The very ingredients that nurture love — mutuality, reciprocity, protection, worry, responsibility for the other — are sometimes the very ingredients that stifle desire.

Esther Perel, a Belgian psychotherapist known for her work on erotic desire in long-term relationships, develops this idea in her writing and talks about the tension between intimacy and eroticism. In her framework, modern couples often expect one partner to provide both the security of attachment (care, reliability, protection) and the novelty/otherness that fuels sexual desire. The quote reflects her clinical observation that as couples build a stable, mutually responsible bond—especially amid domestic routines, caregiving, and shared obligations—the relationship can become organized around safety and predictability, conditions that may inadvertently dampen erotic charge. It is typically invoked in discussions of sustaining desire within committed partnership.

Perel is pointing to a paradox: the qualities that make love feel secure—reciprocity, caretaking, vigilance, and responsibility—can also reduce the distance, uncertainty, and autonomy that often animate desire. Love seeks closeness and reassurance; desire often thrives on separateness, mystery, and the sense of encountering an “other,” not an extension of oneself or a dependent. The quote doesn’t condemn commitment; it reframes desire as requiring a different emotional ecology than attachment. Its significance lies in challenging the assumption that more intimacy automatically produces more eroticism, and in suggesting that cultivating individuality, play, and novelty can be compatible with deep devotion.