Esther Perel

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

— Esther Perel

“if you’re too busy for sex, you’re too busy.”

— Esther Perel

Eroticism thrives in the space between the self and the other.

— Esther Perel

The secret to desire in a long-term relationship

— Esther Perel

Everyone should cultivate a secret garden.

— Esther Perel

When there is nothing left to hide, there is nothing left to seek.

— Esther Perel

It's our imagination that's responsible for love, not the other person.

— Esther Perel

“It takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it.”

— 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

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

— Esther Perel

“Eventually, if desire withers, monogamy too easily slides downward into celibacy. When this happens, fidelity becomes a weakness rather than a virtue.”

— Esther Perel

“Neutralizing each other’s complexity affords us a kind of manageable otherness.”

— Esther Perel

“What I can tell you,” she says, “is that his kindness makes me feel safe, but when I think about who I…

— Esther Perel

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

— Esther Perel

In dating, if you say no, your lover goes on to the next person. In marriage, if you say no, the person…

— 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…

— Esther Perel

The power of transgression is the archetypal, foundational story of the Bible. We want to break our own codes - sometimes of…

— Esther Perel

Romantics value intensity over stability. Realists value security over passion. But both are often disappointed, for few people can live happily at…

— Esther Perel

“I do believe that the emphasis on egalitarian and respectful sex—purged of any expressions of power, aggression, and transgression—is antithetical to erotic…

— Esther Perel

Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At…

— Esther Perel

“Infidelity hurts. But when we grant it a special status in the hierarchy of marital misdemeanors, we risk allowing it to overshadow…

— Esther Perel

The kiss that you have never given is just as powerful as hours of actual lovemaking. The erotic isn't just what is…

— Esther Perel

Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage…

— Esther Perel

“At one time you pursued Stephanie with great creativity, but no more. There’s an assumption—and you’re not alone—that we need only pursue…

— Esther Perel

“Q: Are there any secrets to long-lasting relationships?     A: Infidelity. Not the act itself, but the threat of it. For Proust, an…

— Esther Perel

For most couples who come to me - especially in the aftermath of the revelation of an affair, when they are in…

— Esther Perel

I have more than thirty thousand hours of family and relationship counseling experience under my belt. Over the years, I have seen…

— Esther Perel

Real sexual conversations are enormously intimate and beautiful because they reveal so much about who we are and what we want. What…

— Esther Perel

There is not one person who can fulfill all your needs. You may choose a partner who is your intellectual equal, and…

— Esther Perel

“Sexual desire does not obey the laws that maintain peace and contentment between partners. Reason, understanding, compassion, and camaraderie are the handmaidens…

— Esther Perel

The one word I hear when people have affairs is that they feel alive. They don't talk about the fact they're having…

— Esther Perel

“In our consumer culture, we always want the next best thing: the latest, the newest, the youngest. Failing that, we at least…

— Esther Perel

“...this is the first time in the history of humankind where we are trying to experience sexuality in the long term, not…

— Esther Perel

“The French psychologist Jacques Salomé talks about the need to develop a personal intimacy with one’s own self as a counterbalance to…

— Esther Perel

“Terry Real, who has written extensively about men in relationships, describes a particular “unholy triangle” between “the powerful, irresponsible, and/or abusive father,…

— Esther Perel

“She’s beautiful, too, did I mention that? She lives the life I didn’t live. I feel middle-age and middle-class around her. Nothing…

— Esther Perel

“We no longer get work out of our children; today we get meaning.”

— Esther Perel

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

— Esther Perel

It’s hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned her sense of autonomy.

— Esther Perel

You never know your partner as well as you think.

— Esther Perel