Married with kids, but thinking about my first boyfriend from 12 years ago!!!

[Leeannah]

Hi,
Despite the highs and lows, I am happily married and have two wonderful, amazing, exhausting, beautiful toddlers. I am blessed. Before being married, I dated a handful of men. Then, as it is now, I periodically think about my first boyfriend - the thoughts are intense, sometimes I want to cry. To make a long story short, we dated from 16-22. I broke up with him a couple of times during that time (he was nice, smart, but sort of rough around the edges, so it caused me some anger). At 22, I broke it off entirely, but did it in an awful way: on the phone (I moved to another city for school...we still live in different cities about 5 hours apart). This was in 2005!!! I never saw him again...we exchanged a few emails until 2009, and after that, we lost all contact. I sincerely feel like he loved me unconditionally. He would have NEVER broken up with me, and sometimes I feel like I made a horrible mistake. We were young, loved each other a lot, through the calm and the tumultuous times too. Our families knew each other. We were each others' first love...first everything. Why do I keep thinking about him??? Do I need closure? I want to email him, but feel that I am somehow betraying my husband...I would never do anything to hurt my family, but want to know so badly how he's doing, how he's been, if he's happy....I need a sign. Please help!

Sometimes there's that One Man OP. I have one too. Same age when we were together and a very similar story to yours.

I stow my feelings away but I have acknowledged them. They're not something I could deny.

Sometimes, you don't stop loving someone...but your life moves on regardless.

Have you looked for him on Social Media or anything?

Glad to hear I'm not alone. Yes, I have looked him up on Facebook (he doesn't have anything else), but he was practically inactive...It looked like his page was frozen in time...didn't show any updates, any girlfriends, any tags, nothing. He recently deleted his page altogether. I have no other way of contacting him (other than possibly email). I'm just scared that I will wake up one day and be 55 years old and still have these feelings. Seems quite likely that it will happen. Not to sound too self-absorbed, but I have like a sixth sense that tells me he hasn't really moved on...

I have one of these in my past. He ghosted on me & I never saw him again, can't find him on the internet so.... well sometimes you have to live with it.
Ive been married 17 years & this man was back in the 1980's. So this was 30 years ago.
I would say you might be feeling a mix of guilt about how you broke up perhaps a bit of rose tinted 'what if..', & genuine regret about how different your life could have been.
I'm guessing this of course.
Do you have anyone you could speak to ? I once opened up to my DH about my feelings about this lad & he was really understanding aboit it. It didn't help in the long run though.
What do you want to achieve by contacting him? If its just to say hi & see if he's ok I don't see the harm. If anything he will probably be so different it'll put things into perspective for you. Close the door so to speak.

Thanks for your note Chocolate 50. No, I don't really feel like I have anyone to speak to about this. I don't see the good in telling my DH about it...he tends to get really jealous of my past relationships...Maybe one day, I will open up, who knows. I definitely think there is a lot of rosary retrospection and "what if". I am generally quite a nostalgic person and think about "the past" a lot...not a good thing, as you can imagine. My father is the same...I would want to know how he's doing, if he's well, what he's been doing with his life, etc. I would absolutely LOVE to have the outcome you described: he's a very different person now, and that closes everything in my mind. But I am also VERY afraid that I somehow entirely screwed up his life and will meet just a broken person (I really don't mean to sound cocky, but the things he told me when I broke up over the phone were in the "I will never love again" theme....) Anyway, I am considering speaking to a counselor or something just to help evacuate these feels and bring some logic into them. After all, who knows, maybe he doesn't think about me at all and I am being one silly little thing.... How do you deal with it? 30 years, that's a long time! Did you reach out to him? Happy Christmas btw :)

You broke up with him for a reason. You met and married your DH for a reason. Looking back doesn't do a lot of good. There is a saying, "don't look back , your not going that way." Would you like it if your DH did this? I feel that you could be looking through rose tinted glasses but by contacting him you are possibly putting your marriage in danger. You may start an emotional relationship with him without realising.

No i never did make contact as idk where he is.
You know people find what they need, I am sure he did too. You were young & so was he, break ups are very painful when you're young & it may be that you now feel ot was premature or that you would now deal with it differently. But you have to let yourself off cos you were young & didn't know any different.
I just think its weird how some things stick with us.

It might also be that somewhere something might be missing in your life now that this ex represents? Just a thought. It could also be that having the freedom to just leave him etc isn't something you could do now. So perhaps a bit of envy over your younger self? Stabs in the dark but all of these resonate with me xxx

I suspect I’m someone else’s one that got away. I get the odd wistful Facebook message and never reply (we’re not even Facebook friends). I’m not pining for him, he never crosses my mind, I don’t think about the tone we had together, it’s just the past. Not to sound cold, but there’s a good chance he’s the same as me...

thanks all for your perceptive comments