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance or your partner as he or she is, without needing to judge or change them in any way.
That immediately takes you beyond ego. All mind games and all addictive clinging are then over. There are no victims and no perpetrators anymore, no accuser and accused. This is also the end of codependency, of being drawn into somebody else's unconscious pattern and thereby enabling it to continue. You will then either separate - in love - or move ever more deeply into the Now together - into Being. Can it be that simple? Yes, it is that simple. — Eckhart Tolle

They know what the "perfumes" are going to say because they
always say the same thing, but they pretend to believe them anyway.
(a)"I could change your life."
(b)"A lot of women would like to be in your shoes."
(c)"You're young now, but what will become of you in a few
years' time? You need to think about making a longer-term
investment."
(d)"I'm married, but my wife ... " (This opening line can have
various endings: " ... is ill," " ... has threatened to commit
suicide if I leave her," etc.)
(e)"You're a princess and deserve to be treated like one. I didn't
know it until now, but I've been waiting for you. I don't believe
in coincidences and I really think we ought to give this relationship a chance. — Paulo Coelho

USE EMOTIONS AS INFORMATION. Horses use emotion as information to engage surprisingly agile responses to environmental stimuli and relationship challenges:

(a) Feel the emotion in its purest form
(b) Get the message behind the emotion
(c) Change something in response to the message
(d) Go back to grazing. In other words, let the emotion go, and either get back on task or relax, so you can enjoy life fully. Horses don't hang on to the story, endlessly ruminating over the details of uncomfortable situations

-- from an October 30, 2013 article on the Intelligent Optimist magazine — Linda Kohanov

Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat ... Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established ... Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. But should they finally confess and repent, you will discover a miracle in your own heart that allows you to reach out and begin to build between you a bridge of reconciliation ... Forgiveness does not excuse anything ... You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness ... — Wm. Paul Young

In this changing world around us we can't help but change. Change is what makes our relationships so interesting! without it there wouldn't be anything new happening in our lives. Your job as an equal in your relationship is to look for change in your spouse and embrace it. When you show a devoted interest in every talent, hobby, desire, passion or goal that your spouse tosses on the table, you are telling your spouse that he/she is important to you. The favor will be returned tenfold. Life will become more interesting! — Lindsey Rietzsch

It is very tough emotionally for many of us to look ourselves in the mirror and face up to the fact that we need to adjust our approach, our beliefs and our actions to get the results we desire. Our fears tell us we will have wasted all of those years and we don't want to change now. How many of you are stuck in relationships going nowhere? How many of you have stayed far too long, giving the relationship a chance? Certainly, you need to do your part to learn, change and grow. But if you can honestly tell yourself the other person is not growing with you, then wish them well, and move on. If you stay, you are disrespecting yourself. — Gary Spinell

The only person worthy of your love is not one who overstayed in the relationship without a single change, but one, who appeared like an angel, and used a single day to make a million change. — Michael Bassey

Anyone should be able to reopen discussions about an agreement at any time. It helps to think of agreements as mutable, organic things that will be revisited and modified as people grow and relationships change. When we see these structures as static, they can make relationships less rather than more stable, because they will fail to adapt to change...sometimes spectaculary.
A good relationship is not something you have, it's something you do. Over and over, the best, happiest relationships we have seen and been involved in are those whose members are constantly willing to renegociate the goundwork beneath them. In fact, some people set periodic dates in their calendar when they will review their relationship agreements with each other to make sure they're still working and see if anything needs to change. — Franklin Veaux

But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar. — Cassandra Clare

So let us praise the distinctive pleasures of re-reading: that particular shiver of anticipation as you sink into a beloved, familiar text; the surprise and wonder when a book that had told one tale now turns and tells another; the thrill when a book long closed reveals a new door with which to enter. In our tech-obsessed, speed-obsessed, throw-away culture let us be truly subversive and praise instead the virtues of a long, slow relationship with a printed book unfolding over many years, a relationship that includes its weight in our hands and its dusty presence on our shelves. In an age that prizes novelty, irony, and youth, let us praise familiarity, passion, and knowledge accrued through the passage of time. As we age, as we change, as our lives change around us, we bring different versions of ourselves to each encounter with our most cherished texts. Some books grow better, others wither and fade away, but they never stay static. — Terri Windling

