Dysfunctional Relationship Quotes

“There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?'

If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble.”
― Sam Keen, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man

“You cannot fix people who will not take feedback, because from their perspective, they do not have a problem.”
― Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

“You two are a disaster.”
I smiled at the ceiling. “It doesn’t matter what or why it is. When it’s good, Kara … it’s beautiful.”
― Jamie McGuire, Beautiful Disaster

“It is very difficult to develop a proper sense of self-esteem in a dysfunctional family. Having very little self-worth, looking at one’s own character defects becomes so overwhelming there is no room for inward focus. People so afflicted think: “I need to keep you from knowing me. I have already rejected me, but if you knew how flawed I am, you would also reject me…and since this is all I have, I could not stand any more rejection. I am not worthy of someone understanding me so you will not get the chance...so I must judge, reject, attack, and/or find fault with you. I don’t accept me so how can I accept you?”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who he is, believe him the first time.” Or her.  What we do is who we are.  When someone says, “That’s not me,” after doing something or saying something hurtful, they are mistaken.  That is them.  That is exactly them or at least a part of them and it may be a part of them that you do not want in your life.”
― Susan Scott, Fierce Love: Creating a Love That Lasts---One Conversation at a Time

“The opposite of love isn’t hate.  It’s indifference, lethal neutrality, apathy.  You don’t care. Instead of energy there’s malaise, inertia. Instead of chemistry there’s emptiness. Instead of substance there’s frivolousness. The relationship is all but dead.”
― Susan Scott, Fierce Love: Creating a Love That Lasts---One Conversation at a Time

“I know you deserve better than me. You think I don’t know that? But if there was any woman made for me … it’s you.”
― Jamie McGuire, Beautiful Disaster

“Father-daughter incest is not only the type of incest most frequently reported but also represents a paradigm of female sexual victimization. The relationship between father and daughter, adult male and female child, is one of the most unequal relationships imaginable. It is no accident that incest occurs most often precisely in the relationship where the female is most powerless. The actual sexual encounter may be brutal or tender, painful or pleasurable; but it is always, inevitably, destructive to the child. The father, in effect, forces the daughter to pay with her body for affection and care which should be freely given. p4”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Father-Daughter Incest

“I found myself in a pattern of being attracted to people who were somehow unavailable, and what I realized was that I was protecting myself because I equate the idea of connection and love with trauma and death.”
― Zachary Quinto

“My sister only has one side of the story but she is sure that she knows the whole story because that is how the dysfunctional system works. We don’t question everyone or even consider that there may be another side to the story but instead automatically believe the one who has the most power in the relationship.”
― Darlene Ouimet

“Creating chaos provides excitement for some people, especially those who are uneasy with silence, those who distract themselves from their own problems by focusing outward, those who feel empty inside and need to fill themselves up with activity, and those who were raised in an environment in which harmony and peace were unknown.”
― Beverly Engel, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing

“When people agree, often someone smiles and says – Great minds think alike.  Think about this for a minute. If that were true, then nothing new would emerge in this world.  ”
― Susan Scott, Fierce Love: Creating a Love That Lasts---One Conversation at a Time

“And could you, from a place of love, actually stand up and, use force, to give someone back, the suffering, they were trying to put on you? Would I do it? Maybe it would even be, an act of fierce compassion, as Enso Roshi sometimes talked about, to not take it any more. To not cow down, anymore. To let my father know, the tyrant, the aggressor, that if he hits me, I’m going to hit back, and hard.”
― T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken

“When couples cannot talk about their problems in a healthy way and become entrenched in their opinions, they have the same failed conversations over and over.  The relationship becomes emotionally clogged. Friction and frustration grow. Partners feel rejected, like they can’t get through to one another.  Behaviors associated with conflict avoidance include passive aggressive behavior, withdrawal. ”
― Susan Scott, Fierce Love: Creating a Love That Lasts---One Conversation at a Time

“Love is exactly the word I'd use...It's the only thing that comes close to describing this hell with you.”
― Meg Collett, The Killing Season

“Ours was a relationship of small talk. We'd never stayed awake long into the night hoping to find in that nocturnal physical conversation a connection of minds. We hadn't stared into each others eyes because if eyes are the window to the soul it would be a little rude and embarrassing to look in. We'd created a ring-road relationship, circumventing raw emotions and complex feelings, so that our central selves were strangers.”
― Rosamund Lupton, Sister

“In a relationship, no amount of extra effort on your part can make up for a lack of effort on theirs.”
― John Mark Green

“While no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a relationship, any single conversation can.”
― Susan Scott, Fierce Love: Creating a Love That Lasts---One Conversation at a Time

“A soulmate relationship is supposed to be a nurturing, safe space. Never settle for anything less.”
― Anthon St. Maarten

“They don’t teach kidnapping at Eton, dad”
― Gwenn Wright, Lipstick & Bolsheviks

“You're not flying the sanity kite very high either..so lets be crazy together”
― Meg Collett, The Killing Season

“[Fashionable Beard]
I asked a friend growing a fashionable beard playfully: “Has your beard increased your fans?”
“You have no idea how much it has!” He responded.
“Do you wonder why people can’t see you clearly without it?” I asked.
“This beard reminds me every day that people simply refuse to see things as they are – bare and naked. They will notice and see things covered with any cover, except not as they are!” he added with a laughter.

[Original poem published in Arabic on January 16, 2023 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako