Women Who Love Too Much Quotes

“The key is in learning how to live a healthy, satisfying, and serene life without being dependent on another person for happiness.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Praising and encouraging are very close to pushing, and when you do that you are trying again to take control of his life. Think about why you are lauding something he’s done. Is it to help raise his self-esteem? That’s manipulation. Is it so he will continue whatever behavior you’re praising? That’s manipulation. Is it so that he’ll know how proud you are of him? That can be a burden for him to carry. Let him develop his own pride from his own accomplishments.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Taking responsibility for yourself and your happiness gives a great freedom to children who have felt guilty and responsible for your unhappiness (which they always do). A child can never hope to balance the scales or repay the debt when a parent has sacrificed her life, her happiness, her fulfilment for the child or the family. Seeing a parent fully embrace life gives a child the permission to do the same, just as seeing a parent suffer indicates to the child that suffering is what life is all about.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“It requires a hard look at what is, rather than what you hope will be. As you let go of managing and controlling, you must also let go of the idea that “when he changes I’ll be happy.” He may never change. You must stop trying to make him. And you must learn to be happy anyway.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“True acceptance of an individual as he is, without trying to change him through encouragement or manipulation or coercion, is a very high form of love, and very difficult for most of us to practice.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“If you have an active faith, and you regularly worship and frequently pray, developing your spirituality may mean trusting that what is happening in your life has its own reason and its own results, and that God is in charge of your partner, not you. Take quiet time to meditate and pray, and to ask for guidance in how to live your own life while you release those around you to live theirs.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Self-will means believing that you alone have all the answers. Letting go of self-will means becoming willing to hold still, be open, and wait for guidance for yourself. It means learning to let go of fear (all of the “what ifs”) and despair (all of the “if onlys”) and replacing them with positive thoughts and statements about your life.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Most of us have the ability to be far happier and more fulfilled as individuals than we realize. Often, we don’t claim that happiness because we believe someone else’s behavior is preventing us from doing so. We ignore our obligation to develop ourselves while we scheme and maneuver and manipulate to change someone else, and we become angry and discouraged and depressed when our efforts fail. Trying to change someone else is frustrating and depressing, but exercising the power we have to effect change in our own life is exhilarating.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Hungry people make poor shoppers.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“The Greeks were smarter. They used different words, eros and agape, to distinguish between these two profoundly different ways of experiencing what we call “love.” Eros, of course, refers to passionate love, while agape describes the stable and committed relationship, free of passion, that exists between two individuals who care deeply for each other. The contrast of eros and agape allows us to understand our dilemma when we look for both these kinds of love at one time, in one relationship with one person. It also helps us see why eros and agape each have their champions, those who claim that one or the other is the only real way of experiencing love, for indeed each has its very special beauty, truth, and worth. And each type of love also lacks something precious, which only the other has to offer. Let’s look at how proponents of each would describe being in love.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“There is an old joke about a nearsighted man who has lost his keys late at night and is looking for them by the light of a street lamp. Another person comes along and offers to help him look but asks him, “Are you sure this is where you lost them?” He answers, “No, but this is where the light is.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much

