Autumn can be glorious but menacing too - the long shadows, brisk winds, scurrying leaves, impending frost.

Basic personality traits develop early in life and over time become inviolable, hardwired. Most people learn little from experience, rarely thinking of adjusting their behavior, see problems as emanating from those around them, and keep on doing what they do in spite of everything, for better or worse.

Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing - Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high - the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The mouldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked.

In asserting that people don't change, what she means is that they don't change for the better. Whereas changing for the worse, that goes without saying.

Other people are not here to fulfill our needs or meet our expectations, nor will they always treat us well. Failure to accept this will generate feelings of anger and resentment. Peace of mind comes with taking people as they are and emphasizing the positive.

You will not be the same person coming out of a relationship as you were going into it.

In spite of what anyone says it’s women who make the rules.