Be the man who has the spirit of a ruthless tiger, ravaging every dusty corner of my soul.
Be the man for whom I will tame myself voluntarily..
Be the man who can make me forget my birth date in moments of utter dellusion.
Be the man whose arms are my harbor, whose lips are my shore, and whose name is my only salvation.
Be the man who erases my past and draws my future with trails of roses and kisses.
Be the man who makes me sigh behind the windows of Poetry, longing to be written.
Be the man whose cigarette's ashes are confounded with mine.
Be the man whose voice moves mountains inside me.
Be the man whose eyes devour the innocence within me with every piercing glance.
Be the man for whom I will transform exceptions into rules.
Be the man who will dare to tear this poem from my hands.
The man who will rewrite with the uncertainty of the futur every single one of my verses. — Malak El Halabi

A small change in mind can greatly change misunderstanding to understanding! Until we really understand misunderstanding, we shall always misunderstand misunderstanding! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Things change when someone special comes into your life. Both sides have to give up things. The one thing you don't give up in a good relationship is you
whatever makes you most you. - Jim Olsten (Jane's Grandpa) — Elizabeth Chandler

If you approach others with the thought of compassion, that will automatically reduce fear and allow an openness with other people. It creates a positive, friendly atmosphere. With that attitude, you can approach a relationship in which you, yourself, initially create the possibility of receiving affection or a positive response from the other person. And with that attitude, even if the other person is unfriendly or doesn't respond to you in a positive way, then at least you've approached the person with a feeling of openness that gives you a certain flexibility and the freedom to change your approach as needed. — Dalai Lama XIV

one text can change the whole dynamic of a budding relationship. In a certain context, even just saying something as innocuous as "Hey, let's hang out sometime" or spelling errors or punctuation choices can irritate someone. When I spoke with Sherry Turkle about this, she said that texting, unlike an in-person conversation, is not a forgiving medium for mistakes. — Aziz Ansari

I mean, we're really making a quantum change in our relationship to the plant world with genetic modification. — Michael Pollan

You see two people together. They're in a relationship. It's really power that holds those people together. And when the designs of power change, those people will separate and there's nothing they can do in the meantime about it. — Frederick Lenz

During the Renaissance there was a renewed interest in the relationship between genius, melancholia, and madness. A stronger distinction was made between sane melancholies of high achievement and individuals whose insanity prevented them from using their ability. The eighteenth century witnessed a sharp change in attitude; balance and rational thought, rather than "inspiration" and emotional extremes, were seen as the primary components of genius. — Kay Redfield Jamison

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

any movement which is worth while, any action which has any deep significance, must begin with each one of us. I must change first; I must see what is the nature and structure of my relationship with the world - and in the very seeing is the doing; therefore I, as a human being living in the world, bring about a different quality, and that quality, it seems to me, is the quality of the religious mind.

The religious mind is something entirely different from the mind that believes in religion...A religious mind does not seek at all, it cannot experiment with truth. Truth is not something dictated by your pleasure or pain, or by your conditioning as a Hindu or whatever religion you belong to. The religious mind is a state of mind in which there is no fear and therefore no belief whatsoever but only what is - what actually is. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Frankly, I am quite tired of those who tout Christianity as a way to stop smoking or drinking or break wild habits of the world. Is that all Christianity is, to keep us from some bad habit? Of course, regeneration will clean us up, and the new birth will make a man right. If that is what Christianity is all about, what about the person whose life is not that bad? The purpose of God in redemption is to restore us again to the divine imperative of worship. We were created to worship, but sin destroyed that ability. Jesus Christ, on the cross, redeemed us and brought us back to the place where we now can worship and have fellowship with God Almighty. My clean life is a by-product of my conversion. My life may have pointed out to me that I needed a drastic change, but that is not the purpose for which I was converted. The essence of conversion is to bring me into a right relationship with God and have fellowship with Him. — A.W. Tozer

SMALL BEGINNINGS 1. Identify the disappointments of the 'ever after' in your marriage. What were your expectations when you got married? 2. What are some differences that seem to plague your relationship? Are there differences that you enjoy? 3. What are some of the issues in your marriage that you hide from or have decided not to address? 4. Do you tend to blame your spouse for the problems in your marriage? 5. How much is Jesus allowed into your relationship? How can you begin to change the level at which He makes a difference? 6. How can you become a better soul mate? — Gary J. Oliver

One does not ask about one's true identity simply as a matter of course, but only in rather special circumstances. What this means, I believe, is that "who I really am" becomes an issue for me only when my system of values "breaks down," that is, only when I realize that the values according to which I have lived until now are insufficient to inform a life that I can recognize as satisfying. This realization can occur in variety of circumstances: when my beliefs about myself or the world undergo significant change; when I find that two of my values conflict in a fundamental way; or when, as in the present example, the relations among my previous commitments are insufficiently determinate to tell me what to do in the particular situation I face. — Frederick Neuhouser

When relationships have outlived their shelf life, people often realize that at some level, they are sticking it our because they once thought in the light of their divine love that the other person would change. Sorry for breaking the poetic hope here, but that doesn't happen. People are like rubber bands. They may be able to stretch from time to time and do some amazing things, but in general they are who they are. If manipulation and machinations on your side get them to behave the way you want, I will set my clock on the fact that they will return to their previous way of behaving, or they will keep faking it. To be in a relationship with someone who is not really there doesn't make sense. People who aren't cooperating feel like a project to us, like something for us to rescue or fix. Rescuing is the province of firefighters and fairy tales, but it's not real life. The stance of sticking it out in hopes of redemption is an old story and one that has wasted many lives. — Ramani Durvasula

Of course there are collaborations. But in official meetings with Western diplomats from the US and the European Union, the major issues of our relationships are simply not discussed. The topics are on climate change or any other issues they want us to agree with them on. But they never discuss how we could develop an equal relationship. They should stop using pompous orchestrated summits and begin a serious dialogue with small meetings. — Yoweri Museveni

There's a great relationship between pop music and the way the body could be seen from the inside - when I was singing or listening to music I would change shape in my head, becoming all kinds of things and people. Music is a way of making your body. — Jenny Hval

I understand that some people find God after misfortune, although this seems to me even more ridiculous than finding Him in good times. 'God smote me. He must love me.' It's like not wanting a romantic relationship until a member of the opposite sex punches you in the face. My 'miraculous survival' will not change my opinion that Heaven is an idea constructed by man to help him cope with the fact that life on earth is both brutally short, and paradoxically, far too long. — Andrew Davidson

While she respected all of the Seven, her relationship with Illium was different. He'd been the first one she'd truly come to know, his humor and wit critical in helping her adjust to this new life. Even among the Seven, he seemed to hold a special place: no one was ever angry at Bluebell. The idea that power might change him, chill that joyous heart was even worse than the thought of losing him to it. — Nalini Singh

The Christian knows no change with regard to God. He may be rich to-day and poor to-morrow; he may be sickly to-day and well to-morrow; he may be in happiness to-day, to-morrow he may be distressed
but there is no change with regard to his relationship to God. If He loved me yesterday, He loves me to-day. My unmoving mansion of rest is my blessed Lord. Let prospects be blighted; let hopes be blasted; let joy be withered; let mildews destroy everything; I have lost nothing of what I have in God. He is "my strong habitation whereunto I can continually resort." I am a pilgrim in the world, but at home in my God. In the earth I wander, but in God I dwell in a quiet habitation. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I don't think there are enough words in the world that exist to express exactly just how much I love my son! He's right there in the front of my soul, he can turn me into an eagle, a lioness, a tigress, a swan! A goof or a queen! There's no underestimating just how much I love him; I surround him like the ocean surrounds the ships! I never wanted to change the world, until he came along and showed me that he deserves a better world to live in! — C. JoyBell C.

