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I wonder if we all don't have feelings for 'the one that got away'? For me it was a beautiful, sensual man while in my 20's. I was divorced & had a young son. He was an electrician who travelled with his job, wherever the work was.
He wanted us to go with him but, in the end, I couldn't take my son away from his father. I thought of him often though, through the years and had many wishes & regrets.
For you, going through rough patches right now, I would think you would envision the what might have beens. Yet, the reality is that you & your husband have stuck with each other through the bad times. There would have been no guarantee that you & the other one would have.
My ex's family was upper middle class. My family was just regular. I didn't have anything in common with them & it made our marriage miserable. I was Target, they were Macy's & I thought, a bit shallow.
So you don't know how it may have turned out. BUT, you do know that you & yours have survived for 30 years.
This whole thread belongs in another forum except for the fact of how it's affecting her relationship with her marriage now, which doesn't seem to be her main concern
I wonder now if you would have a minute to spare for advice about how to deal with shattered dreams and an empty life behind me and the pain that goes with it? Because I think that is my n°1 problem, not the Californian architect with the happy family and white Sauvignon.
Professionals typically charge $250/hr around my area to advise clients on how to “deal with shattered dreams and an empty life...”. Apparently, the professionals are so successful with their advice that most clients make hourly visits a regular weekly occurrence!
All joking aside, I sense that you are serious so I’ll accept it at face value. You and I - and likely every other person that you have and will run across who is past the age of 40 and isn’t mentally or physically debilitated - has had a “lost love” story that ended without “closure” from their perspective.
In Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” - written over 400 yrs ago - Hermia loves Lysander, and Demetrius loves Hermia, while Helena loves Demetrius, but when Lysander drinks the love potion and falls for Helena, understandably Hermia wants to kill Helena...all the while Egeus wants to kill His daughter Hermia for not marrying Lysander as he had mandated.
Hermia did, of course, have the option of becoming a nun in order to be saved from her father’s sword, but being young and in love - running away into the woods with Lysander seemed like the wise decision to make at the time.
Well, we all know that after a lot more love and magic potions - and a King’s edict - the right pairs of lovers do marry at the end. Only after Shakespeare developed his skill as a writer did he recognize that audiences preferred tragic endings as they were more realistic and enjoyable!
Anyway, at most points of the story, it is obvious that for the two young men and two young women, the story was either about “lost love”, or trying to figure out how to get rid of an annoying paramour - depending on the perspective.
Mary-Lynette, after fast forwarding back to your story, you as an adult who has been in a 30yr marriage must at least accept the possibility that your tale of “lost love” with young, tall, blonde architect-boy was probably not a tale of “lost love” from his perspective. Most likely, you were some chick that he hung out with for a few weeks and then lost interest as more attractive things entered his life - it happens. There is no closure...simply a breaking of a wave in a continual line of waves that break towards the beach.
My free general advice would be:
1) Always maintain your dignity. Control your emotions and don’t fear monsters that don’t exist.
2) Develop a hobby or activity that you can enjoy with or without needing another person. They say that life has to have meaning...and finding meaning through another person rarely works out well, much less for someone who is 60yo. Life only goes in one direction.
3. Get regular exercise. I’m a believer that sweating out does wonders for both the body and the brain.
I wonder now if you would have a minute to spare for advice about how to deal with shattered dreams and an empty life behind me and the pain that goes with it? Because I think that is my n°1 problem, not the Californian architect with the happy family and white Sauvignon.
The Buddhists say that to recognize that all things are impermanent, this will cease suffering. But what they mean is that form is impermanent. The essence of a desire, is always available for you to still achieve.
Everybody wants what they want for one reason only...they believe it will make them feel the way they want to feel. But the thing outside of yourself that you want, which in this particular case is the former love interest, is because you're subscribing a way of feeling to this man or lack of man.
If you make a list of everything you feel about the man, it will be a great start to a much more rewarding life. Think of this man as an archetype to help you uncover your true desire. Make the list privately, not on this forum, so that you can be truly honest with yourself and don't have to listen to any potential responses telling you how wrong/psychotic/immature/deluded you are for feeling like you do (that's a City Data speciality!). You feel how you feel. Your feelings are valid. Make peace with where you are, right now.
Probably the way you want to feel is excited, like there's potential for adventure, you want to feel both desire and desirable (I'm just guessing, but you actually know, or will soon know). Your life, just as it is now, holds all the seeds that you need to achieve a life where all these feelings are present. You just have to recognize how you want to feel, and then work on what is blocking you from having these experiences manifest. All these feelings can exist in a long term marriage, and they can exist in non romantic ways, too. Don't limit how your goodness can come to you. Your job is just accept that you want them, and then get out your own way.
If I were you, I would absolutely begin by rephrasing the story of my life...I would never, ever again utter the words "shattered dreams and an empty life behind me". You may have spent a long time settling for feeling less than you want to feel. But your dreams are not shattered. Your life is not empty. Everything you need to feel good is inside you right now. And it feels much better to feel better than to feel bad, right? And ultimately better feelings attract better experiences.
Making feeling good your highest priority. Do things that feel good. Leave your husband out of it all for the time being...but be prepared for him to start changing if you do, because happy enthused joyful people are magnetic and their higher vibration is contagious.
How wonderful that you had this experience so that it's triggered you to start looking at you having the life you want to live! How wonderful you have the self awareness to explore how you feel instead of pathologizing it. I think you're going to do great, and that your life is going to start getting better very soon.
Bertolt Brecht: "Everything Changes"
Everything changes. You can make
A fresh start with your final breath.
