A few key thoughts:

"There's a line from the Buddha that may seem discouraging

"There's a line from the Buddha that may seem discouraging of relationships. The Buddha says that everything that is dear to us causes pain. I didn't like that when I first read it at the beginning of my practice, but after a while I realized that it’s simply an expression of the truth. It doesn't mean we shouldn’t have relationships. It doesn't mean not to have things dear to you. It just means that in this life of change, we will lose everything that's dear to us, unless that which is dear loses us first. Everything will change."

"It helps me remember not to mortgage away any of my days by having a grudge or a grievance or making myself distant."

"From a Buddhist point of view, relationship is a great mirror....In this mirror, we discover ourselves—our tendencies, our weaknesses, and our strengths....This is a lot to take in, so our tendency is to see what we want to see in this relationship mirror....In our relationship with another, we often misunderstand how we are connected.... There is a common bond, but there are also two individual mind streams. We must respect that and allow the other independence. The common space respects the individual space....We cannot overpower the other or make them just like us. The other not only has needs but also individual, habitual karmic habits that you cannot change. They need to initiate change themselves; you cannot forcibly change them....That's the basic principle in a relationship—we share....where the joy of relationship ends and the dukkha of relationship begins."


“Love embraces all human beings, knowing well that we are all wayfarers through this round of existence and that we all experience the same laws of suffering....if I can see that the person who has irritated me has, like me, very simple wants, then I can embrace the moment fully and as a friend.”

"In the moment of meditation, nothing is required of you. It’s enough to be here on the planet...If we don't show up for our own life, we tend to ask other people to fill in the bits we won't show up for. That makes it hard on them. So love begins with really showing up....We think that a relationship is a matter of calculating what we’re getting and not getting."

Relationships are not about trading. We must all learn to love and give freely. Relationship is not an event isolated from our spiritual practice. We're involved in a relationship because we're on our path. If you stop fighting it, stop thinking it should be different, if you allow a little bit of an opening, and you begin to grow.

"People were doing what they were doing because they needed to. Who am I to know what they should be doing?....The koan for that situation is, “Not knowing is most intimate.” What if someone shouldn’t be improved?"

"Love means valuing and appreciating and loving people's uniqueness & differences without trying to change them. That’s a path all by itself."

"Vipassana teaches us the awareness of ever-present expansion and contraction, and having no preference between them. There are good feelings and bad feelings, good days and bad days, expansion and contraction. This is the way it is for all of us. Nobody gets anything better than that.
But we so often make a steady state our ideal, especially in relationships. When we idealize, as we so often do in love, we try to overlook the ups and downs of life, but that means we’re avoiding the training that’s offered, the training of the broken heart. You never even get on the path of love, because you’re holding on to your ideal."