The Centre for Relationship Coaching

— Khalil Gibran

We’ve seen in movies, and maybe even in real life, the impractical weddings vows: you are my everything; I will always love you with all that I am; I will never hurt you. After 30 years in my own private therapy practice (and forty years in my own marriage, for that matter), I can tell you that a more realistic wedding vow is: I will mess up on a regular basis but I promise to keep trying and learning so that we can grow together over time.

This is the mentality that helps us through the ebbs and flows we experience in our relationships. In this way, love is like the moon. It has intermittent eclipses, where it disappears and we cannot see it. And it can be surprising to us when it shows up in a new way.

Love is an active verb because it takes practice (and practice and more practice). If you were to write a realistic vow for your relationship now, what would it would it be?

Esther Perel Life is a game of risk. From the moment we come into this world to the moment we die, our survival instinct acts as a silent captain navigating every situation we face or desire. And at every step, a subconscious calculation is operating in the background: