Member Since: March 6, 2008
Answers: 33
Last Update: October 15, 2008
Visitors: 2830
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This will be a long question; apologies, but it's complicated.
Background: I once fell head over heels for a girl (call her "Jane"). She and I were friends, but I lacked the courage to try for more. Right before she moved away, I realized it was my last chance to make a move, so I kissed her goodbye. Later, through letters and phone calls, I told her I was in love with her, and she said she felt the same - though I was never really convinced that she felt as strongly as I did. Eventually, she told me she was involved with someone else, and I broke off contact in order to get over her and move on. We had sporadic communication for a while, then finally lost touch completely.
Fast-forward 15 years. I'm thirtysomething, happily married, have kids, but I've never really forgotten Jane (do we ever forget our first love?) Just for kicks, I entered her name into Google, and to my surprise I actually found her. We exchanged e-mail, and then she called me.
Here's where it starts to get complicated, because I expected we would just say "Hey, it's really great to hear from you again, we should stay in touch, blah blah blah," exchange abbreviated versions of our lives so far, and then more or less go back to what we were doing. What I never expected in a million years was that she's actually been thinking about me all this time, that she's still in love with me, and that (to be brutally honest) I've still got strong feelings for her.
I LOVE MY WIFE. I would never leave her, or jeopardize my marriage. I recognize that whatever feelings I have for Jane, they're based on an idealized version of someone I put on a pedestal twenty years ago, and haven't seen since. My question is NOT about whether I should explore an intimate relationship with Jane at this point - the answer to that is "No."
What I need is advice on how to handle this from here. Jane does mean a lot to me and I want to be a friend to her (real friends, not "we can just be friends"), but I don't want to break her heart. Furthermore, I don't want my wife to get the wrong idea (she knows that I got back in touch with Jane - I don't keep secrets from her). No matter how I slice it, I don't see this turning out well. If I had ever considered that Jane might still feel so strongly about me, I would not have resumed contact with her, but what's done is done. Heck, I never really thought she was EVER truly in love with me, let alone that she still is!
In a nutshell -
- I want to avoid breaking Jane's heart.
- I want to stay in touch with her, because she's someone I care about.
- I want to assure my wife that she is still, and always, the real love of my life and more important than anything to me.
Can anyone help me?
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Some of us are hard wired to live in the past and wonder what could have been. I was just googling someone in my past and can easily reach him but wont. Whatever he meant to me was not enough to make a go of it. I just find myself googling other people in my past. You don't owe Jane any heartache protection. You haven't been there for her in 15 yrs, I am sure she has grown up emotionally enough to clear up this mess you dragged her into. Let her go, she probably has moved on, or will. If you do love your wife and kids, nurture and protect that. Move on. Don;t contact Jane ever again. Avoid this mess.
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Rating: 4
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Well, as much as I appreciate your advice, I don't think I'm going to follow it to the letter. I feel it would be discourteous of me to simply not contact her again, and futile besides, because she would contact me and ask why I would get back in touch and then suddenly ignore her. I just can't treat someone that way simply because she was honest about her feelings.
I contacted her as a friend, and if I possibly can, that's how I'll leave it. But I'll certainly think twice about opening long-sealed cans of worms again.
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