Married But In Love With First Love?

Almost 20 years ago when I was a freshman in college, my highschool girlfriend became pregnant. Her mother encouraged her to get an abortion and then we were forbidden from seeing each other. We continued to sneak around seeing each other, but the stress and pain of the events eventually wore on her and she pulled away from me, even though I was trying everything to stay in her life. I was in love with her, wanted to marry this girl. As she pulled away, I tried to move on and eventually joined the Navy. We stayed in contact and, for the next 3 years I continued to try and rekindle our relationship. It finally ended in 1993 when I asked her to marry me and she said no and that we both needed to move on.





Although I was still in love with her, I tried to move on. In 1995, I met a woman that was also recovering from a bad relationship and we hit it off very well. We were engaged after only 4 months and married in 6 months. 12 years and 4 children later, I was checking on the information related to a 20 year high school reunion when I found a message from my first love asking me to contact her. After an agonizing 3 days, I did.





I have come to realize that I married my wife in order to move on and becase I wanted to be married. We have had a rocky relationship our entire marriage and there have been several times that she has threatened to leave me. I, on the other hand, realize that I have tried to measure every woman I have met against my first love - and no one has even meant as much to me.





My first love is also married and she has three children. We both feel we want to be together but fear the impact it will have on our kids. I also worry about my wife because, despite our poor relationship, I do care for her and what happens to her.





My first love and I did meet, hugged, held each other but took things no further. She has repeatedly said that she made a terrible mistake in turning away from me and avoiding me for all those years, but that the grief and pain she experienced after becoming pregnant at sucha young age had been very difficult to deal with. I, too, had been very traumatized by those events and have never gotten over the lose.





I know that I made a committment to my wife by getting married. That is what makes this all the more difficult, because I know that, deep down, I am still in love with my first love. Of course, there is much more to this story - there always is - but that is the basic lay of the land. The only thing I know for certain is that I never wanted to lose my first love to begin with, and I certainly don't want to lose her a second time or end up an old man having missed a second chance with my first love. Am I a complete fool? A total *** for even considering leaving my wife?

Married But In Love With First Love?
sometimes situations like this have no right answer.. i dont know what to tell you...sounds cliche but if i were you i wouldnt follow my head id follow my heart ( haha and this coming from a guy) because liek you said you dont wanna regret something the rest of your life... and by the way staying in a bad marriage is probably worse for the kids than a divorce...especially since with this new rekindling u will have a new fire and it will make your marriage even harder even if you try to ignore it... that being said you also have a life already built.. its really tough...you ever see castaway with tom hanks.. it reminds me of that movie even though u werent on a deserted island haha








whatever you do think about it.. make sure you are making the best possible decision for you... dont think about who the best decisions for the other girl is or for your wife... if you do that you will be going back and forth all day.. decide for you and your kids maybe factor in as well but besides them just decide for you








oo and now going back and reading the third comment he kinda has a point... the grass may not always be greener on the other side, even though it appears to be right now... whatever you do think it out .. really hard
Reply:hey you are telling the truth. and i respect that. but you need to follow your heart. that's the only thing that can guid you. not people that you talk to. not people on the internet. not your wife or ex girlfriend. the only thing that can make you happy and the only thing that can guid you is your heart.





i think this is a very very sweet story and thanks for tell thing the truth, and it's very sweet that you care. there is my advice
Reply:Wow, I feel your pain. I wish I could tell you how to handle this, but words are much easier than actions.





Love alone will not keep a relationship together. However, I don't think that you should stay where your heart doesn't want to be. When you were with your first love, you were young, people change and those changes could be the down fault of your new relationship with her.





Honor your vows and respect your wife. If you can't do that, than you should leave. But you should never leave your wife for something that "might be". Just my opinion.





Good Luck
Reply:you are both creating an illusion based on what if's. Too many persons are now caught between your nostalgias and what is present and real.





Tell yourself that you did not make a mistake , you married the right woman and your beautiful children are now trstimony of that.





Tell your wife about your recent contact and take care of the present so you and your family can have a bright tommorrow.
Reply:In my personal opinion it sounds like both you and her are at a point in your marriages where you want excitement. In other words you are BORED. At the moment you are trying to convince yourself that your wife is the bad guy and you and her have never had a great relationship just to ease the guilt you are feeling, right? Well your HS sweetheart is doing the same thing.


You need to step away and be a man, make your relationship work with your wife for all of you. Love HER harder and stronger right now. Put all the energy that you would otherwise put on HS sweetheart on your wife and watch her respond back in ways you never dreamed about. HS sweetheart should do the same thing with her husband.