But what has happened has happened. And the water
You once poured into the wine cannot be
Drained off again.
What has happened has happened. The water
You once poured into the wine cannot be
Drained off again, but
Everything changes. You can make
A fresh start with your final breath.
OP, I've been where you are, so I can relate to the feelings that you're experiencing. To make a very long story short, I never got over the one who got away, and found my way back to her after 28 years, and I've never been happier. We were together for 3 years in high school and she broke my heart when she left. I never got over her, and thought about her a lot over the years - sometimes I would fo months without thinking about her, and sometimes I couldn't get her out of my head for months. It was like the tide, sometimes being so far out that it could barely be seen, and sometimes washing in with a fury and overwhelming me.
We both moved on, got married, had kids, and both got divorced, and when we met up again for the first time in 28 years it was like nothing had ever changed. We fell instantly in love with each other again, and it's been 3 years now and neither one of us has ever been happier. But my case is the exception, not the rule. You need to think long and hard about what it is you want for your life. Do you turn your feelings into an effort to fix your current marriage, or do you reach out to this man? And if you do, what is it that you want out of that?
Perhaps some counseling is called for here, for you or for you and your husband? Feel free to PM me if you want to chat some more. Best of luck to you, whichever way you choose to go.
My story is very similar. Somewhere on here I have written both the long and the short versions.
It had been nearly 30 years. We were both married. Successful careers. I had a family.
But as I traveled the world, I wondered. I sat in airplanes thinking about her. I lay awake in strange hotels, wondering...what happened to her? Where is she?
I wrote a letter...nervously....no answer. I searched the internet...hundreds of times. Nothing. Mostly it was the early days where not much of anything outside of the academic world was out there.
And then one day...a picture. A group of students and their teacher. A long way from where we had last been together.
I figured out what might be an email address...and sent a note. Nothing.
And the one day...a strange email in my in box. It was her.
We met. The love was intense. We both divorced. It has been sixteen years now; a renaissance in both of our lives.
Who knew? You never know unless you ask. OP, ask! You have nothing to lose. There might be a whole new world out there for you. Life is too short to live without knowing the answer. There is nothing which says you can't seek and find out. You would like to know. Maybe he would as well. Leap and the wings will appear.
Over a year ago, I was sitting in a doctor's waiting room, casually leafing through a magazine. Suddenly, I was drawn to an article about a successful architect in California, and I got a shock. There he was, the man I had loved so much 40 years ago, my first real love! The tall, blond, charming boy from a well-to-do family who had shown an interest in me, the not-so-pretty, not-so-smart poor country girl. We were both 20 years old, and that was all we had in common. I looked up to him, and poured all my hopes for a better life into him.
I was so shy I never told him how much I cared for him though.
Perhaps that's why he walked away after only a few months together, or perhaps he realized I was not the one for him, and lost interest. I'll never know.
What I know though is that it took me about two years to recover from the loss and the pain. I never heard from him again. That was so long ago now.
When internet came, I tried finding him out of curiosity, see what he was doing, if he was married, but never did, and perhaps that was just as well.
Then I see this article in the magazine at the doctor's, and the past I had thought buried for ever suddenly jumps at me, and with it the pain and the regrets.
The photograph in the corner shows a still good-looking man with a beautiful wife at his side, four smiling grown-up children and possibly their grandchildren around them. They are sitting in front of a beautifully-designed house, most probably his work.
For me it was too much to bear! I remained in a state of shock for several days.
Now I think about him every day. I don't sleep much at night, imagining hypothetical encounters, conversations with him alone, wondering if he remembers me and how. The funny thing though is that I know my love for him is dead now, and I am definitely certain I don't want a relationship of any kind with him. It's just that he represents all I wanted from life and never got. It's like a poor kid staring at the bright Christmas decorations in a shop window, he just can't turn away.
I can't turn away, I just can't get this man out of my head, and the pain and the regrets don't seem to go away.
Sometimes I wonder if seeing him again and hearing his voice could break the spell, I don't know. And I feel pathetic!
If I was you I'd just think he found his counterpart who is as good looking and smart at him and I never had a chance to be his wife anyway. Not sure why you are so hung up on him, you were never destined to be on his side instead of her.
Who knew? You never know unless you ask. OP, ask! You have nothing to lose. There might be a whole new world out there for you. Life is too short to live without knowing the answer. There is nothing which says you can't seek and find out. You would like to know. Maybe he would as well. Leap and the wings will appear.
OPs guy has a wife, children, grand children. So you want her to try to break up his marriage and destroy the whole family?
There is no closure...simply a breaking of a wave in a continual line of waves that break towards the beach.
Beautifully phrased, and true in most cases for the ones left behind!
Quote:
...and finding meaning through another person rarely works out well
I agree.
typical_guinea_pig
Thank you for your encouragements and uplifting words!
treasurekidd and Ted Bear
The thing is I am not trying to reconnect with the man, just trying to come to terms with a breakup that never healed really and suddenly resurfaces decades later. And to top it all, just when I realize I have built nothing in my life, he turns out to be an architect, of all occupations!
To all
I am so grateful for all the answers. Most are relevant and helpful, really. I hesitated a long time before posting, I felt so ridiculous at my age, whimpering like a teen. Well, I am glad I did.
Most people said - work on your marriage and your life. That's what you need to do. Don't waste your time dreaming about another man fortune. Make your own.
The man on the magazine is not the man you fell in love with 40 years ago.
The man on the magazine is only the positive side of his life; not all the rough sides of his life. Remember, he's human -- he's not perfect.
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