Right, But Should We Be Scheduling Sex? Esther Perel Answers All The Questions

Go out, and here is why: Because if you don't, and you deprive yourself, you begin to ask your children to become your emotional caregivers; you want your children to validate your sacrifice; you want your children to make sure that you're not too alone and too disconnected. And when you recruit your children into that caretaking role, you're creating a legacy of emotional burden that is not going to be too good for them.

Desire is to own the wanting. You can't make people desire. You can make people do things, but you can't make them want it. So, the wanting is entirely yours. And the wanting is not sexual; it's about feeling alive.

Structure creates freedom. Before you have the structure of the kids, the freedom is the lack of structure. One of the most important things to redefine is that, with kids, freedom comes from structure, not from the absence of it.

I have yet to hear a straight woman say 'Nothing turns me on more than to see him turned on,' if she's not into it. If she's not into it, whatever is happening to him will not change her. What turns her on is what happens to her. And for that, it means that she needs to be able to focus on herself—away from the worry and the responsibilities and the caretaking of others.

One of the most difficult things in the transition from mother to woman, from caregiver to erotic being, is the ability to switch the focus onto oneself in a healthy narcissism.

A ritual is a routine that is infused with intentionality and creativity.