"For me to stay healthy in a relationship, the individuals have to nurture themselves"
About this Quote
The phrasing does sly work. She doesn't say partners should nurture each other first; she insists "the individuals have to nurture themselves". That reversal pushes against the classic celebrity-couple fantasy where two wounded people fuse into one glamorous unit and call it healing. Heche's emphasis on "individuals" reads like a corrective to codependency, to the expectation that love should function as constant emotional triage. It's also a subtle assertion of agency: if health is the goal, each person has responsibilities that cannot be outsourced, even to someone they adore.
Coming from an actress with a public life often treated as public property, the quote carries extra context. Celebrity relationships are consumed as narratives: who's saving whom, who's spiraling, who's the "stable" one. Heche sidesteps that script and chooses a less marketable truth: intimacy thrives when two people arrive with their own oxygen masks already on. The subtext isn't coldness; it's sustainability. Care is still present, but it's not a substitute for self-care, and that's the point.
Quote Details
| Topic | Relationship |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Heche, Anne. (2026, January 15). For me to stay healthy in a relationship, the individuals have to nurture themselves. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/for-me-to-stay-healthy-in-a-relationship-the-144803/
Chicago Style
Heche, Anne. "For me to stay healthy in a relationship, the individuals have to nurture themselves." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/for-me-to-stay-healthy-in-a-relationship-the-144803/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"For me to stay healthy in a relationship, the individuals have to nurture themselves." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/for-me-to-stay-healthy-in-a-relationship-the-144803/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.






