Sweet Memories
I dated my boyfriend for nine years, and we broke up a year ago. We have very little contact, which has been for the best. Contact brings up too many memories.
Things are going great compared to the way they were when we first broke up. As expected, then I was sad and depressed. Anyway, I decided to go back to college and I'm getting good grades. My life is back on track, and I'm not bitter and angry like I was.
There is a male friend I would consider dating in the future. The problem is I still care about my ex. No, I'm not in love with him and don't want to get back together. I know things are over. Is it normal to still care for someone you spent all those years with?
I asked a friend what she thought, and she said, "Feelings don't just end." To give you a little more insight into the relationship, I am now 26, and we dated since high school.
Penny
Penny, you were with your boyfriend for more than a third of your life. Why wouldn't that hold some kind of power over you?
The first, and last, of everything is memorable. Most people clearly recall the first time they voted, the first time they drove a car, the first time they flew. It is things in the middle which tend to get blurred.
Chances are your boyfriend was your first serious love, your first intimate love. He doesn't hold a position in your life because he was the best or right one for you, but because he was first.
Having a way to look at him will give you a way to move on. As long as you don't cling to an idealized memory of him, the right one can replace him in your life.
Wayne
(From the column for the week of August 6, 2001)
Runner-up
Am I a consolation prize? Prior to dating me my boyfriend was crazy in love with another woman. When they broke up, he was devastated, and they parted on bad terms. They were close friends for seven years, dated for a year, and broke up two years ago.
A few months later she tried to resume a friendship, and only a friendship, with him. He told her to get lost, and she never contacted him again. Six months after we started dating I found out he e-mailed her twice. He told her we were vacationing at their "special place." She replied, "Hope you have a good time."
A month later she e-mailed asking if they could talk. He e-mailed back he was living with me, had bought a ring, and planned to get engaged. He also said I didn't want him to contact her. She apologized for any misunderstanding and wished him the best of luck with his engagement.
Four months later we ran into his ex at a party. He introduced me as his fiancée and told her we were engaged. This was not true. We were not engaged, but I played along with it. He was obviously flustered seeing her, but she congratulated us.
I was furious with how upset he was. He assured me he loved only me and said he e-mailed her about our "engagement" in hopes she would stop contacting him. I know this isn't true. I know he contacted her first, when we were on vacation. He showed me the e-mail, and it seemed spiteful. Sort of, "Ha, ha, I am getting married."
I also never told him he couldn't contact her. We never even discussed it. Recently, two weeks before his 40th birthday, we got engaged. I am 23. I am upset he contacted her at all and lied about us being engaged before we actually were. Am I overreacting?
Diana
Diana, you're not overreacting. The only thing you left out of your letter is how old the other woman is. What you described sounds like an old movie plot: a man tries to win back his true love by using a younger woman to make her jealous.
Your fiancé's lie needs to be undone. The lie is he is no longer interested in this woman. If you don't confront this issue because you fear it will end your chance for marriage, it will become the issue which haunts the marriage.
He's made you an accomplice in lies. Your fears are justified. Why? Because there were three people involved in your engagement--him, this other woman, and then, finally, you.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of July 18, 2005)
Regrets
I've been married 15 years and have a wonderful husband and two children. About a year and a half before I married I was seeing a man I wanted to fall in love with me. The first time I slept with him he said, "I'm set in my ways, and I like my freedom."
I kept hoping he didn't mean what he said, but eight months later our shallow relationship ended. After my marriage I would bump into him periodically--it's a small community--and he said, "Out of all the girls I've been with, and there's been a lot, you're the only one I think I could have had a future with."
Whenever he talks to my mother, he asks how I am. When I see him, he always says what stupid things he's done with his life. He never married. In November I saw him at a party and we talked. I could tell he is pining. It's almost painful to watch.
Now I can't stop thinking of him. As a catharsis I decided to write him a letter. The letter talks about our relationship, my feelings now, and says I will always think of him though I need to get on with my life. Should I give him the letter?
Jan
Jan, when you dated this man, what was the reality? He was not going to give you a wedding or children.
In hindsight people have regrets, but regrets are not love and he didn't have the requisite love for you. Life passed him by, and young women are no longer parading through his bedroom. He fantasizes if he had you, his life would be different.
That's the key to a disastrous life--focusing on a past event and wishing it had been otherwise. He's like the man in the casino who feeds a slot machine for three hours and walks away, only to learn the next person won a huge jackpot on "his" machine. Years later he's still imagining what he would have done with the money.
Burn the letter. He wants you to rescue his past, and that's not something you can do.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of March 20, 2006)
The Dead
I love my wife with all my heart and soul. She is now and will ever be the other half of my heart. Twenty years ago I felt much the same about another woman. She was my first true love. Unfortunately, her parents did not see us having a future together. Although I had a hard time letting go, I respected their wishes.
We both went on to live separate lives. We married different people and had children, and we moved thousands of miles apart. I found out she died yesterday. I did not expect the news to affect me this way, but I am shattered.
I feel the grief of loss, even though her love is something I have not had, nor could hope to have, for the last 20 years. I feel guilt for feeling this grief and do not know how to explain this to my wife. She can see the news affected me. How do I cope with this? Is it appropriate to send my condolences to her husband and children. What would I say?
Guy
Guy, in James Joyce's story "The Dead," a man named Gabriel Conroy goes with his wife Gretta to the annual Christmas dance given by his aunts. At the end of the evening, with most of the guests gone, a tenor sings a song which stirs a memory in Gretta. Gabriel's heart is brimming with happiness because he thinks his wife's thoughts are running with his.
Back in their hotel room Gretta, in tears, explains that the song reminded her of a boy she once loved. The boy died after standing in the rain outside Gretta's window the night before she left home. Gabriel then realizes how deeply his wife loved this boy, and he realizes "how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life."
It's hard to share this memory with your wife without her wondering how poor a part she, your wife, has played in your life. To tell your wife she is the other half of your heart, and then to say 20 years ago you felt the same about another woman, may undermine the sincerity of your words.
And what would you tell the husband and children of your first love? That you are the man who should have been her husband and their father? That won't help them. There is no reason to feel guilt, but you should realize this is all about you, your feelings, and your imagining of what might have been.
We suggest two things. Write out all your feelings, perhaps even the entire story of your relationship, in private. In the writing you may come to understand why her death has affected you so deeply. And get a book on grieving as a way to get in touch with your emotions and accept her death. Some things must be faced alone.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of February 9, 2004)