Love is a form of energy, and similar to all forms of energy, it is both essential for life and dangerous. Love can enrich a person's life or destroy a person's world. Love is a catalytic agent of change because it makes us dare to become the best person that we can be. Falling in love for the first time drives a person to the cusp of madness, while the bitter aftermath of a love lost irrevocably alters the positive and negative aspects of a person's character. Withstanding rejection by a lover, we discover within us those ingredients that we will need in order to find our life mate and complete ourselves as man and woman. — Kilroy J. Oldster

All living relationships are in process of
change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building themselves new forms. But there is no single
fixed form to express such a changing relationship. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

People in one of two states in a relationship. The first is what I call positive sentiment override, where positive emotion overrides irritability. It's a buffer. Their spouse will do something bad, and they'll say,'Oh, he's just in a crummy mood.'Or they can be in negative sentiment override, said that even a relatively new tool thing that a partner says get perceived as negative. In negative sentiment override state, people draw lasting conclusions about each other. If their spouse does something positive, it's a selfish person doing a positive thing. It's really hard to change their states, and those states determine whether when one party tries to repair things, the other party sees that as repair or hostile manipulation. — John Gottberg

Tam let his hand drop to his neck and slowly circled his fingers around it. It was a free, gentle touch and Casen knew that if he asked him not to, he would remove his hand and nothing would change. He couldn't get the words out; it wasn't the touch he had a problem with, it was the far away look in Tam's eyes that said he wasn't in the room anymore. The look that suggested he was lying on the ground, as the rain fell in buckets and a stranger knelt over him, trying to keep him awake.
Casen blinked and looked away, as the urge to cry for that lost look threatened. — Elaine White

It is quite wrong to assume that poor people are generally unwilling to change; but the proposed change must stand in some organic relationship to what they are doing already, and they are rightly suspicious of, and resistant to, radical changes proposed by town-based and office-bound innovators who approach them in the spirit of: "You just get out of my way and I shall show you how useless you are and how splendidly the job can be done with a lot of foreign money and outlandish equipment. — Ernst F. Schumacher

A woman in love is her most lovely. A relationship end does not change that unless she lets it. — Suzette R. Hinton

That being in love can change almost anything: from your expectations and limitations to your very life plans. It's a completely unpredictable force. And how it operates within any particular relationship is a total mystery to anyone outside of that relationship. — Zack Love

Why do we resist the mystery that change brings? When we get too rigid and inflexible, rigor mortis of the soul sets in. For proof of this, we need look no further than to those who choose to stay in a relationship or job long after the soul, or life force, that originally brought it passion and joy has vacated the premises. — Dennis Merritt Jones

God doesn't expect us to be a walking encyclopedia of biblical knowledge. He wants us to know Him, to be in a relationship with Him. This means not only hearing but allowing our understanding of God to change the way we live. Like the wise builder who laid the foundation of his house on the rock, we learn to let our knowledge of God change us. — Tyler Edwards

Haven't you realized that pleasure, which is indeed certainly the one and only reason for the two sexes to come together, is nevertheless not enough to establish a relationship between them? And that though this pleasure is preceded by desire which draws people together, it is however followed by aversion which pushes them apart? It's a law of nature which only love can change. Can we feel love whenever we want? Yet love is always needed, which would be a dreadfully tiresome thing if it hadn't fortunately been realized that it's enough for just one of the partners to feel it, thereby halving the problem, and without even incurring any great loss; in fact, one party is happy to love, the other to please, which is actually a bit less exciting but which can be combined with the pleasure of deceiving and that evens things out, so everyone's happy. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Helping professionals, therapists, life coaches, healers can greatly assist you in changing your life for the better, but they pale in comparison to the power thats gained from developing a relationship with yourself. It's you that holds the power for change — Renae A. Sauter

Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In every relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If you really care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's the end. For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the qualities I most admired in myself I gave up. I stopped being loud and bossy ... Oh, all right. I was still loud and bossy, but only behind his back. — Katharine Hepburn

