As the title says, my first love whom I’ve missed dearly has just contacted me and it’s thrown my world upside down. We met when we were both 14 and spent a little under 4 years together. It was a wildly inappropriate relationship from the start by the standards today, but we both suffered abusive and absent parents, so found each other. We spent all the time we could together, at the cost of our studies, friends, what little family there was and all else. We were absolutely codependent, physically living as adults and were each other’s worlds.
I’m now marred to my wife of 20 years and we have a home together, no children but a successful life by any measure. I love my wife dearly and tell her almost everything, she knows about the contact and encouraged me to start a conversation with my first love. I’ve avoided difficult things in the past, employing avoidance rather than facing things head on, and this is why she encouraged me.
It’s been wonderful to speak to my first love again, and it’s brought up emotions I thought long gone. I’m not sleeping, eating little and completely preoccupied by thoughts of what we once had; I feel love sick, but for a squandered past, not a realistic present. I’m bipolar so this is particularly dangerous for me and for anyone else out there like me, I’m working to try and stay grounded, away from the mania and get some rest, but it’s hard.
I broke off the relationship back then, because I was afraid of what we were committing to and because I was being manipulated by a very toxic group of people who in hindsight, only wanted to sow chaos and take pleasure in my humiliation. I was not diagnosed back then and so was particularly vulnerable when experience the extremes. If I knew now what I knew then, I would not have been so reckless with her emotions, as it caused her immense pain and led her on a path of self destruction for a number of years.
She’s has moved back to near where I live after being on the other side of the country for the past nearly 3 decades. I desperately want to meet her for coffee and look at her eyes again, but I’m also supremely cautious because I don’t want to upset my wife and am also afraid of what I might be feeling.
Any advice gratefully received on how I navigate this. I should also mention that whereas I don’t have children, my first love does and two of them are quite young, one is an adult.
—EDIT—
Thank you all of you for your advice and guidance, and for your kindness in share it with me. I ate some food last night and have slept, which has brought the mania back down to a more manageable level, and with that I’ve taken on board and heard all that you’ve collectively said.
My plan is to talk to my wife this weekend about what I’ve been going through and ask how she would feel about having a coffee with my first love. I really thought through what matters most to me and it’s the present, the future and that is with my wife. She’s a wonderful woman who has helped me through so much and my life now wouldn’t even be recognisable to 18 year old me. Through her I found the strength to recover from addiction, face my mental health demons, go to University and become the successful privacy lawyer I am today. All of this would not have happened without her strength and support.
If you’re reading this you probably wonder why the voice above the edit, and the voice below it, are so different in tone; the answer is my bipolar disorder and it’s sometimes extremely hard for me to see that change happening.
Just forget about it. No good will come of this. Best case scenario, you meet up and realize that you are different people and what you had back then was what it was and you’re romanticizing it. Worst case, you throw away a life you’ve made with a wife for 20 yrs and you fuck up her two kids family. Nothing good will come from this. Keep the past in the past.
Your post made me a bit cross, because I think I know you’re right. Thank you for that, probably needed someone to tell me that.
Besides the excellent way that Logan put it for you, I just wanted to add some game of thrones context for you, as Aegon (IIRC) said to Jon Snow, “kill the past, so the future may live”. Young love goggles are nice, but you are both different people.
I typed that up quick and admittedly, I could’ve phrased it differently. The intent of my words I stand behind though. Thanks for not biting my head off :)
Your wife knows about the contact, instead of coffee for just two of you, invite your old friend over for coffee and to meet your wife. It may help you settle some of the distress you’re feeling to recontextualize this person from your past with your anchors in your present.
I had genuinely not thought of that, it slightly fills me with fear to have past and present sat around our table.
It’s really not worth it. We all long for things in the past when we were younger and life was more exciting. Stick with the present and future. Meeting up with this past lover is a really bad idea.
