I liked being needed by him. I liked making his food for him, running his baths for him, massaging his muscles. I liked caring for him, taking care of him. It made me feel like I had a real purpose. It felt so good to make him feel even the littlest bit better.

But at some point, you have to recognize that you have no control over anybody and you have to step back and be ready to catch them when they fall and that's all you can do. It feels like throwing yourself to sea. Or, maybe not that. Maybe it's more like throwing someone you love out to sea and then praying they float on their own, knowing they might well drown and you'll have to watch.

And I’ve been really sad,” Nina added. “That I…that I meant so little to someone who had made me believe I meant so much.

Denial is like an old blanket. I loved to get on under that thing and curl up and sleep.

If you are heartbroken right now, then I feel for you deeply, Evelyn says. That I have the utmost respect for. Thats the sort of thing that can split a person in two. But I wasnt heartbroken when Don left me. I simply felt like my marriage had failed. And those are very different things.

People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is "You're safe with me"—that's intimacy.

He could be trusted. And I knew no matter what mistakes he made, no matter what mistakes I might make too, that we would be fine. I don't know if I would have believed in that type of security before I had it. Before I chose to give it. And by giving it to Billy- I gave it to myself too. But saying to someone- no matter what you do, we're not over, I don't know. Something about that relaxed me.

Love and pride don’t mix.

Fate or not, our lives are still the results of our choices.