Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin Quotes...
Pages: 1, 2
"I wondered why I was so startled by the encounter when there was something that seemed utterly inevitable about the moment. Not in any grand, destined sense; just in the quiet, stubborn way that unfinished business has of imposing its will on the unwilling." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"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
"I suddenly knew that in spite of how happy I was to be spending my life with Andy, I wouldn't soon forget that moment, that tightness in my throat as I saw his face again. Even though I desperately wanted to forget it. Especially because I wanted to." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"What I had yet to learn, through, 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
"But a lot of things had to happen before I married Andy and after that letter from Margot arrived in the mail. A lot of things. And one of them was Leo. The one I would love before I loved Andy. The one I would grow to hate, but still love, long after we broke up. The one I would finally, finally get over. Then see again, years later." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"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
"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
"Sex on and against hard surfaces might look hot in the movies, but in real life it is uncomfortable, overrated, and contrived." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"But as is the way when you're trying not to think of something, the scene only grows more vivid." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"It was the same night I gave myself to him completely, knowing that I would belong to him for as long as he wanted to keep me. And, as it turned out, even longer than that." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"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
"I hope he goes on to surmise that our breakup was a catalyst in my life-a springboard for bigger and better things." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"That's the thing about love-even slight differences are readily apparent, marked by small but irrefutable changes in behavior. Little things, like instead of calling me right back, he'd wait a few hours, sometimes even a full day. He started going out with the boys on a regular basis again, and joined an ice hockey intramural team that played on Saturday nights. We began to watch television at night rather than just talk, and sometimes he was too tired for sex, unfathomable in our early days when he'd often wake me up in the middle of the night, touching me everywhere. And when we did make love, there was all too often a feeling of remoteness afterward. A disconnect as he'd roll away from me or stare into space, lost in his own, private thoughts, another mysterious place." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"It felt complicated in the way that all breakups feel complicated when you're embroiled in them. While in cruel actuality, most are really quite simple. And it goes something like this: one person falls out of love-or simply realizes that he was never really in love in the first place, wishing he could take back those words, that promise from the heart. Looking back, I can see that that was likely the case with Leo and me-the simplest explanation is often the right one, my mother used to tell me." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"So I stoically waited, desperately clinging to the notion that ours was only a trial separation. And, incredibly enough, my feelings became even more intense post-breakup. If I was obsessed with Leo when I was with him, I was drowning in him afterward. He occupied every minute of my day as I became a clich� of the broken-hearted woman." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"I'd awaken, and for a few, fleeting seconds, I'd actually believe that we were back together again. That the breakup was the dream and that I had only to open my eyes and find him right there beside me. Instead, grim reality would set in again. Leo was moving on to a new life without me, and I was alone." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"'I still love him. I will always love him.' 'No,' she said. 'You were only in love with the idea of love. And now you are in love with the idea of a broken heart . . . You're acting like an angst-ridden adolescent." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"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
"Margot and I stared at each other for what felt like a long time. It was probably the most powerful, honest moment of our friendship, and in that moment, I both loved and despised her. She finally broke our silence." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"'He's not coming back. So do your thing . . . It's time.'" - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"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
"I was optimistic, content, self-sufficient, and as settled as you can really be when you're young, single, and living in a big city." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"I mostly saw Leo for what he was-a past love who was never coming back, and I saw myself as a wiser, more complete woman for having lost him. In other words, I was ripe for a new relationship, a better man." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"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
"'A son is a son 'til he gets a wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life.'" - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"'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
"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
