Below are the best resources we could find featuring bell hooks about relationship challenges.
CLEAR ALL
I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another’s differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility. Not this ‘In order to love you, I must make you something else.
The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control.
To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.
Giving generously in romantic relationships, and in all other bonds, means recognizing when the other person needs our attention. Attention is an important resource.
We fear that evaluating our needs and then carefully choosing partners will reveal that there is no one for us to love. Most of us prefer to have a partner who is lacking than no partner at all. What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love.
1
Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.
Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them.
4
When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment.
Many people want love to function like a drug, giving them an immediate and sustained high. They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling.
True love does have the power to redeem but only if we are ready for redemption. Love saves us only if we want to be saved.
There are known concerns about this teacher’s actions. Please see our Teacher Policy in the footer menu on this page for more information.
Photo Credit: Karjean Levine / Contributor / Archive Photos / Getty Images