I want to engage people in an honest, enlightened, and provocative conversation about the nature of erotic desire and the intricacies of… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected.… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
The very ingredients that nurture love - mutuality, reciprocity, protection, worry, responsibility for the other - are sometimes the very ingredients that… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
You know what happens to sex in marriage? Instead of inviting desire, you monitor it. Especially men: You let her sleep late,… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“Sexual desire does not obey the laws that maintain peace and contentment between partners. Reason, understanding, compassion, and camaraderie are the handmaidens… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
In desire, there must be some small amount of tension. And that tension comes with the unknown, the unpredictable. You can close… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
We know desire is rooted in absence and yearning. What you don't have is often ten times richer than what you actually… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Affairs can be powerful detonators. They can invigorate a marriage that's flat, jolt people out of years of complacency. Fear of loss… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
What is the relationship between love and desire? How do they relate, and how do they conflict? ... Therein lies the mystery… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Even a good marriage leaves people with longings for certain things their marriage will never be. So, do they accept that, make… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“The grand illusion of committed love is that we think our partners are ours. In truth, their separateness is unassailable, and their… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
One of the big misconceptions is that affairs or trysts are flings about sex. And sometimes they are, but much more often… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
We are afraid that our adult sexuality will somehow damage our kids, that it’s inappropriate or dangerous. But whom are we protecting?… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
I have more than thirty thousand hours of family and relationship counseling experience under my belt. Over the years, I have seen… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“Armed with an ideology of love that advocates togetherness, we are awkward about pursuing autonomy. This is especially true of the individuality… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“...this is the first time in the history of humankind where we are trying to experience sexuality in the long term, not… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“For [erotically intelligent couples], love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life:… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
It’s hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned her sense of autonomy. — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
For some people, a one-night stand doesn't make any difference in a seven-year love affair. I don't believe the degree of betrayal is always… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
I want to engage people in an honest, enlightened, and provocative conversation about the nature of erotic desire and the intricacies of intimacy and… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships . . . which are basically a reflection of your sense… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
If you start to feel that you have given up too many parts of yourself to be with your partner, then one day you… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
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… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“When the impulse to share becomes obligatory, when personal boundaries are no longer respected, when only the shared space of togetherness is acknowledged and… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“I do believe that the emphasis on egalitarian and respectful sex—purged of any expressions of power, aggression, and transgression—is antithetical to erotic desire for… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
