In the end, my stubborn insistence on "honoring my commitment" without renegotiation deprived her of happiness, too. Things ran off the rails when I started to believe I was subordinate to the needs of the commitments, rather than focusing on building commitments that served my needs and the needs of all the people I loved. When I made myself subordinate to the rules, it didn't make anyone happy—not me, not Celeste, and certainly not my other partners who ended up in harm's way because of it.
