Losing is the price we pay for living. It is also the source of much of our growth and gain.

Adolescence involves our nutty-desperate-ecstatic-rash psychological efforts to come to terms with new bodies and outrageous urges.

Growing up means letting go of the dearest megalomaniacal dreams of our childhood. Growing up means knowing they can't be fulfilled. Growing up means gaining the wisdom and the skills to get what we want within the limitations imposed by reality - a reality which consists of diminished powers, restricted freedoms and, with the people we love, imperfect connections.

When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the street, I always hope he's dead.

For many men the denial of dependency on their mother is repeated in their subsequent relationships, sometimes by an absence of any sexual interest in women, sometimes by a pattern of loving and leaving them.

We begin life with loss. We are cast from the womb without an apartment, a charge plate, a job or a car. We are sucking, sobbing, clinging, helpless babies.

Our early lessons in love and our developmental history shape the expectations we bring into marriage.