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Kindle Notes & Highlights
As it turns out, the most painful experience of my life was laying those eight years of a relationship into a grave I was forced to dig myself. The person doing the leaving hands you a shovel and you bury something you once lived to nurture. That’s the way it goes during the death of a marriage: the denial, the anger, the grieving, and then the inevitable purging of soul.
They act like they’re not the ones who’ve made us jaded in the first place, and then punish us for having battle wounds by leaving us for someone they haven’t fucked up yet.
It’s emotionally lazy to know you’re hurting someone and try to forget the fact because it makes you uncomfortable. Marriage as a whole is uncomfortable. Two people from two different worlds trying to stuff all of their emotional belongings into one joined life.
No one has a right to your happiness. It’s a private thing and you have the right to defend it.”
Divorce isn’t supposed to happen, but it does, and no one really knows how to deal with it. It frees you of one thing while imprisoning you with a thousand others. Life isn’t even remotely fair.
“It’s become a cycle we’re unfortunately comfortable with. The longer you stay in an unhealthy relationship, the more druglike it becomes. You’re willing to deal with the side effects because they’re predictable. You can trust the bad in a way you can’t trust the unknown.”
“We aren’t meant to stay the same. Life hits us from every direction, and we build thick skin in those places ... calluses. It’s the way we survive.”
The war for love is fought by saying: You’re the one I want, you’re the one I need, you’re the one I’ll fight to keep. Neither of us fought.
“People evolve, yes. That’s healthy. But they don’t change everything about who they are unless they have a good reason, and Billie, you’re unrecognizable.”
“Sometimes, Billie, God sends an ex back into your life to see if you’re still stupid.”
Love hurts in the way a toothache hurts: you can’t ignore it, and it’s always there throbbing and aching, reminding you ... of what? I think desperately. What is it reminding you of? That you’re human. That you have weakness. That your weakness is another person.
