“If you expect honesty, be honest. If you expect forgiveness, forgive. If you expect a whole person, you have to be a whole person.”

“Sometimes we assume that the new person in our life is better for us because they are totally different from the last person we dated. Only later do we see that we have chosen a different version of the same thing and they both leave us unsatisfied.”

“Whether our caretaker was our mom, dad, uncle, aunt, grandparent, foster parent, or sibling, our blueprint of what a relationship is supposed to look like is drafted by what we observed from our caretaker’s relationship. If our caretaker took their significant other back multiple times, made excuses for their actions, helped them battle demons, turned a blind eye to their infidelity, or moved from one relationship to the next, that is what we know. Their behavior becomes our very own model of what a relationship is supposed to look like and determines what we will expect from our own partners.”

“If you stay in the company of anger, pain, or hurt, happiness will find someone else to visit.”

“The reality is that most of us communicate the same way that we grew up. That communication style becomes our normal way of dealing with issues, our blueprint for communication. It’s what we know and pass on to our own children. We either become our childhood or we make a conscious choice to change it.”

“If you are unable to admit your mistakes, you cannot expect others to forgive them. Be honest and sincere, there is no shame in that.”

“I’m calling because that’s what women expect men to do. You expect us to call at least once a day, proving we’re capable of thinking of nothing but you when we’re not. We’re thinking of work.”