Nothing can cost you someone you love. The only thing that can cost you your husband is if you believe a thought. That's how you move away from him. That's how the marriage ends. You are one with your husband until you believe the thought that he should look a certain way, he should give you something, he should be something other than what he is. That's how you divorce him. Right then and there you have lost your marriage.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that our beliefs and expectations about love can lead to the deterioration of relationships.
Byron Katie's quote reflects the idea that love is often undermined by our mental perceptions and expectations of our partners. When individuals start to believe that their partners should meet particular criteria or behave in certain ways, they create a rift between their reality and their expectations, leading to emotional distance and the potential end of the relationship. Essentially, it suggests that love is continuous and whole unless disrupted by one's own thoughts about how love should manifest.
In practice
Use this quote in a counseling session to illustrate how beliefs affect marital dynamics.
When you stay present with your children, that’s where abundance is. And when you stay out of their business, that’s where everything you deserve in life is. When you’re in presence, there’s no story, and you are abundance. And you come to trust that space so often that you just eventually hang out as that, because there is nothing that can move you out of it, not even a perceived child or a perceived anything.
It is easy to be swept away by some overwhelming feeling, so it's helpful to remember that any stressful feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says, "You're caught in the dream."
We don't attach to people or to things; we attach to uninvestigated concepts that we believe to be true in the moment.
An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering.
Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be cause by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That’s not a possibility. It’s only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I’m the one who’s hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don’t have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I’m the one who can stop hurting me. It’s within my power.
I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.
Let's create an integrated global community where we have shared benefits and responsibilities, and we don't fight because of our differences.
I didn't know every day I would be discussing the tone of my voice with my wife. I thought it was a marriage. Apparently, it's a musical.
While people are fairly young and the musical composition of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and sharing motifs (the way Tomas and Sabina exchanged the motif of the bowler hat), but if they meet when they are older, like Franz and Sabina, their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them.
If we want a beloved community, we must stand for justice, have recognition for difference without attaching difference to privilege.
There's no way I could pay you back but my plan is to show you that I understand, you are appreciated
As long as I am alive, I am fully committed to amity between Tibetans and Chinese. Otherwise there's no use.
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