People - I mean couples - don't like to talk much about fighting. It's not attractive. No one likes to admit it or describe it or lay claim to it. We want our coupledoms to look... sanitized and pretty and worthy of admiration. And anger blasts are ugly. But, I think that is a crock. There is a kind of fighting that isn't ugly. There is a way for anger to come our as an energy you let loose and away. The trick is to give it a form, and not a human target. The trick is to transform rage.
Interpretation
This quote discusses how couples often avoid acknowledging conflict, yet emphasizes that fighting can be constructive if handled properly.
Lidia Yuknavitch points out that while many couples prefer to present an image of harmony, conflict is a natural part of any relationship. She argues that fighting doesn’t have to be destructive; instead, it can serve as a powerful and transformative energy if channeled correctly. By focusing on how to express anger healthily, couples can strengthen their bond instead of allowing conflicts to fracture it.
In practice
During a couple's therapy session, this quote could be used to open a discussion about healthy conflict.
I'm in love with language again because Luke B. Goebel is not afraid to take us back through the gullet of loss into the chaos of words. Someone burns a manuscript in Texas; someone's speed sets a life on fire; a heart is beaten nearly to death, the road itself is the trip, a man is decreated back to his animal past--better, beyond ego, beautiful, and look: there's an American dreamscape left. There's a reason to go on.
I don't have any problem understanding why people flunk out of college or quit their jobs or cheat on each other or break the law or spray-paint walls. A little bit outside of things is where some people feel each other. We do it to replace the frame of family. We do it to erase and remake our origins in their own images. To say, I too was here.
This is something I know: damaged women? We don't think we deserve kindness. IN fact, when kindness happens to us, we go a little berserk. It's threatening. Deeply. Because if I have to admit how profoundly I need kindness? I have to admit that I hid the me who deserves it down in a sadness well.
Your life doesn’t happen in any kind of order. Events don’t have cause and effect relationships the way you wish they did. It’s all a series of fragments and repetitions and pattern formations. Language and water have this in common.
Familiarity seems to breed contempt
My life is rich because I have those kinds of people in my life.
With women composing nearly half the American workforce and increasingly serving as the primary breadwinner for families, we can't afford to treat pregnant women differently than their counterparts, especially when slight job modifications could help them stay in the workforce at no risk to their health.
My people are still poor. They're still working class. All of the characters that I write about are inspired by the community that I'm from.
Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity?
Oh lovers! be careful in those dangerous first days! once you've brought breakfast in bed you'll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.