“I really shouldn’t be surprised that I didn’t end up anywhere good because I just stumbled into every circumstance of my life out of ignorance or limited options. That had nothing to do with loving you. That had everything to do with wanting to believe in something and having a shortage of viable alternatives. It had everything to do with needing a reason to live and finding none but the expectation that humans come pre-loaded with the will to survive. They don’t. Trust me on this…
Baby, I never said I didn’t want to get married. I said that I didn’t want to marry you. After a year of the runaround from you the last person I could rely on was you, so things changed. I loved you but not in that “let’s make a huge commitment and get deeply into debt together” kind of way. I loved you in that “Thank you for changing everything about me and saving my life” kind of way because I know that if I had stayed where I was my life would’ve drifted from one stupid job after another and run from one hastily-arranged, Craigslist hookup to the next until my body was found dismembered in a rural landfill. And that would’ve broken my mother’s heart.”