He heaves a deep breath. Wipes a tear away with his thumb. "I'm here, okay?" He grasps my shoulder and squeezes gently. "These aren't platitudes. I'm right here. And I want to listen. Whenever you're sad, I want to hear why. I want to know what you're feeling, all the time, so I can share those feelings with you.

The thing about a wedding is: you don’t remember the vows. You forget them the second after your mouth utters the sacred words, because your brain needs the room to catalog every detail of your partner’s face. All of my concentration is on him. Everything is wonderful. Every day is the same. Every day is like our wedding day.

There’s a difference between being needed and wanted. In some things, I like to be needed. With sex, I need to be wanted. I can’t be just some guy in your bed getting the jobdone. I’m not having disconnected, going-through-the-motions sex with you. Not you. You’re supposed to be the person I connect with the most deeply.

He needs me to give voice to my feelings, because he's not a mind reader and it's not okay that I soak up what he gives without offering myself in return. I can't let him think he's alone, not for one moment.

I tried to keep him at a safe distance where he could only see the decent parts of me and it made us both miserable. I inadvertently let him in to see the ugly parts but instead of running away like I’d counted on him to do, he wrapped his arms around all of that ugliness and didn’t let go.