In your situation, I wouldn’t. I’d leave the past in the past, particularly given the fact that you’ve found love with someone else.
Thank you, I appreciate you and your advice. Would it change things if I said my wife and I had slept in separate beds for the past two years?
In the end, only you know what’s best, but it’s probably good that you’re crowdsourcing opinions. Be sure to talk about it with the people you’re close to who know you.
Why would it? Is that a problem for you? If so, talk to your wife about it.
There are literally hundreds of posts on the old relationship subreddits that start out the way yours did and end up having a “I pursued this new thing and deeply regret it” update.
Kings and queens had separate beds too. My wife and I sleep in different beds. It’s fairly common. If you guys aren’t intimate that’s different. If you’re not intimate and you’re wife is encouraging you to speak with this old flame then there are some real issues most likely.
Maybe process your thoughts and feelings out with a counsellor/ pyschologist? They’ll be unbiased and can help ground you to a healthy frame of mind.
Simply put? Meeting her is a bad idea because you very clearly have feelings for your ex. If you’re having feelings then that’s something you might want to discuss that with your wife too… she’s been incredibly accepting so far, but you realizing you still have feelings (or might) is something you need to be honest about.
What is your intent in meeting your former flame for coffee? What are you hoping will happen? What are you afraid might happen?
Stay friends if you want. Good friends are hard to come by but DONT let it become anymore than that. You said you have a good life with your wife who you love dearly. Dont throw it away for what could have been.
A good marriage/partnership is worth protecting. People chase self actualization and blow up their lives all the time.
Maybe give your attention to improving your current relationship? Therapy together? Something that will improve your already good life.
Wishing you the best.
I’m going to go against the popular options so far and suggest you do it, but while making sure your wife is okay with that.
Ask your old friend if it would be okay if you can meet her with your wife. Ask your wife the same and then meet her with your wife there with you. Maybe include the children so it’s a fun meeting between the families.
I have a feeling that a situation like this might help you snap out of all the worries you’re immersed in and enjoy reconnecting with an old friend without doubting your current partnership with your wife.
That’s a curveball, friend, but I like your style. Open chats with all parties, make it a family affair. A touch of honesty can work wonders.
Hope you find a solution that works for you :) I read many of your replies and sincerely hope you find a solution. My tangential suggestions would be to try some grief counseling/therapy about the friend who passed away and talk to a therapist and if necessary a couple’s counselor about the sleeping in two beds issue.
Thanks again my friend, I appreciate you and your advice. I have booked two additional sessions with my counsellor to discuss this issue and I’ve been working through the grief with them, but it’s hard. Loosing someone to suicide is so difficult to process, I’ve lost people before but this feels like grief with an amplifier attached. I’ll work it through. The separate beds started after that because it had a lot of difficulty sleeping and didn’t want my wife to have to lose sleep too, but you are right, I need to talk it all through and face it. Thank you again.
No worries. I know what you mean. I’ve had someone close to me pass away like this and I don’t even remember the first year after that. Everything was on autopilot.
I’ve found it useful to do something with your hands that let you express yourself such as painting, woodworking or gardening. Especially because I’ve a hard time vocalising things like this.
Good on you for taking care of your own mental health :) That in itself is a great achievement.
I’m sorry for your loss my friend, and I appreciate what you’re saying. My thing is poetry and verse, I’ve been trying to get back to it but everything I seem to write isn’t good. I did however sleep for a solid six hours last night and wrote something this morning about letting first love go which I’m actually proud of. I find it very cathartic. I also struggle to speak out loud what I’m feeling, but writing it is somehow easier for me.
Sending you the very best vibes.
Thank you :) I’m proud of you for sleeping well and doing something you loved.
Poetry is great for expressing things that can’t be easily vocalised.
I write too but articles rather than poetry I have struggled with writing after my PTSD started. Reading how you’ve persisted has inspired me to try again. Thank you!
Thank you, and remember you got this.