If you change partners every time it gets tough or you get a little dissatisfied, then I don't think you get the richness that's available in a long-term relationship. — Jeff Bridges

We all fantasize about a relationship we'd like to do over or something we'd like to change about our past. I think there are a lot more opportunities for second chances in our lives than we think. — Jean Smart

Also, on account of the odd relationship between time and space, the people who do manage to time-jump sometimes space-jump at the same time and end up in places where they simply don't belong. Over there, for example," he said as a raucous DeLorean sports car rared into view from nowhere, "is that crazy American professorwho can't seem to stay put in one time, and, I must say, there is an absolute plague of of killer robots from the future being sent to change the past. Sleeping there under that banyan tree is a certain Hank Morgan of Hartford, Connecticut, who was accidentally transported one day back to King Arthur's Court, and stayed there until Merlin put him to sleep for 1300 thirteen hundred years. He was suppsoed to wake up back in his own time, but look at this lazy fellow! He's still snoring away, and has missed his slot. — Salman Rushdie

I've loved him my whole life, and somewhere along the way, that love didn't change but grew. It grew to fill the parts of me that I did not have when I was a child. It grew with every new longing of my body and desire until there was not a piece of me that did not love him. And when I look at him, there is no other feeling in me. — Laura Nowlin

Our initial sensory data are always "first derivatives," statements about differences which exist among external objects or statements about changes which occur either in them or in our relationship to them. Objects and circumstances which remain absolutely constant relative to the observer, unchanged either by his own movement or by external events, are in general difficult and perhaps always impossible to perceive. What we perceive easily is difference and change and difference is a relationship. — Gregory Bateson

Humans are funny. The more someone doesn't want someone, the more that someone wants that someone. The time came when she started pulling away. She had developed a tendency to focus on the things that she didn't respect in him and eventually that's all she saw. — Kate McGahan

Your relationship with Me is meant to be vibrant and challenging, as I invade more and more areas of your life. Do not fear change, for I am making you a new creation, with old things passing away and new things continually on the horizon. When you cling to old ways and sameness, you resist My work within you. I want you to embrace all that I am doing in your life, finding your security in Me alone. — Sarah Young

Our surroundings fade and we exist in unison, two people who once shared cups of coffee, unprecedentedly ourselves in a changing world. — Caroline George

Change Your Behavior towards Your Mother If your mother is still living and you have contact with her, you need to change the way you respond to her. To do that, you have to take charge of your own emotions about the subject. You can't let her thoughtlessness rule your relationship with her. Instead, stand up for yourself. You can do it in a gentle way, but however you do it, you need to place the burden of the past directly on your mother's shoulders. — J.L. Anderson

I've never regretted it. Questioned it? Sure. But never regretted."
"Is there a difference?" I ask.
"Absolutely. Regret is counterproductive. It's looking back on a past that you can't change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future. I questioned a lot about my relationship with your father. People make spontaneous decisions based off of their hearts all the time. There's so much more to relationships than just love. — Colleen Hoover

In one fell swoop we can now see the same mental health benefits of marriage for same sex couples as heterosexual couples, the main reason there is a benefit to being in a legally recognized marriage is that it introduces a level of stability into a relationship. This is going to help change the social climate. Hearing the Supreme Court say this is OK will help couples feel like they're part of regular society. — Rick Wright

Simon said, "So have we DTRed now?" Isabelle shrugged. "I have no idea what that means." Simon hid the fact that he was inordinately pleased by this. "Are we officially boyfriend and girlfriend? Is there a Shadowhunter ritual? Should I change my Facebook status from 'it's complicated' to 'in a relationship'?" Isabelle screwed up her nose adorably. "You have a book that's also a face?" Simon — Cassandra Clare

We all have something about ourselves that we'd change if we could in a perfect world, be it our body image, our financial status, our relationship, whatever. I wanted to talk about how nobody's exempted from the realities of life and all those things. — Keri Hilson

There are many things that can keep you in a relationship," I say. "Fear of being alone. Fear of disrupting the arrangement of your life. A decision to settle for something that's okay, because you don't know if you can get any better. Or maybe there's the irrational belief that it will get better, even if you know he won't change. — David Levithan

Here is the kind of thought pattern that runs through the mind of the child in the alcoholic family system: "If I feel guilty, then I am responsible. And if I am responsible, then I can do something to fix it, to change it, to make it different." Giving up your guilt also means giving up your sense that you have control over the situation. And, of course, loss of control is a disaster. You have grown up to be the perfect doormat for an inconsiderate person. Often you end up in a perfect give-and-take relationship . . . you give, they take. — Janet Geringer Woititz

Every time we open one door, we close another. It's lovely to spend Sunday morning with our new love, cooking breakfast and taking a walk together. But in the midst of our happiness, we may feel nostalgia for our former Sunday morning ritual of uninterrupted time alone at a favorite restaurant reading the newspaper. We need to acknowledge the presence of both excitement and loss, to feel their rhythm as they ebb and flow through a new relationship. If we try to deny our losses, they lead to resentments, a gnawing discomfort, and a desire to withdraw.

Yet we also need to remind our ego that love means letting go of our entrenched rituals, of comparing, of wanting life to stay the same...Entering a relationship and living in the heart of the Beloved means our life will change, our shells will crack open and we will never be the same again. — Charlotte Kasl

In the beginning, New York and I had kind of a love-hate relationship. It seemed so abrasive compared to Europe. But the transformation here in recent years is really something. I don't think I would have seen as much change if I'd lived in any other city in the world. — Shalom Harlow

When a relationship fails. At times, we don't necessarily miss the person we were involved with; we miss the person we "hoped they could have been",if only they had changed. Or sometimes, we're just in love with the idea of being in love. Some people are insecure about being alone again. Some are afraid to let go of the familiar.Just remember, you can not change anyone but yourself so never make yourself a hostage to a sick relationship — Susanna McMahon

Israelis are wrong in not looking for a change in the relationship with the United States that would put it more in perspective - that we are the great power, they are the minor power. I don't think there are a great many American parents who will want to sacrifice their soldiers and children so Israel can maintain the West Bank. When that becomes clear, I think Israel's days are numbered as an ally that is never questioned or criticized. — Michael Scheuer

It's hard to have a relationship in this world. Other people are not the same from day to day. I might wake up next to a woman three days in a row, or three hundred, but I never know if she'll be there the next morning, or the next hour, or if the world will change completely while I'm not looking. She might even change into another person altogether. I might recognize something in her eyes, or she might not be a woman at all. She might turn into a man. Or a mailbox. Or a region of empty space. Or a feeling. Or a song. I might only recognize her as one recognizes someone in a dream, as in the way something is actually someone, and that someone is actually someone else. — Charles Yu

Miss McClure ... " he had been talking while her mind drifted off.
She brought her gaze back to his face, trying to focus on the flinty stare and thin line of his lips. "Sorry, I was distracted. And can't you call me Bryn?"
"I'll try, but generally I prefer a more formal approach in business dealings. It keeps the relationship clear."
"Like, you in charge, the other person in submission?" The words popped out before she edited herself. Her eyes grew large as she watched his face go through a change of expression. A slight smile hovered at the corner of his mouth.
"Yes, something like that. Might I get a refill?" He held up his empty glass. — Lizzie Ashworth

In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth? — Carl R. Rogers

Jealousy, however, does not represent a change in God, but is, as it were, the reverse of the coin of love; it was the people who were prone to change and forgetfulness, and from outside the relationship of love, God was indeed awesome like a consuming fire. — Peter C. Craigie

We want our delusions and will violently defend these when confronted. We want to believe that the job that is slowly choking us is good, because the effort it would take to change is too terrifying to contemplate. We never want to hear how badly we are being treated in a relationship because we are strong and how dare you suggest we don't know better. — Thomm Quackenbush

Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change. — Pema Chodron

The only complicated things worth fighting for will change the world in some way and/or make you lots of money, and a complicated relationship will only keep you from doing either. — Ingrid Weir

If you know what He has done at infinite cost to himself - He's put you into a relationship so that you'll never be rejected by Him - then your motivation when you sin is to go get Him. You want fellowship with Him. When the thing that most assures you is the thing that most convicts you, you'll be okay because when you're convicted of sin in a gospel way it drives you toward God.
Without the gospel we hate ourselves instead of our sin. Without the gospel we're motivated through all sorts of awful fear and pride to change and it doesn't really change our hearts; it just restrains our hearts. — Timothy Keller

Mystified by the change in their formerly awkward relationship, Christopher asked Bennett what had happened to alter it.
"I told her I was impotent from old war wounds," Bennett said. "That calmed her nerves considerably."
Taken aback, Christopher had brought himself to ask gingerly, "Are you?"
"Hell no," came Bennett's indignant reply. "I only said it because she was so skittish around me. And it worked."
Christopher had given him a sardonic glance. "Are you ever going to tell Audrey the truth?"
A mischievous smile had played at the corners of Bennett's lips. "I may let her cure me soon," he admitted. — Lisa Kleypas

I'm now in my mid-thirties, so I look in the mirror and my face is changing, and I have a different relationship all of a sudden with myself. Your face changes, things change - that's just kind of what happens. It's hard, though, in this industry, because I think so much importance is put on how you look, and I'm not brave enough to be like, "You know what? I'm just going to let it happen. Whatever. I'm so cool with every line on my face." — Kristen Stewart

The fatal flaw of human wisdom is that it promises that you can change your relationships without needing to change yourself.
Every painful thing we experience in relationships is meant to remind us of our need for God. And every good thing we experience is meant to be a metaphor of what we can only find in Him ... We settle for the satisfaction of human relationships when they were meant to point us to the perfect relational satisfaction found only with God. — Paul David Tripp

We're going to be married and hardly touch each other and have to work and work and never have any fun and we're just going to be okay with it because that's how life is and that's how relationships go, but I don't want that. I want our marriage to be ... fun. I love joking around while we fool around. I want to hold hands everywhere we go. I want to make out in the back of a movie theater, steal kisses in coffee shops, have sex over every inch of our apartment or house or wherever we live. And I'm scared marriage will change the fun part of our relationship. The part that keeps us young, keeps us in love, and I'm terrified you'll wake up when you're fifty and realize you're stuck with the decision you made when you were twenty-seven, and we haven't touched in months, we don't go out. I just want to know when that happens ... that you'll still ... you'll still love me. — Cassie Mae

Why did his tongue cultivate such a great many glissades of truth? I don't know. However, we can see two interesting tendencies: 1. Everything in your father's life that had political blackness was filtered out. Politics were, for him, a swamp that had already drowned too many in his vicinity. Not until late in life would your father change his relationship with politics. Perhaps too late. 2. Certainly we all realized that your father's words were not totally correct. But still we were hypnotized and stimulated. Is it not bizarre how the words of imagination can rumble forth a certain comfort? And is that not reality's reason for the existence of superfluousities like horoscopes, psychologists, and authors? — Jonas Hassen Khemiri

There's a radical change in the relationship with the human being and society. Art now is an open conversation with the society. Previously there was a necessity for a little bit of screaming and shouting just to get it into the conversation. — Lawrence Weiner

Marriage is for committed lovers, not hostages. Marriage is a sacred relationship created for two people who complete each other spiritually. While it requires sacrificial service, it is not a call to martyrdom. In many cases of domestic violence, a therapeutic separation is necessary to gain safety and direct attention to the gravity of the need for change. — Rob Jackson

If someone were to ask whether communications skills or meekness is most important to a marriage, I'd answer meekness, hands down. You can be a superb communicator but still never have the humility to ask, 'Is it I?' Communication skills are no substitute for Christlike attributes. As Dr. Douglas Brinley has observed, 'Without theological perspectives, secular exercises designed to improve our relationship and our communication skills (the common tools of counselors and marriage books) will never work any permanent change in one's heart: they simply develop more clever and skilled fighters! — John Bytheway

