Tell me about "The One That Got Away"

[goodmorningsunny]

I'm very happily married with a baby but I do find myself thinking about the guy that I saw myself having a life with before I met my husband.

He was lovely but we didn't agree on some fundamental things. He didn't want marriage or kids, deal breaks for me, so it was obviously not meant to be.

We met online and spent hours and hours talking every day, I had the same kind of connection with him as I did when I met my now husband. He knew everything about me and my biggest secrets. I do miss him and his company but I know I've made the right choice. Doesn't stop you daydreaming though, does it? I kind of like it this way because he will forever be a romantic memory for me (if we had carried on, I'm sure it would have gone down in flames!)

Tell me about your One That Got Away!

I married my one that got away, we we're always friendly but not close his best friend married the girl I lived with and was friendly with at uni so we we're always in each others lives. As we grew up we didn't stay in touch and I thought that was that until we started chatting online he asked to meet again and made it clear it wasn't for a friendly catch up it was a date. We haven't stopped talking since, we will of been married 4 years this year but known each other 13. If it's meant to be I'm sure with a little work you find a way 😍

We met when I was 18, we walked into our personal tutor meeting with the same Nirvana t-shirt on. He was the image of Kurt Cobain. From that day on we were thick as thieves. He was the kindest, politest man and the best friend. My parents still talk about him and mentioned him on my wedding day (in my Dad's father of the bride speech🤦‍♀️😄). He was my first true love. I wish things had been different and we had kept in touch, who knows what would have happened. We are back in touch now and do see each other occasionally but he is happily partnered up.

I had a passionate summer romance with mine - 6 weeks - I felt sure this was "it" after just a couple of weeks, but then he went off travelling and it never properly reignited when he got home the following year.
(This was before the days of email, when 6 months in SE Asia were 6 months off grid and out of contact)
I was broken by it but the pieces were picked up by kind and dependable now-DH fairly soon after. I will never forget those heady days but I realised where my bread was buttered.

I still carry a candle for my one who got away and would probably go for it if the opportunity ever arose however he's now in a relationship with a totally miserable looking cow...
He was just perfection, everything I wanted in a man but I met him at the totally wrong time and couldn't give him what he needed.
I think of him every day

I met mine when I was 21 and living in Paris. He was also living in France (in a different city) and was a close friend of a Paris friend's boyfriend. My friend's boyfriend's was over (from the UK) to visit and she arranged for his close friend to come to Paris to surprise him and asked me if the close friend could stay with me so it didn't spoil the surprise. The close friend and I hit it off immediately. I was staying at my French boyfriend's the following day (leaving the 'close friend' behind at my place) so I turned up and immediately finished with the French boyfriend and went straight back to Paris. The 'close friend' and I got together that night. Our mutual friends all thought it would be a one night stand but we stayed together for many months. It only ended when we started living in different countries (we both left France when uni finished and went back to our home countries) and it just became too complicated. We were never in the same place at the same time and we were just too young (and immature) to settle down). He had a summer job working as a junior officer on the Hurtigruten and he invited me to spend the summer on the boat with him, staying in his cabin for free. I had to decline as I needed to work myself all summer to earn money (most of which went on phone calls to him!) for my final year at uni. I think me saying no was the beginning of the end. He was more upset with me than I ever realised. How I regret it looking back!!

Although I have to say that being young and in love and living in Paris was just wonderful. I have the most amazing memories.

We saw each other on and off for years while between dating other people. I visited him in his home country and stayed with him and his brothers. I even met his grandmother. I went over several times. He was in the UK on business so flew down to London to take me out for lunch. He also visited me in my home village in NW England and met my best friend and my parents (my father immediately hated him because he wasn't English - he's actually Norwegian). I went to visit him in the US where he working at the time, and spent the entire first weekend in his hotel room in Chicago. We just never got things together somehow.

Things nearly came to a head when I took my then boyfriend of 5 years with me to visit the ex and his live-with girlfriend in Norway. I spent the entire weekend preferring my ex's company to that of my then boyfriend. Not helped by my boyfriend thinking my ex was really cool and it felt like we were almost arguing over who got to spend time with my ex! 😂I came back to England and ended it with my boyfriend (there's a theme here, isn't there?!). I found out later that my Norwegian ex had felt the same and ended things with his girlfriend immediately after my visit. Yet we still never worked things out.

