How to Stay in Love Quotes

“If you had to listen to a lawyer read the email or text out loud in a courtroom, would you change the tone? When I was a teenager, my mom used to tell me not to put anything in writing that I would feel uncomfortable seeing published on the front page of the New York Times. I understood, even then, what she was suggesting: Engage only in behavior that you’re prepared to stand by and defend. Be on your toes to be your best self at all times, even when no one is watching.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Shoot for resolution rather than full satisfaction. Stop worrying about being right.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“The line I use in my work more than any other is “I hear you.” Not “You’re right.” I don’t even need to agree. Just acknowledge. I hear you. I hear your frustration. I get it.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Don’t put the future in jeopardy just to indulge in some frivolous nostalgia. The negatives far outweigh the positives.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Write a letter to your partner. List at least five things they do that you appreciate. Tell them a few things they do that upset you. Tell them what you are craving but not getting from them. Tell them a few things you are getting and are incredibly grateful for. Tell them a story from your shared history, in as much detail as you can, that you remember fondly. Maybe write a mini-chronicle of your marriage. It’s been said that the unexamined life is not worth living. My experience has taught me that the unexamined marriage is not sustainable. Write your spouse a letter. Make it simple or make it detailed. But make it authentic and honest.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“1.  You don’t know what you want. 2.  You can’t express what you want.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Did you stop paying attention because the relationship didn’t make you happy, or did the relationship stop bringing happiness because you stopped paying attention to it?”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“I’m okay with being pragmatic rather than romantic; honestly, there’s something romantic about pragmatism. I find reality way sexier than delusion.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“To feel fulfilled” might mean “to get over a specific traumatic event from his past.” Or it might mean “to enjoy a less stressful job where there aren’t so many people advancing competing agendas that he has to try to balance.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Do you have a my-way-or-the-highway attitude? American culture, as I wrote earlier, is a distressingly disposable one; we’ve grown so used to simply getting rid of things as soon as they present a problem or seem outdated (whatever that means).”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“You can love something, or someone, and still tire of them at times. Feel restless. That’s when things sometimes happen.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“we fix things and hold on to things because we ourselves don’t want to be thrown away. You don’t want to feel as if you are disposable to your partner, your children, your coworkers. You want to be as relevant and vital as you can, for as long as you can. When”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“If you don’t use a muscle, it gets weaker. If you’re in spouse mode or parent mode all the time, don’t you eventually forget about the “I”?”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“hope I see the best you possible. The most rational you possible. It’s hard to end things. It’s hard to keep things together. I wish you so much more than luck in either path.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Or you can open the door. And let the light in. It’s not easy to maintain a connection to another person. It’s painful, sometimes, to let go of options you would have had if you were alone, and to make the corrections necessary to not lose the plot of the story you’re trying to write together. Find a way to stay together happily or find a way to split up happily. As I see it, those are your two best options.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Making each other feel special. What if it’s really that simple?”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“How hard is it to be nice to your spouse? To show them some small kindness?”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“After all I’ve seen, it still amazes me how it’s the simple gestures that work. Eye contact, physical touch, a response that suggests you’ve been listening very hard, some simple phrase or movement that shows you’re still connected to the dialogue and the person you’re with. Often it’s as simple as that. We want to feel connected to the other person; verbal and nonverbal cues let us know we are. If that sounds too obvious and simplistic, try the opposite, as an experiment. When someone is trying to engage you in a conversation, stare into space and avoid eye contact. Walk away in the middle of their sentence. Or—more likely these days—don’t look up from your stupid phone. It feels sadly disconnected, no? What about, alternatively, when you tilt your head slightly and make eye contact? We live in an increasingly disengaged and distracted time: Everyone’s checking their Facebook feed, taking a photo for their Instagram, or simply walking around with their ear buds in, listening to something other than the sounds of where they are.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Here’s the secret revealed: Marriage is not hard work, as long as you don’t consider paying attention hard work.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Understanding the reasons for a bad behavior doesn’t excuse it. Hurt people tend to hurt people. That doesn’t excuse the harm, but it certainly helps to explain it. It helps us not take the bad behavior so personally, which in turn helps us look at our situation more honestly. That seems to me, in all settings, a consistently good thing.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Most of my professional efforts are spent figuring out what “victory” looks like for my clients. Where does she want to be five, ten, twenty years from now? What can I do, in my representation of her, to maximize her chance of achieving that? Where does she want to live? In a house or in an apartment? Does she want to keep working? For how many years? During a divorce, it’s critical to have candid conversations with yourself and with your attorney about what you want your postdivorce life to look like. Those conversations are an essential part of setting strategy and deciding what assets and support structure will make the most sense.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Divorce forces you to examine who you are and who you want to be. Marriage, at its best, should be an invitation to do the same—with the huge added benefit of having at least one audience member who loves you and shares your desire to be happy (for yourself and for them). Don’t wait until you’re getting divorced to figure out who you want to be and how to go about becoming that person.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“One truly rewarding aspect of being a divorce lawyer is that I get to see clients surprise themselves with their resiliency and sense of discovery.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Your life, like every life, is going to have lies in it—probably many, some of them whoppers. But try your best not to lie to yourself. You deserve honesty from yourself. Listen to your inner dialogue and try to balance and interpret it all. You’re probably smarter than you give yourself credit for.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Don’t start something that has no end. If you married a guy who is short, don’t argue with him about how much better it would be if he were taller. The argument is not going to end well.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Keep disputes focused; don’t take current behavior and start extrapolating larger trends in the relationship because, in the moment, it might seem like a good idea to “get them out in the open” and “hash them out.” Such leaps are dangerous, and they’re dirty pool.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“Make the holes you dig shallow, because the deep ones are hard to climb out of. Married fights can be tricky. They start out about something benign, like how generous the pile of fried onions should be on the top of green bean casserole or what’s the best way to get to the Flatiron Building from the George Washington Bridge,2 and the next thing you know you’re airing out age-old quarrels that neither of you realized the other was still carrying around (“And three years ago on Christmas you let your brother say that horrible thing about me!”).”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“We marry our lovers, but ultimately we spend more time talking with our spouses than having sex with them.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

“The traits you need to fix the marriage are, unfortunately, the traits that would have been required to prevent it from breaking in the first place.”
― James J. Sexton, How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together