Nothing can cost you someone you love. The only thing that can cost you your husband is if you believe a thought. That's how you move away from him. That's how the marriage ends. You are one with your husband until you believe the thought that he should look a certain way, he should give you something, he should be something other than what he is. That's how you divorce him. Right then and there you have lost your marriage.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that our beliefs and expectations about love can lead to the deterioration of relationships.
Byron Katie's quote reflects the idea that love is often undermined by our mental perceptions and expectations of our partners. When individuals start to believe that their partners should meet particular criteria or behave in certain ways, they create a rift between their reality and their expectations, leading to emotional distance and the potential end of the relationship. Essentially, it suggests that love is continuous and whole unless disrupted by one's own thoughts about how love should manifest.
In practice
Use this quote in a counseling session to illustrate how beliefs affect marital dynamics.
When you stay present with your children, that’s where abundance is. And when you stay out of their business, that’s where everything you deserve in life is. When you’re in presence, there’s no story, and you are abundance. And you come to trust that space so often that you just eventually hang out as that, because there is nothing that can move you out of it, not even a perceived child or a perceived anything.
It is easy to be swept away by some overwhelming feeling, so it's helpful to remember that any stressful feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says, "You're caught in the dream."
We don't attach to people or to things; we attach to uninvestigated concepts that we believe to be true in the moment.
An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering.
Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be cause by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That’s not a possibility. It’s only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I’m the one who’s hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don’t have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I’m the one who can stop hurting me. It’s within my power.
I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.
Things don't change in a marriage until the spouse who is taking responsibility for a problem that is not hers decides to say or do something about it.
We're born alone. We do need each other. It's lonely to really effectively live your life, and anyone you can get help from or give help to; that's part of your obligation.
If you pay attention, everyone is a novel. The most boring person, if you sit down and really listen, is someone interesting.
Run a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.
If you see me as just the princess then you misunderstand who I am and what I have been through.
i want to hear what's happened to you," she said evenly after a while. she gestured in the direction, down river, of the butcher shop. "it's just that there is nowhere else to start," she said gently. "niether of us is the same. but i'm different because of small, good, manageable things. you're different because ... things i don't know.
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