You are not difficult. You were never told that thing was on the list.

Most people think a woman who accepts too little does not know her worth. That has never been true. She knows exactly what she is worth. What she was never handed was a list — a plain statement of what you may expect from a person who loves you. Not hope for. Not be lucky to get. Expect, the way you expect a chair to hold you when you sit down.

So she assembled one out of whatever she happened to see. One or two marriages up close. A handful more at dinners, where everyone was on their best behaviour. Some films, which are useless for this, because films are about the first six weeks.

This book is the list, written out.

Six parts. Thirty short chapters. You can read it in an evening, and I would rather you did, because the argument only works whole.