“To be invisible means to never ask for anything, never cause trouble, never make any kind of demand. The child who chooses this role scrupulously avoids adding any burden to her already stressed family. She stays in her room, or blends into the wallpaper, she says very little and makes what she does say noncommittal. In school she is neither bad nor good, in fact, she is rarely remembered at all, her contribution to the family is to not exist. As for her own pain, she is numb, she feels nothing.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Women from dysfunctional homes (and especially, I have observed, from alcoholic homes) are overrepresented in the helping professions, working as nurses, counselors, therapists, and social workers. We are drawn to those who are needy, compassionately identifying with their pain and seeking to relieve it in order to ameliorate our own.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Developing your spirituality, no matter what your religious orientation, basically means letting go of self-will, of the determination to make things happen the way you think they should. Instead, you must accept the fact that you may not know what is best in a given situation either for yourself or for another person. There may be outcomes and solutions that you have never considered, or perhaps the ones you’ve most feared and tried hardest to forestall may be exactly what is necessary in order for things to begin to improve. Self-will means believing that you alone have all the answers. Letting go of self-will means becoming willing to hold still, be open, and wait for guidance for yourself. It means learning to let go of fear (all of the “what ifs”) and despair (all of the “if onlys”) and replacing them with positive thoughts and statements about your life.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Eros: Real love is an all-consuming, desperate yearning for the beloved, who is perceived as different, mysterious, and elusive. The depth of love is measured by the intensity of obsession with the loved one. There is little time or attention for other interests or pursuits, because so much energy is focused on recalling past encounters or imagining future ones. Often, great obstacles must be overcome, and thus there is an element of suffering in true love. Another indication of the depth of love is the willingness to endure pain and hardship for the sake of the relationship. Associated with real love are feelings of excitement, rapture, drama, anxiety, tension, mystery, and yearning. Agape: Real love is a partnership to which two caring people are deeply committed. These people share many basic values, interests, and goals, and tolerate good-naturedly their individual differences. The depth of love is measured by the mutual trust and respect they feel toward each other. Their relationship allows each to be more fully expressive, creative, and productive in the world. There is much joy in shared experiences both past and present, as well as those that are anticipated. Each views the other as his/ her dearest and most cherished friend. Another measure of the depth of love is the willingness to look honestly at oneself in order to promote the growth of the relationship and the deepening of intimacy. Associated with real love are feelings of serenity, security, devotion, understanding, companionship, mutual support, and comfort.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“We all tend to believe that suffering is a mark of true love, that to refuse to suffer is selfish, and that if a man has a problem then a woman should help him change.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“In a dysfunctional family, there is always a shared denial of reality. No matter how serious the problems are the family does not become dysfunctional unless there is denial operating Further, should any family member attempt to break through this denial by, for instance, describing the family situation in accurate terms the rest of the family will usually strongly resist that perception. Often ridicule will be used to bring that person back into line or failing that the renegade family member will be excluded from the circle of acceptance, affection, and activity.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“it is this very practice of acceptance that allows another to change if he chooses to do so.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“It has already been noted that children in dysfunctional families feel responsible for their family's problems and also for solving them. There are basically three ways in which children attempt to save their families: by being invisible, ,by being bad, or by being good.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“To be without the relationship, that is to be alone with oneself, can be experienced as worse than being in the greatest pain the relationship produces because to be alone means to feel the stirrings of the great pain from the past combined with that of the present.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Avem o anume senzaţie că aparţinem acelui bărbat - partener de dans - care ne lasă să executăm paşii pe care-i ştim deja. Cu el şi nu cu altul, hotărâm să stabilim relaţia pe care s-o facem să meargă. Nu există o substanţă chimică mai atrăgătoare decât sentimentul de tainică familiaritate apărut când se întâlnesc un bărbat şi o femeie ale căror modele de comportament se îmbină perfect ca piesele dintr-un joc de puzzle. (...) cu cât a fost mai mare durerea în copilărie, cu atât e mai puternic impulsul de a o reconstitui şi stăpâni la maturitate.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“After all, he had secrets to keep about his sexual identity and behavior, and having a wife made him look more ‘normal’ than not having one. I guess that was what he meant when he said he needed me.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much

“THE SECURE, THE ANXIOUS, AND THE AVOIDANT Adult attachment designates three main “attachment styles,” or manners in which people perceive and respond to intimacy in romantic relationships, which parallel those found in children:”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Pero cuando usted trata de solucionarle sus problemas, él queda liberado de su propia responsabilidad por su propia vida. Entonces usted queda a cargo del bienestar de él, y cuando sus esfuerzos fallan, él la culpará a usted.”
― Robin Norwood, Las mujeres que aman demasiado

“Cuando sucede algo emocionalmente doloroso y nos decimos que la culpa es nuestra, en realidad estamos diciendo que tenemos control sobre ello: si nosotros cambiamos, el dolor desaparecerá.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Una familia disfuncional es aquella en que los miembros juegan papeles rígidos y en la cual la comunicación está severamente restringida a las declaraciones que se adecuan a estos roles. Los miembros no tienen libertad para expresar todo un espectro de experiencias, deseos, necesidades y sentimientos, sino que deben limitarse a jugar el papel que se adapte al de los demás miembros de la familia. En las familias disfuncionales, los aspectos principales de la realidad se niegan, y los papeles permanecen rígidos.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Muchas mujeres cometen el error de buscar un hombre con quien desarrollar una relación sin antes desarrollar una relación consigo mismas; pasan de un hombre a otro, en busca de lo que falta en su interior. La búsqueda debe comenzar en casa, dentro del yo. Nadie puede amarnos lo suficiente para realizarnos si no nos amamos a nosotras mismas, porque cuando en nuestro vacío vamos en busca del amor, sólo podemos encontrar más vacío. Lo que manifestamos en nuestra vida es un reflejo de lo que hay en lo profundo de nuestro ser: nuestras creencias sobre nuestro propio valor, nuestro derecho a la felicidad, lo que merecemos en la vida. Cuando esas creencias cambian, también cambia nuestra vida.”
― Robin Norwood, Las mujeres que aman demasiado

“We’ve been pretending to be grown up for so long, asking for so little and doing so much, that now it seems too late to take our turn. So we help and help, and hope that our fear will go away and our reward will be love.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“Over and over again we are instructed by these cultural models that the depth of love can be measured by the pain it causes and that those who truly suffer truly love.”
― Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

“debe desarrollar una relación consigo misma antes de poder relacionarse en forma sana con un hombre, y aún le queda mucho trabajo por hacer en esa área. Básicamente, todos sus encuentros con los hombres eran meros reflejos de la ira, el caos y la rebelión que había en su interior, y sus intentos de controlar a esos hombres eran también intentos de apaciguar los sentimientos y las fuerzas interiores que la impulsaban. Su trabajo es consigo misma, y a medida que gane más estabilidad interior ésta se verá reflejada en sus interacciones con los hombres. Hasta”
― Robin Norwood, Las mujeres que aman demasiado