If you both end your marriages and break your childrens hearts to be together it's a fact you two won't last because your both living in a dream world of "what ifs".





Good Luck and go hug your wife and tell her you love her....
Reply:No, but you SUCK at relationships. There is no easy way out of this. Your "first love" as you call her is married, and while your marriage is having problems (bc your obsessed), hers may be just fine. I woudl advise that you NOT go the the reunion and dont contact hs sweetheart woman. My suspsicion is that if you can do some soul searching, get into some counseling and pray oevr this, you'll realiz that she's moved on, you've both proabably changed, and that your current marriage is very savable and in fact worth it for what will happen if you realize this is just memory playing itself back. She let you down easy there, and honestly so did her husband {Id kill you ;)}. Get over it. You have a great life wating on you and an woman who IS with you and diodnt run at the first sign of parental interference.
Reply:This will be the "kill-joy" answer, sure not to get the prize here. You two made the best decisions you could have made at the time, and now you both want a "do-over." You want to get back together, and renege on the commitments you made in the meantime. Love is a wondrous thing. If it's worth reneging on the commitments you made, go for it. Just realize that you're teaching your children that commitments and changes of heart aren't in stone, and you can change your commitments to meet your whims. When you tell God and your attending friends and family that you'll stay together until death do you part, that should mean something to you and your children. When you decide to renege on that, you need a better reason than just, "I changed my mind." Good luck, sweetie. This is hard to decide.
Reply:For me it's the same person.
Reply:There's a study I read once that related that sometimes a person would lose a spouse they loved dearly, and then would cling to their memory so tightly that they would "perfect" the person who died. The person they lost was better (in their mind) than anyone or anything else and they just refused to move on.





This is obviously not true, as everyone has flaws. You obviously shared a really important time with your first love in the past, and were forced to make a decision about the child she carried... that you didn't want to make. However, you DID move on. You married your wife for reasons only you know, and they had to be good or you wouldn't be there.





Your first love may feel absolutely that she made a mistake. Probably did. But you each have children and YOU need to think about YOURS. It would be pretty selfish to walk away from your children, who you created, to be with a person that you really don't know any more, but have a past with.





I'm old fashioned I guess, I say that you need to completely cut off contact with your first love and work really hard on your current marriage. Things CAN get better and you CAN be happy with someone besides FL. If it really doesn't work out with your wife, then that will be because the 2 of you couldn't make it work, not because you were ready to take off with a memory.
Reply:You both have made vows and children with your spouses. Uprooting their entire world is not worth the dream of a first love. The grass would not probably not be so green once you got in the situation.
Reply:It's been thirty five yrs ago, get over it.


You have kids that you love.


Do you think this happened by mistake?


Of course not, it will just toughen you sir.


Trust me, you love your wife more than this high school woman!
Reply:To be honest, you don't know this girl anymore. Sure, you may have shared some really special memories in the past, but neither her nor you are the same people now. She's lived without you for 20 years. That's a long time. You don't know what she's been through or what she has seen in life. It sounds like you've been building her up in your mind to be this amazing person, and well maybe she was and maybe she still is but it's like taking a chance with a stranger. Let the past be the past.
Reply:You need to step back and evaluate your situation ASAP!!! I suggest you immediately cease communication with your "First Love" and clear your head before making any life altering decisions that will affect and possibly traumitize innocent children and spouses for life. You should make an appointment to speak with a marriage counselor or family therapist to discuss your feelings about your ex-girlfriend. At some point, you should also consider discussing your feelings with your wife. Afterall, SHE is the person you chose to be your life partner and create your children with. It seems unfair for you to be considering actions that will change her life forever without even sitting down with her and discussing the feelings that have resurfaced. Many times, people make the mistake of believing that the feeling of excitement they get from a member of the opposite sex is "love". You need to realize that you might just be confused into thinking you "LOVE" your ex-girlfriend because of the feelings of flattery and importance it is giving you to have her paying attention to you again. PLEASE for the sake of both your children and your spouses, take yourself out of this situation until you are able to make a rational and mature decision about how to handle this. What message would your choice in leaving their mother be sending to your children? There is so much for you to consider. And GOD forbid!! What if you do this and discover that you don't really love her and she doesnt really love you? Love at 19 and love at 40 aren't the same. If you discover you have both made a terrible mistake after the fact, the damage will still be done. I can tell you from personal experience that the pain of having a spouse leave her for someone else is immeasurable. It changes your life in ways that you cannot even imagine right now. Your children may never get over it and you may end up hating yourself for doing it. Get some counseling asap!

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