The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships — Notes, Quotes, & Takeaways

Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.

— Lorraine (sex addiction counselor)

In the sex addition community, they wanted us to control our bodies so our hearts could connect. In this community [the sexual revolution community] they want us to control our hearts so our bodies can connect. But maybe expecting to have it all; the deepest intimacy, and the most unrestrained lust is an unrealistic quest like expecting a human being to be perfect. All you can do is work to get as close as possible to the impossible.

— Neil

Perhaps that’s the price of making your fantasies a reality. You realize pretty quickly that they were more fun to imagine.

— Neil

Where there’s reactivity, there’s a wound.

— Neil

In the dance of infatuation we see others not as they are, but as a projection of who we want them to be. And we impose on them all the imaginary criteria we think will fill the voids in our hearts, but in the end this strategy leads only to suffering. It’s not a relationship when the other person is left out of it.

— Neil

If it was your daughter, what would you tell her to do? Behave with yourself as if you were your own mother.

— Ann on an insight she got from Neil.

During our time together we had to make choices. We hesitated and didn’t always know what was best for us. A great lesson this taught me was that if we place ourselves in hard to make choices in new situations… we can’t make mistakes.

— Ann

There were no negative consequences — or so I thought. People are such good liars they even fool themselves sometimes.

— Neil

You can have your cake and you can eat it, but one day you’re going to have to share it too.

— Neil

There’s nothing good about jealousy. If someone’s going to leave you, they’re going to do it whether or not you’re jealous. In fact, they’re much more likely to do it if you are jealous.

— Lawrence

The universe listens and it gives you not just what you want, but what you deserve.

— Neil

The problem many people have is that the exact quality that originally attracted them to their partner becomes a threat once a serious relationship begins. After all this quality was the open door through which the romance started. So now they want to close the door, lock it, and throw away the key before someone else tries to come in after them.

— Neil

Leah’s so great, that I want other people to get the pleasure of experiencing what I get to with her and I’m so in love with her that I want her to do what makes her happy.

— Lawrence

Freedom isn’t quite as sweet without security. Perhaps this is the flip side of love avoidance. I have a need to feel needed even if I don’t actually like it.

— Neil

I would recommend becoming a scientist of your own lows… If you’re in pain of the heart — enter into the pain and try to find its source rather than letting the pain drive you or trying to escape from it or overcome it.

— Lorraine

Adam and most people seem to believe that if a relationship doesn’t last until death that it’s a failure, but the only relationship that’s truly a failure is one that lasts longer than it should. The success of a relationship should be measured by its depth, not its length.

— NEIL

I believe that functional parenting is the secret to world peace. And the only way to make functional parents is to heal psychological wounds with the same urgency that we heal physical wounds.

— Lorraine

It turns out that leaving all my options open has kept me too busy juggling them to really live.

— Neil

You have your own internal therapist that is far wiser than any external therapist you could consult. You just need to find that voice and listen to it.

— Lorraine

I’ve cleansed the childhood wounds and I’m filling the holes inside. All my life I’ve been trying to fill the wrong holes.

— Neil

You can’t have a relationship with someone hoping they’ll change. You have to be willing to commit to them as they are with no expectations and if they happen to choose to change at some point along the way, then that’s just a bonus.

— Neil

Love is not an accident, it is a delicate union of two complex complementary puzzle pieces that have inadvertently been created by different manufacturers.

— Neil

Lately I’ve started thinking about the things my parents didn’t do perfectly as variables that make me an individual rather than as trauma that makes me a patient. It’s not healthy to walk through life as a victim and others as perpetrators.

— NEIL

It take hard, conscious diligent work to genuinely change.

— rICK

Any style of relationship is the right one as long as it’s a decision made by the whole person and not the hole in the person.

— nEIL