Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship (Goop Press)

Once we incorporate the perspective of the excluded—in this case, Brit—priorities reorder.

By contrast, personal growth is personal growth, not collective growth—as if we could truly realize ourselves as individuals in a social context that denies that very right to so many.

As I listen, I think that he, like many of the men and women who come to me, is an essentialist. He thinks his wife simply is a cold person; it’s her essential nature. I suspect, when I meet her, it will be a very different story.

The unfaithful partner has insufficient constraints in themselves. In other words, their selfishness trumps their relationality. Sooner or later they’d cheat on anyone. The issue in these cases is narcissism and entitlement. Life is short. I deserve it. The relationship has become so unsatisfying—so contentious, or distant, or dead—that the cheater

In your close relationships, urgency is your enemy, and breath is your friend.

In reaction mode, our Adaptive Children tend to do the opposite of what we ourselves experienced. Intrusion breeds walls. Abandonment breeds intrusion.

You might want to ask yourself: What is the dark night of the soul of my current relationship? What do I miss? What keeps going awry? And then you might ask: How do I usually deal with these issues? Do I charge in, complaining? Do I “set the record straight,” in no uncertain terms, demonstrating my rightness? Do I vent? Retaliate? Shut down and avo

inchoate

At that moment, had I not been present, Brit would have gone after him, trying to wring a response out of him. She doesn’t understand yet that you don’t get someone to open up by attacking them.