Found old boyfriend from nearly 50 years ago on FB and feel so unsettled

[Salome61]

I'm widowed, 66, and spend a lot of time on my own. I have got two busy adult kids who keep in touch regularly, but live too far away to see very often. I had to downsize when my husband died, and it's been a disaster, I'm still not settled here. Over the weekend I was at a loose end, and decided to look for an old boyfriend on FB from the early 70's.

So I was really pleased to find his profile. He's still married to this girl all these years later, and is having a fantastic life.

I can't work out why it's unsettled me - is it just one of those 'what ifs' we sometimes torture ourselves with?

It’s not about him - it’s about you. You want what he’s got, and here’s the good news - you can! Get into online dating and join up to more social events. There’s nothing to stop you. Good luck xx

Yeah it's the one that got away. Don't sweat it. It's normal to think of your sliding doors moments.

It’s probably that. It’s a shame that we don’t have a crystal ball that tells us the future so we can make better informed decisions.

You’ve been through a lot and that can get hard sometimes, especially when others seem to have it ‘easier’.

But please remember that no one knows what goes on behind closed doors and what people share on Facebook may not be the reality. So people may seem have to a fantastic life but there’s really no way of telling.

Sending you hugs 💐

Thank you so much for your advice and the hugs x I hadn't heard of 'sliding door' moments, makes perfect sense.

I definitely need to start living a more interesting life.

I’ve recently reconnected on fb with an old boyfriend from 35 years ago. And it turns out we’re both recently separated. But at opposite ends of a very large country!

I'd written something on his amateur but popular 'band' page. He's just messaged saying he remembers me. That's something I suppose!

I've just replied with a positive message. I'd be so horrified if he turned up at my front door, I have let everything slide, this is the wake up call I've needed.

@Lostsadandconfused do you think you might meet up? My brother left the mainland for the IOW at 17 because his childhood sweetheart rejected him and married someone else. About ten years later he met her on the beach on the IOW and she came back to the mainland, left her husband, and they got together.

That is interesting about your brother. You occasionally hear of people reconnecting after so many years apart.

As to your own experience. It is often more about you,

People from our past, especially ones we were romantically involved with, bring back feelings of intense crushes, feeling attractive and carefree.

Those feelings can unsettle us, but we’re yearning for something that’s not real now. Not that we aren’t attractive in our 60s, of course!

That’s my take on it anyway, having experienced something similar and pondered over it.

I’m sorry for your loss. It’s difficult when you’re widowed relatively young and on your own. I lost my partner last year (mid 40s). It seems all of my friends are happily married, children, planning exotic holidays and an exciting retirement when the time comes.

I would echo what a PP said, you only tend to see that glossy version of life on social media. Nobody posts looking their worst or about the rubbish going on in their lives.

I looked up two significant boyfriends from decades ago. I always thought 'what if' about one, but didn't try to reconnect with either, one of them understandably not.

One has recently (last few years) married and has his first child around two years old (he's 48 this year). He looks happy, as far as you can tell from social media, and his wife looks like me (very long wavy hair), and similar age, though that's probably just his general type.

Another, I don't know if he's married, but he had a child with someone many years ago. He'd posted her age and wished her a happy birthday, which happened to be slap, bang in the middle of when we were together at university. It was strange to find out I'd been cheated on so long ago. It stopped the 'what if' thoughts anyway, so a good thing from that point of view.

@Salome61 I don’t know, from his fb pics he’s not aged terribly well, he used to be sooooo attractive. We both still have connections in the city we met up in, so maybe one day as friends. Although he seems keen, he said I should come to his town for a holiday. It’s nice having someone to chat to who knows what I’m going though, eg my husband leaving me.

My son has just sent me a video clip of his BIL's new baby in China, born by caesarian this morning. Life does go on doesn't it, it's just me that feels I'm in a time lock. I've been widowed for seven years now, and have been 'hiding' from life.

