I agree with that, danfling. The others were just filler.

I think that Tom Cudahy was the love of Erica's life.

I disagree. I think Tom was the sort of person who could have been really good for Erica - Susan Lucci has said as much as well - but they wanted different things and were thus doomed to fail as a couple. He wanted a family and a stable life, and Erica wanted fame and fortune and to be unhampered by the responsibilities of parenthood. Maybe if they hadn't married back in the 70s they could have been a decent couple after Erica grew up a bit and was ready and willing to be a mother. Erica circa early 1990s liked and respected Tom a great deal, but by that point, Tom knew better than to get involved with her again.

I think the love of Erica's life was ultimately Erica herself. She was obviously motivated later in the show to protect her children, but her primary motivation has always been her own self-interest. She's a deeply wounded, vulnerable, selfish person who wants all-encompassing love, but on her own terms. She is willing to try to change for someone, but that's never going to last, so she has to be with someone who not only understands her but realizes that he can't change her or make her into something she's not. She's not going to be happy staying at home and baking cookies with her children or grandchildren all the time, no matter how much she may enjoy the occasional bout of domesticity. Mike Roy, Dimitri Marick, and David Hayward all understood that. The relationship with Mike was doomed by his 'death' and unfortunately, by Nick Surovy's unwillingness to sign a long-term contract with AMC. If he'd been willing to stay on longer than 6 months in 1998, I think Erica could have chosen Mike. The relationship with Dimitri was ultimately doomed by circumstance - Kendall, Richard Fields, Erica's poor mental state, the trial, Anton, Erica's fall and the resulting drug addiction, Jonathan Kinder, Dimitri's one night stand with Maria, the loss of Erica's baby was all just too much for them to get past. I still believe they had a lot of unfinished business as a couple and that they would have eventually reconciled had ABC not fired Michael Nader for his drug problems. The relationship with David was brief in comparison to Dimitri or Jack, but he saw her in a way that a lot of other men didn't and still found her beautiful even when her face was scarred. He didn't really try to change her either, but I think they were both too hurt by life by that point to be willing to give in enough to make a relationship work long-term.

Did you guys like Tom better with Erica or Brooke?

Brooke. Definitely Brooke.

Yep, Tom was better with Brooke than with Erica.

Who was best for Brooke, Adam or Tom?

Most will say Adam, but I think it was Tom.

Best FOR Brooke? Tom.

Best for a complicated, dramatic relationship that makes for entertaining television? Adam.

Were Adam and Tom the only men Erica and Brooke had in common?

There was Jackson and Erica hated sharing her half brother Mark with her.

Don't forget Gilles!

Ellabell, I appreciate your opinion. However, I still contend that Tom and Erica belonged together and that Tom was the true love of Erica.

I think that Gilles was intended to be paired with Erica, but, for some reason, he was later paired with Brooke.

I think that Matt was supposed to be with Brooke, but then they put him with Nina.

Amy, I assume your comment was directed at Khan, but I'm going to reply anyway. I thought Erica had great chemistry with both brothers, so it wasn't that I necessarily thought one was drastically better than the other. I believe that for the writers, Travis was a means to an end, which was giving Erica a child born onscreen. If you go back and watch the crazy dream/comatose vision/whatever Erica had right before Bianca was born, out of all the men in her life, Erica is most firmly connected to Mike Roy, even making love to him in her dream (and oddly enough, then all the other men in her life and appear again and I guess watched or something ), and the only real appearance Travis makes in that entire two episode trippy dream is when he's on a bicycle built for two with Barbara, ignoring Erica. Erica's baby is what matters most to her in the dream. If the subconscious speaks the truth, then perhaps Erica knew even then that Travis still had a close connection to Barbara.

I would have liked to see Erica and Travis' first marriage go in a different direction than it ultimately did. I'm not sure the writers really knew what to do with Travis after Erica had Bianca, but I do think he and Barbara were good together and played off each other very well. Their relationship was complex and interesting, and when Barbara came back on the show in 2007 or so, it was obvious that their marriage in Seattle had been pretty rocky and complicated, and I would have liked to have seen more of that. I still think killing off Travis was a really, really bad idea.

Ultimately, I don't think either Montgomery brother was really the right man for Erica, but I sure enjoyed the story. I just got tired of the endless together/apart cycle of Erica and Jack by the time it was all over.

I never liked Travis at all, but I loved the chemistry between Jack & Erica; however, I have to agree that in the end Jack was too self-righteous for their relationship to work long-term. I just wish the writers had explored more of their differences instead of throwing other people between them like when both Jeff & Barbara showed up.

Best FOR Brooke? Tom.

Best for a complicated, dramatic relationship that makes for entertaining television? Adam.

ITA! Brooke was married to Tom when I started watching so they'll always have a special place in my heart, but I did love the drama Adam brought to her life.

Ellabell, I appreciate your opinion. However, I still contend that Tom and Erica belonged together and that Tom was the true love of Erica.

And I certainly respect your opinion as well, but you didn't really explain WHY you feel that he was her true love, and I'm genuinely curious as to your reasons.

I was born the year they got married, so obviously I didn't watch AMC then - what I know about that period of the show is based on old episodes I've seen and old soap magazines and books I've gathered. My understanding though is that she wanted to marry Nick, but he backed out after proposing when she was in the hospital with pneumonia, so she latched onto Tom instead. When Nick called right before the wedding, she had hoped it was to beg her to run off with him when really he just called to wish her well. Mona was so upset over Erica marrying Tom when she didn't really love him that she threatened to boycott the wedding and only caved and attended at the last minute. Yes, they had a gorgeous wedding and beautiful on location reception, but from what I've seen, Tom was mad that Erica was trying to get back into modeling, and of course, he was furious that she claimed to be trying to conceive a baby with him while secretly still taking birth control pills.

I really do want to know why you think he was the love of her life because that just doesn't fit with what I know of their relationship. My perspective is that Tom was a really good, decent guy who loved Erica as wholly as he could, and ultimately he could have been very good for her IF they'd been together when she was ready to have a child and settle down, but when they were together, she was still emotionally attached to Nick, and they wanted very different things, so I'm not sure how that equals "love of my life" for either of them.

It is true that she had been engaged to Nick, her former father-in-law and friend to her mother. When he called off the engagement, she strongly considered sueing him for alienation of affection.

She had also been married to Dr. Jeff Martin and Phillip Brent.

It was only after the problematic situation with Nick was over that she and Tom fell in love with one another.

They had a wonderful, romantic courtship and honeymoon in St. Croix.

Erica did not try to get back into modeling. She wanted to be a successful businesswoman and even opened a disco in the back to Tom's Goal Post restaurant. After that was unsuccessful, she was contacted by the Brandon Kingsley Agency and asked to come to New York. It was only then that her career there was continued.

It was probably her desire to be successful in business that she did not want to be a mother. She took birth control pills against Tom's church-based opposition. She had undergone a tragic miscarriage when she was married to Phillip Brent, and she did not want to be hurt unnecessarily.

All of her later shortened relationships with men after her divorce from Tom (Adam, Gilles, Dimitri, Jackson, Travis, Mike, etc.) show, to me, that she would probably never be able to recreate the love that she had for Tom.