divorce

God Hates divorce.""He hates cruelty even more."Caring For Eleanor

What cracks had he left in their hearts? Did they love less now and settle for less in return, as they held onto parts of themselves they did not want to give and lose again? Or - and he wished this - did they love more fully because they had survived pain, so no longer feared it?

True respect means accepting someone and honoring his or her thoughts and feelings.

A Plan B life can be just as good or better than a Plan A life. You just have to let go of that first dream and realize that God has already written the first chapter of the new life that awaits you. All you have to do is start reading!

To observe is not to not feel__n fact, it is to put yourself at the mercy of feeling, like the child's warm skin meeting the cold air of midnight. My own children, too, have been roused from the unconsciousness of childhood; theirs too is the pain and the gift of awareness. 'I have two homes,' my daughter said to me one evening, clearly and carefully, 'and I have no home.' To suffer and to know what it is that you suffer: how can that be measured against its much-prized opposite, the ability to be happy without knowing why?

What used to be edgy (divorces) has become mainstream and what used to be mainstream (racism and sexism) has become shocking.

A defeatist attitude kills almost as many marriages as do affairs.

I did not believe in stalemates. I believed in resolutions, one way or another, and if I found myself on the losing end, so be it. Losing meant quiet, and forgetting quickly, and giving up nothing of any real worth to me. I did not debate restaurant bills, politics, wrongly delivered mail, divorces. These things were officiously loud, and silence was always best.

This is going to hurt, but you will have to watch other couples be happier, richer and louder than you. Wait. No obstacle can withstand patience. Wait. You may not think so now, but there will come a time when you will be tempted to run away. Would that be right? Would that be fair? As every matriarch discovers, entire seasons will pass without reward. As your mate's peculiarities add up, what do you do? Wait!pg 45

Henri held herself as if only her arms could keep her pieced together, and I saw that behind all her fake control__hrowing herself at a teacher, carving our dad out of her heart__as something fragile. I wish we__ seen it sooner__y dad and Mr. Flynn, they had a responsibility to see it, to do better. Those moments were my sister spinning out._

There__ no way I can care properly for my children if I don__ first care for myself.

He didn't take any of my shit. I needed that.

The divorce papers remained unopened in the crisp yellow envelope. He had thrown it on his desk without a backward glance. Between his lashes, his dark chocolate eyes burned with fury but there was something else in the depths that she hadn__ seen in a long time, passion.

Every broken heart has screamed at one time or another: Why can't you see who I truly am?

The dysfunction was not the character of one person, it was the split of family by divorce, with the ripples felt for eternity by bloodline.

And finally, always remember that the other person started it.

The most surprising thing about breaking up is that you already know how to do it. Everything you need to know, you learned in kindergarten. Yours should always be better than his (especially when it comes to lawyers).

He was the one I compared all others to.