"I have enough friends. I don't need to resurrect an old one-if, in fact, that's ever what we were." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"She said everyone needs to get dumped once-that it's part of life-and that obviously things weren't meant to be. 'Better now than down the road with three kids,' she said-although I remember thinking I would have preferred the latter. I would have preferred to have something lasting with Leo, no matter what the accompanying pain." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"'You could cut the sexual tension with a butter knife.'" - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"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
"'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
"'I think it's a bit more than nostalgia.'" - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"'Sure. And isn't that satisfying?' she asks. ' Sort of what every girl dreams of when she's dumped. That the guy will someday feel regret and come back and tell her all about it . . . And the beauty of it is . . . you have no regrets whatsoever.'" - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"I can no longer neatly categorize what he was during our time together. He was not the man of my dreams, the perfect guy I once put on a pedestal; nor was he the villain who Margot had done her best to demonize; nor really any guy on that particular continuum. He was just the wrong guy for me at the time. Nothing more, nothing less." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"'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
"'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
"I close my eyes, inhale, and feel a rush of heat and energy that takes my breath away. It is the feeling of wanting something so much that it borders on an actual need, and the power and urgency of this need overwhelms me." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"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 good-bye." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"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
"Underscoring all of this is Leo-his constant presence in my mind, along with the troubling realization that I deeply associate him with the city and vice versa. So much so, in fact, that leaving New York feels an awful lot like leaving him." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"Not once do I contact him, though. Not even when I think of at least a half-dozen near-perfect, work-related excuses and just as many clever rationalizations about why a little more closure might be a good thing for everyone. Not even when the temptation is so strong that it actually frightens me-in the way that I imagine I would feel about cocaine if I ever tried it." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"If seeing him again-and merely touching his hand-could peel back so many layers of my heart, then did I ever stop loving him the way you're supposed to stop loving everyone but the one you're with? If the answer is no, then will the lapse of time or a change of geography really fix the problem? And regardless of the answer, what does the mere question say about my relationship with Andy?" - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"What appeals to you the most is the very thing that will drive you crazy, I think-and it's really true. I used to love how picture-perfect the Grahams' world was. I admired their wealth, their success, their closeness-how even rebellious James (who finally moved out of his parents' guest house) manages to show up in church most Sunday mornings, albeit with bloodshot eyes and a distinct aroma of cigarette smoke on his wrinkled khakis. I loved that they all consult with one another before doing things, are fiercely proud of their family name and traditions, and that they all put Stella on a pedestal. I loved that nobody had died or divorced or even disappointed." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"To add insult to injury, Andy falls right to sleep that night-which is about the most galling thing you can do after a fight, or in our case, a standoff. No tossing or turning or stewing beside me in the dark. Just cold indifference as he kissed me goodnight, followed by an easy, deep slumber. Of course, this has the infuriating effect of keeping me wide awake, replaying the evening, then the past few weeks, and the few months before that. After all, there is nothing like a little argument-induced insomnia to shift you into a state of frenzied hyper-analysis of fury." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"Silence fills the airwaves once again, as I consider how to respond. I know what I should say. I should say that he's right-it wouldn't have made a difference. I should tell him that he was too late, and I would have made the same decision that Margot made for me. I should tell him that she was acting in my best interest. That Andy's still my best interest. But I can't make myself say any of this. I can't get over the feeling of being cheated. At the most, I was cheated out of the choice for a different life-a choice I had the right to make and that nobody else should have made for me. At the very least, I was cheated out of the all-important closure-knowledge that would have made me feel better about the worst thing to ever happen to me short of my mother dying, as well as the chance to reconcile my feelings for Leo with the way things ended between us. Yes, we broke up. Yes, Leo did the breaking up. But he regretted it. He loved me enough to come back. I was worth coming back for. It might not have made a difference in my life, but it would have made a difference in my heart. I close my eyes, riding a wave of resentment and indignation and more anger still." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"Leo laughs, sounding so good. He remembers, all right. He remembers everything just as I do." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"'Me, too,' I say, feeling at war with myself as I avoid his gaze. Part of me desperately wants to make up with Andy and feel close to him again, but another part almost wants to keep things broken so I can justify what I'm doing. Whatever it is that I'm doing." - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"'not telling me makes it a big deal.'" - Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin
"'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
