The very ingredients that nurture love - mutuality, reciprocity, protection, worry, responsibility for the other - are sometimes the very ingredients that stifle desire.
Esther PerelRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the idea that our dissatisfaction in relationships can stem from personal issues rather than the partner themselves.
Esther Perel suggests that a person's desire to seek new experiences or relationships may not necessarily be rooted in dissatisfaction with their current partner, but rather in a struggle with their own identity and existential concerns. It reflects a deeper exploration of self and how personal growth can influence relationship dynamics, pointing to the complexity of human emotions and desires.
Themes
RelationshipsSelf-DiscoveryIdentityExistentialPersonal Growth
In practice
Example use cases
During a talk on modern relationships, this quote illustrates the complexities of love and self-awareness.
More from Esther Perel
All quotes →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 PerelRead
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 PerelRead
What is the relationship between love and desire? How do they relate, and how do they conflict? ... Therein lies the mystery of eroticism.
Esther PerelRead
Eroticism thrives in the space between the self and the other.
Esther PerelRead
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 PerelRead
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