When we’re in it, when it’s wrong, but it’s all we know or want to know, we sit around thinking we’ve put in the time, we’ve waited, we’ve made him better, so we’re afraid to let him go, afraid to walk away for good, BECAUSE DEEP DOWN WE’RE TERRIFIED that he’s going to suddenly be everything we want him to be for the very next woman he meets.

WE HONESTLY believe that TIME IS GOING TO CHANGE THINGS, IF WE CAN JUST RIDE IT OUT. If we can just be patient. Because in our heads, the very worst thing that could happen would be if we left and then he was ready for someone else. We stay because we’re afraid. We want him to change, but we want it to happen with us.

In Straight Up and Dirty, I wrote that I wanted a man who’d experienced pain at one point in his life. I needed someone who wouldn’t be reckless with my heart, who knew what it felt like to hurt. I wanted a man, not a boy. I didn’t want a man afraid of loss but one who wanted me out of joy, out of preference. And I needed to live that way myself, to find someone I wanted not just someone who wanted me. Things don’t change just because you hold onto them. They change when you let go.