Hi Frances. I'm not angry at you, I want you to know that. I'm just getting in touch with you because I think it's important that we're on the same page with this. Nick doesn't want to leave me & I don't want to leave him. We are going to keep living together & being married. I'm putting this in an e-mail because I don't trust Nick to be straight with you about it. He has a weak personality & compulsively tells people what they want to hear. In short if you're sleeping with my husband because you secretly believe that one day he will be your husband, then you're making a serious mistake. He's not going to divorce me & if he did he would never marry you.

//

Are you making my husband better, Frances? What gives you the right to do that?

//

But I always said I wanted him to be happy, & now I know it was true all along. I do want that. Even when it looks like this I still want it.

-- conversations with friends, sally rooney