The statement I made in regard to, 'Will can do whatever he wants,' has illuminated the need to discuss the relationship between trust and love and how they co-exist Should we be married to individuals who can not be responsible for themselves and their families within their freedom? Should we be in relationships with individuals who we can not entrust to their own values, integrity, and LOVEfor us??? Here is how I will change my statementWill and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationshipthis means we have a GROWN one. — Jada Pinkett Smith

Create a routine. If you take these two steps --setting aside the time and making your body move--three or four days per week, hen you have in effect established a routine. It is this routine, this plan, this expectation of yourself that is going to give you the power to change the nature of your relationship with exercise. — Bob Harper

The hardest time in any relationship is chsnge. And nothing brings more change in a family dynamic than when a teen is becoming their own person. — C.C. Hunter

Being in love can change almost anything: from your expectations and limitations to your very life plans. It's a completely unpredictable force. And how it operates within any particular relationship is a total mystery to anyone outside of that ... — Zack Love

It's hard to come into a new relationship with food unless you're engaged in an interactive way at an early age; it's hard to change your values. — Alice Waters

My mom gave me a good piece of advice. She said never marry a man thinking you can change him, and I think that starts from your first date when you're in the seventh grade onwards. Women are fixers so we have to just not fix. Don't fix. — Jennifer Garner

Simon hid the fact that he was inordinately pleased by this. "Are we officially boyfriend
and girlfriend? Is there a Shadowhunter ritual? Should I change my Facebook status from 'it's complicated' to 'in a relationship'?"
Isabelle screwed up her nose adorably. "You have a book that's also a face? — Cassandra Clare

When a man starts my program, he often says, "I am here because I lose control of myself sometimes. I need to get a better grip." I always correct him: "Your problem is not that you lose control of yourself, it's that you take control of your partner. In order to change, you don't need to gain control over yourself, you need to let go of control of her. — Lundy Bancroft

It is not wrong to change in order to achieve certain goals in life. If you want a happy relationship, for example, you can't expect luck to bring it. You can't have something that implies you without being yourself there. — Robin Sacredfire

If you have to ask someone to change, to tell you they love you, to bring wine to dinner, to call you when they land, you can't afford to be with them. It's not worth the price, even though, just like the Tiffany catalog, no one tells you what the price is. You set it yourself, and if you're lucky it's reasonable. You have a sense of when you're about to go bankrupt. Your own sense of self-worth takes the wheel and says, Enough of this shit. Stop making excuses. No one's that busy at work. No one's allergic to whipped cream. There are too cell phones in Sweden. But most people don't get lucky. They get human. They get crushes. This means you irrationally mortgage what little logic you own to pay for this one thing. This relationship is an impulse buy, and you'll figure out if it's worth it later. — Sloane Crosley

Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further. — Julia Cameron

Kids want to be grown ups, adults want to be young and careless again.
Single people desperately want a relationship, but those who are in one still complain almost all the time and wish for freedom.
The poor want money, the rich want more of it.
This means that changing your situation doesn't prevent you from suffering, doesn't make your desires go away.
So you need to change something on the inside. — Lidiya K.

Industrial civilization has held us in a subhuman state all our lives, and we now have the opportunity to discover the powers of the universe coursing through us and our environment. Likewise, we have the extraordinary privilege as consciously self-aware humans of intentionally participating with those powers in an intimate, passionate, caring relationship with the universe. — Carolyn Baker

The Christian life is not about pleasing God the finger-shaker and judge. It is not about believing now or being good now for the sake of heaven later. It is about entering a relationship in the present that begins to change everything now. Spirituality is about this process: the opening of the heart to the God who is already here. — Marcus J. Borg

Right now you can make a decision, ... If you truly decided to, you can do almost anything. So if you don't liike the current relationship you're in, make the decision now to change it. If you don't like your current job, change it. — Tony Robbins