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Merle Shain

Merle Shain Books

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“Intimacy requires accommodation and gentleness at it's core, and does with phrases like "If it bothers you I won't do it," and "Now I understand." And "Thank you for telling me that. I hadn't seen it in that light." And "I appreciate you taking the time to get through my defences. I am sorry I put up such a fight." You'd be surprised how much power there is in respect, and how much respect comes back, and how much intimacy there is when you empower someone instead of overpower them, and how much more love.”

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Book:Courage My Love
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“Romantic love has highs and lows and lots of rare emotions and dangerous sensations but it bores easily and has no friendship in it, and often when it's over, it is as if a tornado passed. It's a very expensive form of recreation, a theatre play with daydreams, a frolic of your own in which you are the main event. Human love is based in every day, not fantasies or illusions. It acknowledges the other person as a separate person and even loves them for their imperfections, for their vulnerabilities and their incompleteness, and allows them to change and to grow. It seeks to honour, not to use, to empower, not to overpower, and when it fails, it just gets cranky, it does not blow a fuse.”

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Book:Courage My Love
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“It's hard to tell our good luck sometimes. Hard to tell sometimes for many years to come. And most of us have wept copious tears over someone or something, when if we'd understood the situation better, we might have celebrated our good fortune insteadOne can never change the past, only the hold it has on you and while nothing in your life is reversible, you can reverse it nevertheless.”

IfsYearsSometimesHardMightPastLife IsSituationTearsUnderstoodLuckFortuneReverseNeverthelessGood FortuneGood LuckNever Change
Author:Merle Shain
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“Anger is a passion, so it makes people feel alive and makes them feel they matter and are in charge of their lives. So people often need to renew their anger a long time after the cause of it has died, because it is a protection against helplessness and emptiness just like howling in the night. And it makes them feel less vulnerable for a little while.”

PeopleNeedsFeelsLittlesLongMatterNightPassionCausesAliveLong TimeAngerDiedProtectionVulnerableEmptinessHelplessness
Author:Merle Shain
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“It can be much harder to be on the receiving end of a transaction than to be the one who gets to give. In fact, being given to can mean being taken from. There is a very strong connection between pride and giving, and those who do the giving get to feel that they are worthy, while those who are given to often feel that they are not.”

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Author:Merle Shain
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“There are problems connected with infidelity and problems connected with being faithful at any cost, and I am for letting those concerned choose the problems they'd prefer. There need not be one rule for all. Infidelity is enlarging and fragmenting and very very dangerous, but it has been known to retrieve people as well as marriages, so it can't be only bad.”

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Author:Merle Shain
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“I'm not sure there can be loving without commitment, although commitment takes all kinds of forms, and there can be commitment for the moment as well as commitment for all time. The kind that is essential for loving marriages - and love affairs, as well - is a commitment to preserving the essential quality of your partner's soul, adding to them as a person rather than taking away.”

WellsKindPersonsSoulMomentsFormQualityMarriageLoversEssentialsCommitmentAnd LoveAffairPartnersAll KindsAll TimeNot SureLove AffairLove And Marriage
Author:Merle Shain
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“The dream of romantic love is taken more seriously in North America than it is anywhere else in the world, which is why we believe in fidelity and why we believe in infidelity as well. It is also, of course, what makes our divorce rate as high as it is. Falling in love at first sight and instant gratification are part of the world in which we live, so there are people who believe adamantly in fidelity. They just don't believe in it for long.”

PeopleWorldFirstsBelieveWellsLongDreamAmericaRomanceFallCoursesLove IsTakenSightFalling In LoveRateDon't BelieveDivorceInstantRomantic LoveLove At First SightInfidelityGratificationFidelityNorth AmericaInstant GratificationDivorce Rates
Author:Merle Shain
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“Our times are obsessed with finding fulfillment, so there are times when some people try too hard, and there are people who want to have the newest feelings just as there are those who want to have the latest model car. You can't play at love any more than you can be proud of your humility, or add water to your perfume and have it smell the same, but men and women both have been known to try.”

PeopleMenWantTryingHas BeensHardPlayFeelingsWaterKnownCarHumilityProudFindingsModelsMen And WomenAddSmellFulfillmentObsessedOur TimeBe ProudPerfumeProud Of You
Book:Some Men Are More Perfect Than Others
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“We marry to grow up, to escape our parents and to inherit our share of the world, not knowing who we are and who we will become, so it is left to marriage to make it clear which ones of us are growing in the same directions and which are ships meant to have passed in the night.”

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Book:Some Men Are More Perfect Than Others
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“The romantic myth is so strong that it survives the wear and tear of marriage by simply detaching from it and floating up on ahead, and women who are rather fond of the men they married, as well as ones who are not, go through life with a bag packed for the day when the shining knight on a white charger arrives, just in case he does.”

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Book:Some Men Are More Perfect Than Others
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