My greatest sympathies @WatieKatie, I do hope you have family and friends supporting you. Until it happens to you, no-one can understand the devastating effect being widowed has on absolutely everything. I joined the older online group Way Up as I'm older, I think there is a younger Way group? Biggest hugs x

@MissingMoominMamma I think that is it. I also agree that FB is a showcase for the best in life only, I need to remember that. For a moment I even considered changing my profile picture to a younger one to impress him! So ridiculous, I've got white hair, labyrinthitis balance problem, just recovering from tennis elbow (don't rip up carpets alone when older), and now the optician tells me I've got 'dry eyes' and need to 'lubricate' them twice a day! Thank you. My reality is that I managed to downsize to a bungalow my kids won't have any trouble selling when I go. I've got enough money not to worry about the energy bills, I've cut back on food, and have enough to help my kids out if they are stuck for a car repair etc. My kids are two lovely young adults with partners who do like me, luckily, and I have an elderly aunt I care for long distance. My world does need to expand, I'll take some action to do that.

@Elswythshouse how interesting that your old boyfriend chose a similar 'type' to you. My old boyfriend had told me he liked blondes. Our relationship had ended on a friendly note, and he did introduce me to his new blonde girlfriend. I'm sorry that my childhood best friend who was there during my time with this boyfriend died in 2009.

I am very sorry for your realisation about your other significant. I used to work with a lovely girl, she invited everyone to her wedding and we all had a wonderful time. Weeks later she was crying in the staff room - she'd found a diary hidden in the drawer - her new 'husband' had written 'weighing in at clinic' - he'd become a father a week after the wedding. His affair had started at the beginning of their engagement. I was surprised to see my old boyfriend had married very shortly after introducing me to his girlfriend.

@Lostsadandconfused If you are ever in his town, I hope you can perhaps meet for a non committal 'memory' visit. I am very sorry for what you are going through, I saw many of the emotions with my late Mum. She allowed my Dad to see his 'other women' for the evening on the proviso he came home. She would stand in the front bedroom in the shadows waiting for him to come home, so very sad. She loved my Dad until the very end, and even became friends with my step mother so she could still see him. I think the lesson I learnt from this, as a child, was that I'd rather not have know what was going on. I wish she'd protected me from it.

I'm going down to London to see my best friend of forty odd years in a few weeks and will have a good chat with her. She's much stronger than me and I know she'd have had this place decorated/carpeted and everything weeks after moving in - I'm so indecisive, and worry about spending money.

Thank you all very much.

Honestly, OP, do you need to downsize quite so much to the point where you worry about spending money, as you want to keep it for your adult children? Wouldn't they be horrified to think you were skimping on their behalf? DH and I have been helping our parents out since we started earning salaries, because they have very little money. You're only 66 -- you have lot of life and new discoveries and perhaps new relationships, certainly new friendships, to come! Don't think you need to spend the next twenty years trying to live on air!

Thank you for such an uplifting and positive post Paperclipped.

I did manage to sell our listed Grade II railway station which was a money pit, I think my caution about spending on this downsized bungalow is a hangover from that experience.

Sorry for your loss it must be immensely hard to have to start on a new phase of life and living alone. How about asking a close friend to come and stay and trying some different activities/trips together and ask then to help you decide how to make the bungalow a fantastic new home? It is much easier when there is someone to bounce around ideas with.

Thank you @Floribundaflummery. Unfortunately my two close friends are in London, I've never made a close friend up here in the NE. When I sold I did try to go home to Middlesex (I'm from Whitton), but didn't have the budget. I went househunting in Exmouth and Margate but couldn't afford the areas I wanted there.

I'm seeing one friend for a few days in a few weeks, I'm seeing the other a few weeks later as she is coming to NZ on the singles tour with me. It's with Riviera Travel, just 25 single people. What I hadn't realised when I booked the trip was that 'vaping' is a crime in Singapore - it's a £2K fine if you are caught with just the equipment, let alone the smoke! I joined the NHS no smoking scheme in March and after 50 years I'm nicotine free at last. I put on a stone over the 12 weeks, so I'm now on the Fast 800 Dr Moseley eating programme - the recipes are great, but I got lazy over lockdown, I've found it hard 'cooking' so much. My scales seem to be misbehaving but I have lost weight, my trousers are a lot looser!

