If you depend on the widespread lover's delusion, 'With my love he or she will change,' you have little chance to help yourself. This delusion is external control to the maximum. If things are not good from the beginning, they are very likely to change, but not for the better.

If you don’t perceive love, if you cannot recognize love, it’s because you only recognize the poison inside you. I am responsible for what I say, but I am not responsible for what you understand. I can give you my love, but you can make the interpretation that you are receiving judgments, or who knows? Only your storyteller knows. When we no longer believe our own stories, we find it so easy to enjoy one another.

In any kind of relationship we can make the assumption that others know what we think, and we don’t have to say what we want. They are going to do what we want because they know us so well. If they don’t do what we want, what we assume they should do, we feel hurt and think, “How could you do that? You should know.” Again, we make the assumption that the other person knows what we want. A whole drama is created because we make this assumption and then put more assumptions on
top of it.

in relationships, it is important to understand that the other person cannot fix your emotional problems. at best they can support you as you uncover and process your own emotional history.

The second most common misconception about love is the idea that dependency is love. This is a misconception with which psychotherapists must deal on a daily basis. Its effect is seen most dramatically in an individual who makes an attempt or gesture or threat to commit suicide or who becomes incapacitatingly depressed in response to a rejection or separation from spouse or lover. Such a person says, “I do not want to live, I cannot live without my husband [wife, girl friend, boyfriend], I love him [or her] so much.” And when I respond, as I frequently do, “You are mistaken; you do not love your husband [wife, girl friend, boyfriend].” “What do you mean?” is the angry question. “I just told you I can’t live without him [or her].” I try to explain. “What you describe is parasitism, not love. When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite on that individual. There is no choice, no freedom involved in your relationship. It is a matter of necessity rather than love. Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other.

If others feel they have to change you, that means they really don't love you
just the way you are. So why be with someone if you're not the way he or she wants you to be?

Making assumptions in our relationships is really asking for problems. Often we make the assumption that our partners know what we think and that we don’t have to say what we want. We assume they are going to do what we want, because they know us so well. If they don’t do what we assume they should do, we feel so hurt and say, “You should have known.

Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.