I imagine that the woman who sings it is in a relationship with a man who's married or otherwise involved with another woman... she loves him passionately and completely, he may love her too but he's also too involved in that other relationship to belong entirely to her... ("a half-hearted love that will never be whole")
he won't leave the other woman so she cannot imagine a future with him ("this dime-a-day love that don't go anywhere")
They have different expectations for their relationship ("an odds and ends love that don't ever match up")
Maybe he confessed to her that he will never leave his other woman ("I heard all you said..." ) and now she know that even though she "loves him to death" she will never be happy with him, and has to leave him so she will have another chance to be happy...
She has no regrets for giving it a try, but she knows she has to move on now...
" how can I rely on my heart if I break it with my own two hands" I see 2 possible meanings there :
1) it hurts her so much to leave him that she feels she is breaking her own heart, she wonders how she will ever recover from this
2) if she stayed in this unhappy relationship she would feel that she was breaking her own heart and she couldn't ever trust herself to fall in love again, which is why she has to leave
I imagine that the woman who sings it is in a relationship with a man who's married or otherwise involved with another woman... she loves him passionately and completely, he may love her too but he's also too involved in that other relationship to belong entirely to her... ("a half-hearted love that will never be whole")
he won't leave the other woman so she cannot imagine a future with him ("this dime-a-day love that don't go anywhere")
They have different expectations for their relationship ("an odds and ends love that don't ever match up")
Maybe he confessed to her that he will never leave his other woman ("I heard all you said..." ) and now she know that even though she "loves him to death" she will never be happy with him, and has to leave him so she will have another chance to be happy... She has no regrets for giving it a try, but she knows she has to move on now...
" how can I rely on my heart if I break it with my own two hands" I see 2 possible meanings there :
1) it hurts her so much to leave him that she feels she is breaking her own heart, she wonders how she will ever recover from this
2) if she stayed in this unhappy relationship she would feel that she was breaking her own heart and she couldn't ever trust herself to fall in love again, which is why she has to leave
Anyway, such a perfect, beautiful song