Sometimes when the spouse is really the culprit, it is hard to admit what you consider your little failures, but if you are going to have a better relationship, you admitting your part in the dynamics is a step in the road to healing. Because if they see you modeling apology, for example, and they see you modeling love, they may well get the idea that maybe they need to apologize.
Gary ChapmanMost of us have more potential than we will ever develop. What holds us back is often a lack of courage.
Gary ChapmanThe pattern often has been entrenched since childhood... [abusive people] don't think that there is anything wrong with them because that is the way they were brought up in their family.
Gary ChapmanOver the long haul, many of those people [in a difficult marriage] will begin to reciprocate, because you are meeting a basic need in their life, the need for love, and they know they don't deserve love many times.
Gary ChapmanPhysician Albert Scheweitzer said. " We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness." Professor Leo Buscaglia notes, "There seems to be accumulating evidence that there is actually an inborn need for this togetherness, this human interaction, this love. It seems that without these close ties with other human beings, a new born infant, for example, can regress developmentally, lose consciousness, fall into idiocy and die.
Gary Chapman