LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"I am filled with what can only be described as relief. Relief that I got to this place, that this is my life." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"But as I stare into my husband's eyes, the wall between the two worlds crumbles--the world on the place last night and all that could have been, and my life with Andy, moving forward, in our home in Atlanta. A home with two, maybe three, cars in the garage. And a slobbering golden retriever chasing fuzzy yellow tennis balls across a lush, green lawn." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"'Looks like you found yourself a solid, Checkers-playing, Cheerios-eating, God-fearing, glass-half-full kinda guy.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"I wish I could freeze this moment, somehow delay my final decision, and just hang here in the balance between two places, two worlds, two loves." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"Or are there always shades of gray when it comes to matters of the heart?" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"He closes with, 'I miss us'--which is more powerful and compelling than merely missing me--especially because I feel the same way. I miss us, too. I always have, and probably always will. Overcome with grief and the sense of impending, final loss, I touch his hand. Sometimes there are no happy endings. No matter what, I'll be losing something, someone." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"'Okay if you're totally over the guy, and he's totally over you, and you were never that serious to begin with, I see absolutely nothing wrong with an occasional, friendly hello. Or some innocent yard work. Assuming, of course, your current beau-slash-husband is not a complete psycho freak. Then again, if your current guy is a psycho freak, you have much bigger issues than who you should hire to do your lawn.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"'not telling me makes it a big deal.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"But maybe that's what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"He has painted me into a corner, created a layer of deceit between me and the people I love. Sure, it is a small secret in the scheme of things, but it is still a secret, and it will grow--multiply--if I return his call. So I simply won't do it." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"I fight the urge to rest my head on his shoulder, and close my eyes, realizing that this would be so much easier if I could more neatly categorize my feelings. If Leo was all one thing, and Andy another altogether. But it's not that simple or clear-cut--and I wonder if it ever is when it comes to matters of the heart." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"Although I'm happily married, I feel a strange bond to him and don't want this to be it between us, forever." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"On the other hand, it's not like Andy feels threatened by Leo or feels hostile toward him. He simply disdains him in the typical, offhanded way that nearly everyone disdains their significant other's most significant ex. With a mild mix of jealousy and competitiveness that recedes over time." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"Suzanne pauses and then says, 'Do you love him?' I'm not sure who she means--Andy or Leo--but either way, I tell her yes, I do. 'Then don't do this,' she says, obviously talking about Andy. 'Suzanne,' I say, glancing down the hall toward Leo. 'It's not that simple.' 'Yes it is,' she says, cutting me off. 'See, that's the thing, Ell. It really is that simple.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"With a measure of self-serving irony, I reassure myself that perhaps I needed to kiss Leo to really let go of him--and dismiss the notion that staying in my marriage is any version of settling, or that I'm with Andy by default. After all, isn't settling about having no opinions at all? About taking something because it's better than nothing? I finally had a real choice. And I chose." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"It is the way we used to talk--our between-the-lines language, seemingly nonsensical, but stepped in meaning. It is a way I've never talked to Andy--who is always so open, candid. I decide, for at least the hundredth time today, that one way isn't better than the other, they are just different." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"I realize that for the longest time, I saw Andy as perfect, and our life together as perfect. And in some bizarre way, once Leo came back into my life, this yellow-brick road started to feel like settling. Settling for perfection, for all the things that you're supposed to want. A good family. A beautiful home. Wealth. It was almost as if I discounted my feelings, because surely I couldn't truly be in love with Andy, too, on top of all those check marks in his column. Subconsciously, I think I assumed that any feelings I had for dark, difficult, distant Leo had to be more legitimate. The stuff of sad love songs." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"'Change can be good . . . sometimes,' he says cryptically. 'But it's always tough to let go of the past.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"'Well, that's just great, Ellen. That's great,' Andy says, his voice drenched in sarcasm. 'Your ex-boyfriend is important to you. Just what every husband wants to hear.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"'He's not coming back. So do your thing . . . It's time.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"'It's true,' he says. 'Ellen . . . I don't know how I let you get away . . . ' I give him a small smile, feeling very bashful as I marvel how such a simple statement can be so healing and thrilling and unsettling, all at once." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"'You look sad,' she says softly. 'Are you sad?' I can't muster the energy to lie so I nod and tell her yes--although in truth, downright disconsolate is closer to the mark." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"If you never contact someone even once after your final breakup, isn't it, by definition, clean?" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"He made you needy, spineless, insecure, and one-dimensional. It was like I didn't even know you anymore. You weren't the same person with him. I think the whole relationship was . . . unhealthy." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"What I had yet to learn, though, is that things are seldom as neat and tidy as that starry-eyed anecdote you share documentary-style on a couch. What I figured out over time is that almost always, when you hear those stories from married couples, there is a little poetic license going on, a romantic spin, polished to a high shine over time. And unless you marry your high school sweetheart (and even sometimes then), there is usually a not-so-glorious back story. There are people and places and events that lead you to your final relationship, people and places and events you'd prefer to forget or at least gloss over. In the end, you can slap a pretty label on it--like serendipity or fate. Or you can believe that it's just the random way life unfolds. But no matter what you call it, it seems that every couple has two stories--the edited one to be shared from the couch and the unabridged version, best left alone." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"The word settling echoes in my head, gnawing at my heart and filling me with trepidation. It is a word I've avoided for months, even in my own, private thoughts, but I suddenly can't avoid it any longer. In some ways, it feels like the scary heart of the matter--the fear that I settled when I said 'I do' to Andy. That I should have held out for this kind of love. That I should have believed that Leo would, someday, return to me." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"Andy loved me, and I'm not ashamed to say that this topped my reasons of why we were together, of why I loved him back." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"They say timing is everything, and when I look back, I am a big believer in this theory." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"There is nothing hopeful in this moment. This is not a beginning, but an end. It is almost time to let go of Leo's hand. It is almost time to say goodbye." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

LUAQuotes.com... - where you're never alone

"I had long since learned that you couldn't lump all people with money into one category. The wealthy were as varied as the downtrodden. Some were hardworking, some lazy. Some self-made, some born with a silver spoon. Some modest and understated, some ostentatious braggarts." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin