Assumptions are
the termites of relationships.

Henry Winkler
   

Most people enter into relationships with an eye toward what they can get
out of them, rather than what they can put into them.  The purpose of a
relationship is to decide what part of yourself you'd like to see "show up,"
not what part of another you can capture and hold.  The purpose of a
relationship is not to have another who might complete you; but to have
another with whom you might share your completeness.

Neale Donald Walsch

      
In my early professional years I was asking the question:
How can I treat, or cure, or change this person?  Now I would
phrase the question this way:  How can I provide a relationship
which this person may use for his or her own personal growth?

Carl Rogers
  
Our relationships are our sacred responsibilities, for they are the framework within
which life is lived.  They show us where we have more learning and loving to do.
Our interactions with others call up the disabling beliefs and negative patterns of behavior we need to release—the cynicism, anger, resentment, and jealousy that
block love’s flow.  Our relationships are our mirrors; they reflect where we are in consciousness.  And if we are willing to face the truth about ourselves, our relationships offer the lessons that lead to our greatest transformation.

 Susan L. Taylor
   

An intimate relationship does not banish loneliness. Only
when we are comfortable with who we are can we truly function
independently in a healthy way, can we truly function
within a relationship. Two halves do not make a whole when
it comes to a healthy relationship: it takes two wholes.

Patricia Fry
     

 To know when to go away and when to come closer
is the key to any lasting relationship.

Doménico Cieri Estrada

   
    

 
     

The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.

Anthony Robbins

   

That's another lesson I've
learned the hard way.
All relationships will die
if they aren't nurtured.  Just
as a flower will die if it's
not watered. Because love is
demonstration, not declaration.

Patti LaBelle
    

Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive,
we must cultivate the science of human relationships. . . the ability
of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world, at peace.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
   

It is only when we no longer compulsively need someone
that we can have a real relationship with them.

Anthony Storr
    
Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that
most people enter a relationship in order to get something:  they're trying
to find someone who's going to make them feel good. In reality, the only
way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that
you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.

Anthony Robbins
    

    

Relationships are the hallmark of the mature person.

Brian Tracy
   

Remember that the best relationship is one in which your
love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

unattibuted
    
The more connections you and your lover make, not just between your bodies,
but between your minds, your hearts, and your souls, the more you will strengthen
the fabric of your relationship, and the more real moments you will experience together.

Barbara De Angelis
   
    

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The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we
say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions
come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic)
rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will
sense that duplicity. We simply won't be able to create and sustain the
foundation necessary for effective interdependence.

Stephen R. Covey
   

Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.

Anthony D'Angelo
    

Each relationship nurtures a strength or weakness within you.

Mike Murdoch
   

    

Life is relationships; the rest is just details.

Gary Smalley
   

Relationships are all there is.  Everything in the universe only exists because
it is in relationship to everything else.  Nothing exists in isolation.
We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.

Margaret J. Wheatley
    

You must first have a good relationship with yourself before you can have a
good relationship with others. You have to feel worthwhile and acceptable in
your own eyes. The more independent you are, the better you'll be able
to connect and relate with others.

Gary Emery
    
Articles and book excerpts on relationships:

The Houdini Syndrome      Bob Welch
Capital Expenditures      Gail Pursell Elliott
Connect or Contact:  A Call to Community      Jance Hain
Doing Dishes      tom walsh
Father's Day      Gary Barnes
How Do You Treat Others?      Robert Taylor
How's Your Mental Health?      Dale Kiefer (for people with newborns)
How to Hold a Grudge      tom walsh
How to Open up While Staying Safe      Rinatta Paries
Listen Closely. . . .      tom walsh
A Matter of Choice      Asoka Selvarajah
Put a Little Z.I.P. in Your Relationships      Chris Widener
Produce a Quantum Leap in Your Life Fast      Asoka Selvarajah
Sixty Years, Headed to Forever      Staci Stallings
Why Am I so Fond of Mrs. Mann?      Marc Wiltse
Start Living in Prime Time      Denis Waitley
The Teachers in My Life      tom walsh
Ten Ways to Inspire Others      Michael Angier
Three Wondrous Answers      Lev Tolstoy (retold by Thich Nhat Hanh)
When You See "Red"      Rhoberta Shaler
   
The key to long-term relationships is letting someone be different today
than they were yesterday.  I think one of the main reasons for divorce is
that couples don't always create the emotional space between them to
allow for constant and continuous change.  When people say, "We grew
apart," it's often a sign that when they entered the marriage, their emotional
contract didn't include this clause:  "I'll let you grow.  You'll let me grow.
We'll learn from each other, and we can grow together."

Marianne Williamson
   

Your closest relationships are often the ones that have the most effect on you,
but they are frequently the ones most difficult to change.  These relationships
are complex and have long histories.  Lifetime habits of avoiding being really
present with each other may exist in many of them.  Family members, for
instance, might want to support you, but will not necessarily know how to
genuinely listen or be present with you in a way that is enlivening. . . . Even with
the best intentions, it can be very difficult to get beyond the past and into the Now.

Richard Moss
   

An honorable human relationship--that is, one in which two people
have the right to use the word "love"--is a process, delicate, violent,
often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the
truths they can tell each other.  It is important to do this because in
so doing we do justice to our own complexity.  It is important to do
this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

Adrienne Rich
   
The reality is that all relationships inevitably will be dissolved and broken.  The ultimate price exacted for commitment to other human beings rests in the inescapable fact that loss and pain will be experienced when they are gone, even to the point of jeopardizing one's physical health.  It is a toll that no one can escape, and a price that everyone will be forced to pay repeatedly.  Like the rise and fall of the ocean tides, disruptions of human relationships occur at regular intervals throughout life, and include the loss of parents, death of a mate, divorce, marital separation, death of family members, children leaving home, death of close friends, change of neighborhoods, and loss of acquaintances by retirement from work.  Infancy, adolescence, middle age, old age--all seasons of life involve human loss.

James J. Lynch
    

Two great Kindle books from our site!  First, the daily meditations from the first year are gathered together in a single volume at just $2.99 for the entire year, and second, almost 4,000 of our most motivating and inspiring quotations are gathered in one volume for just 99 cents--you can have thousands of quotations that took over a decade to pull together, all on your own PC, Mac, or Kindle, to take with you wherever you go, to read whenever you feel the need for inspiring thoughts.

    
Relationship are part of the vast plan for our enlightenment.

Marianne Williamson
   

Building a sound foundation is hard work.  And I still look to my garden
when I forget my lesson.  So many times I have blamed my potential life
partners for not being perfect when in act it has been me who hasn't made
the commitment, who hasn't taken the time to get to know who they are
before I made big demands of the relationship.  I rely on my expectations
and dreams to provide the foundation on which I build my goals.  And
then, of course, I'm disappointed when I don't harvest the perfect
relationship in no time at all.

Vivian Elisabeth Glyck
12 Lessons on Life I Learned from My Garden
   

Reason, Season, or Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you figure out which one it is,
you will know what to do for each person.

When someone is in your life for a REASON,
it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty;
to provide you with guidance and support;
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON,
because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person,
and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

unattributed