A very close mutual friend (the original Paris friend's boyfriend who started all this! Now one of my closest friends for many years) once told me in a drunken moment that my Norwegian ex felt he could never quite pull the trigger with me because he thought I was too ambitious re my career and he was a very traditional guy who wanted to have a smart wife but him be "the power" in the couple. His ideal partner was the CEO's PA whereas I wanted to be the CEO. The irony being that, these days, whilst I do indeed earn 6 figures working in the City, my ex is a millionaire several times over flying around on business in private jets and living in Switzerland. He's married now and has kids. His wife is very a traditional wife. That could never have been me, I would have been miserable.

So our story ended. Maybe if I'd made a different choice about that damn Hurtigruten years ago, we might have ended up together. Or maybe we were almost right but not quite enough and that's why we never made it happen. Who knows? I have some incredible memories but just occasionally I get a pang when I think if only....last time I was at a dinner party in Oslo with a group of my ex's close friends and he called and was on speakerphone (he wasn't able to attend the dinner party as he was out of the country). Hearing his voice was weird and wonderful and made me happy and said and I don't know what. It felt like being part of my own Sliding Doors film.

Mine didn't exactly get away as I still know him as part of my circle. We have known each other since we were 13 (we're almost 50 now!) and never had anything apart from a lot of lingering eye contact as teens and one drunken kiss aged 17 - I can't for the life of me explain why the time was never right for us back then because I know we both felt it.
With such a long history, we are still deeply fond of each other even though it's more like sibling affection now. We are both very much family types, and happily married to other people so there's no way anything will happen now!

I was with him from the ages of 16-18, he was 2 years older than me. We were completely inseparable despite very different backgrounds. I was very middle class, at a girls private school, he worked in an office during the day and spent most of his evenings in the local heavy metal pub. He was a kind man and utterly adored me and I was head over heels.

I’d planned moving to London for Uni but started thinking about staying at home and going to the local Uni so I could stay with him. Unbeknown to me, my Dad called him, told him I had a fantastic future ahead of me and if he really loved me, he’d let me go. So he did. It absolutely broke me as I had no idea why he’d dumped me out of the blue, but I headed off to Uni in London as planned. We met up when I was home for holidays but he didn’t tell me what had happened until years later when my life was in London and it was too late. He died 18 months ago and I was distraught all over again.

Married him after 15 years apart.

That's lovely! I hope things work out for you both x

Met him when I was 14 on and off for years at 20+. Both married to other people. We never lived in the same place at the same time. Both regret a little bit.

I hope so for you. How exciting!

10 years between us. Me 50 him 40. Him from a very traditional Asian family and huge pressure to settle down and produce a child. He met someone just when l was thinking l needed to end it and let him get on with his life. I think she got pregnant the first time they slept together. It broke my heart. He continued to contact me, told me l was special, that he didn't tell me because he didn't want to lose me, that l was his best friend etc etc.I blocked and walked away. That was 5 years ago and l still think of him every day and l like to believe he thinks of me often too.

Wow. Were you mad at your dad when you found out?

Ah, I'm very happily married to my darling DH, we have beautiful children and a lovely harmonious household.

My OTGA lives on the periphery of my life, we keep each other on social media but never like anything/interact. He does watch my occasional stories on Insta.. showing my age here.

A wonderful man, who is now happily engaged with a new baby. I wish him all the luck and love in the world.

I also privately cried a lot at his announcements and pulled myself together very quickly.

It was never going to work, we tried. I fell head over heels at 14.. 15 years later it was evident that we would never, ever be able to be what each other needed. I occasionally dream about him and it breaks my heart, but life is better how it is now.

He will always have a little piece of my heart, and that's ok.

My 3rd boyfriend was my first true love. We were together for 3 years until end of 1st year uni when pressure of weekend visits etc got too much for both of us. Struggled apart though and had no-strings sort of flings in the holidays.

I'm not a no-strings sort of person though and when I met my now DH after a year I started a relationship with him. Fast forward 4 years and we'd both graduated, and kept loosely in touch through mutual friends. I was building up to my wedding and I knew he was on placement in a certain city. I randomly happened to need to visit that workplace.

I was having massive cold feet about wedding partly because I'd struggled to get over first love. I also knew he was single. I thought that if I met him it could be a sign and I could see how things were etc, and whether we had a chance. And I did see him, down the end of a very long corridor. I was going along the corridor that crossed it. I stopped and looked down and saw him. And at that moment had a choice. I paused, and decided to walk on.

To this day I think about him occasionally and wonder what would have happened if I'd made a different choice. We have completely lost touch I think for the best.

Thank you all for sharing your beautiful stories, so much love in all of them! There's something about them that sound like fairy tales. I find it really interesting that, like me, you can whole heartedly love your husband/partner, children and life and still have this little piece of you somewhere else.

Lead on question: if you are with someone else, does that person know about your OTGA? My husband does know about him and about our relationship but doesn't know I think about him often still, because I think that would just upset him for no reason.

My “one that got away” - broke up with me 3 weeks before the wedding. Married someone else almost immediately. She has left him. He is now some kind of tax scam artist. He looks like a thumb that someone sucked on too long.

makes my skin crawl. So very grateful he left.

Loving these stories. We were both 22, he was my brother’s flat mate, and a super hot actor. When I had plans to go travelling just a few weeks later. For some reason now forgotten I ended things a few weeks after i left London and he wrote me the loveliest letter saying he understood. A few month later i met the man who because my husband. We moved to the UK for a bit and literally the first time my H turned on the TV, it was a close-up of TOTGA! I live abroad and we have somehow never been at the same brother-event. I am just now separating from my husband and so tempted to get in touch but have recently heard that he has just had a baby with the person he’s been with since we broke up. By all accounts it’s been very rocky for years so I live in hope! And we still live in different countries. Never stopped thinking about him fondly but no idea if I will ever even see him again.

The what ifs can drive you crazy can't they? Mine lives in my head. Always has.

My "one who got away " is often in my head. From 6 years ago!

We met, and as cringey as it sounds, there was an instant connection. It felt like when I was with him, I was the best version of myself. I remember holding hands with him walking through our city centre just smiling from ear to ear . I have such vivid memories of him/of moments shared wjth him, i suppose a lot.of it is rose tinted glasses but i really look back on the time fondly.
But it was bad timing. I was coming out of a divorce, and my ex didn't have my DC at all so I had very very limited time to spend with him and develop a relationship. He got promoted and moved to a different branch which was two hours away so even less opportunity to see each other. It just didn't work. I think around the time we split up , I was more heartbroken than when my marriage ended !

Several years later and I do still think about him . I'm not proud of it, because I'm in a relationship at the moment.

Have a listen to this. Sums it all up.

'I wonder..do you ever think about me...'

I met my one that got away when I was 15 and he was 24 - I had an instant teenage crush and could barely speak to him. We used to see each other twice a month at a hobby, me with my dad and brothers and him with his dad and brother in a larger group.

Anyway he was obviously too old, not interested
and about to get married so on I went with my life, had a few boyfriends, went to college, went away to university (so saw him much less frequently for a few years) When I came back from uni I’m 21, he’s 30 and I could now speak to him without stammering and stuttering - still had a massive crush though…

Next few years we became more friendly, still only seeing each other at hobby but always talking to each other while we were there. I had a boyfriend and as far as I knew he was married (we didn’t really talk about that side of things) but I was totally falling for him

Eventually 10 whole years after we first met, we ended up going for a drink with a group of other people. We promptly lost them and ended up alone for the first time ever and it was kind of awkward. He said something about my boyfriend and I said “I don’t have a boyfriend but you’re married” and he said “I’m divorced”

And then he kissed me and it was to this day the best kiss I’ve ever had!

We dated for about a year and a half but he was very depressed about his job at the time and wanted to move back to NZ and I didn’t want to go so we split up.

We had no contact for a good 10 years or so but then he reached out through Facebook. It was lovely to catch up and we both know that we’re each others OTGA and are very fond of each other. He’s married and I’m settled with my partner but we meet every couple of years for lunch and text a few times a year…

He definitely has a small bit of my heart that is his forever

We got back in touch 8 years later, and we’ve been inseparable for 12 years now, expecting our second baby

Known each other 25 years this year

Met just before he got married. It was obvious there were sparks flying. A moment happened some months later and it was amazing. However fate spectacularly intervened and made sure it wasn’t going to go any further at that time. By the time we got round to finally acting on it properly some further time later (post divorce) the spark had died. Too long had passed. We missed our time but the way fate interfered makes me feel whole heartedly it was never meant to be. However I still regard that time as something a little bit special. We talked about it recently. We both have regrets that we didn’t make our moves sooner but also recognise that things worked out in the long run for us both as we are both happy now. He will always be the OTGA though