Definitely... Think of the opposite of the what if's... If you'd stayed with him, you wouldn't have the children you now have, etc.

As your life and circumstances change it's natural to think about how life would have been different if you'd just done X instead of Y.

My sliding doors moment is when a guy I quite fancied asked me out, but I was already sort of dating someone else. I said no, he moved on and I stopped seeing the other guy only a month or so later. I ummed and ahhed about getting back in touch with him and thought it didn't seem fair on him (sort of him wondering if he was "second best"), so I never did.

Last I'd heard he'd moved back to Australia and I moved on and met my now DH on OLD. I love DH to death, but I do still sometimes think "I wonder what would have happened if I had gone out with him". I could've been a bronzed goddess living in Oz, rather than a greying pale skinned overweight woman living in the Home Counties! 😂

You don't have to get in to online dating OP, but how about joining some clubs or volunteering with a local charity to get you socialising a little more? Just having some extra friendships around you might help you find the new you and help you feel more settled in your new surroundings.

Remember - home is where you make it. You're surrounded by all your things - it's just a different set of (more stable, by the sound of it!) walls around them.

Understandable from the POV of selling the listed moneypit, but as this new house seems perfectly sellable, not something that only a very few buyers would be likely to go for, surely you can let yourself go a little in order to claim it and make it yours?

For various reasons I won't bore you with, I've had a deeply problematic relationship with a house we bought in 2020 and which I'm only beginning to fully inhabit now, despite it still being in mid-renovation, though the big work of this phase is done. I'm only now starting to claim it as mine, think about paint colours, plant herbs in the garden, stamp my mark on something that has felt like another person's house.

I honestly think that is hugely psychologically important in terms of feeling like you're fully inhabiting your own life. The NZ trip sounds like a great idea, but you want somewhere that feels like yours to come home to, too!

Thank you for sharing @TenderDandelions, your post made me smile, as well as making sense. The phrase 'home is where you make it' rings so true. Although I'd have loved to have gone home, I am glad I've stayed in the village where the kids were brought up.

I got another FB message from him later this afternoon saying 'chat again another time?' I wrote back and said 'look forward to it'. Thanks to all of you who have grounded me in the reality of this situation, I see no harm in exchanging a few words and memories with him fifty years on :).

And @Paperclipped, the phrase 'fully inhabiting your own life' made an impression on me. I have been hiding away. I had a walk around and looked at jobs/things I need to do and spent some time sorting out the CD's after your post. I found a 2008 CD of my daughter's ski trip (she was 12) - 250 photographs, somehow I'd never viewed it. I do hope my husband had seen it. Tomorrow I'll focus on finding fabric for the blinds - I did have some vintage chinoiserie, but it's too traditional, won't look right. I'll focus on getting the house straight, as I'm away for a few weeks I will be giving a neighbour a key, so will have to make sure it's clean and tidy!

Wishing you the very best of luck with your personalisation of your new property.

Night night and thanks to all of you, I do feel so lucky to have my two beloved kids.

I have to say @Salome61 that you sound so lovely - I hear it in your post and in your responses to PPs. You have a gentleness that is rare on MN. I think that you are the one who got away. I hope you achieve all you want from life. Many of us older single women really adore it but if you want another partner I don’t think you will be single for long. This is a new beginning for you. Enjoy it.

I have had three "ones that got away" and have learned the hard way that they are exes for a very good reason. One of them lives abroad and we are in touch as friends and that is really nice. He is happily married now but his parents live very close to me and he visits them often.

Of the other two, they turned out to be nothing short of perverts and I had such a wake up call by reconnecting with them. I am grateful for the realisation about them, but annoyed with myself thinking that I wasn't good enough for either of them when in fact they are good enough for nobody. I don't want to be negative, it does work sometimes but mostly it doesn't!

I agree with @Siouxiesiouxiesioux
Your posts all scream what a lovely person you are. And when I saw your username, I immediately thought of my delightful colleague Salomé!
Are you sporty? Sport is such a great way of bringing people together & being outdoors. Badminton, tennis, ping pong, self-defence,...

Thank you so much, how nice of you to say I come across as nice. My neighbour's wife, quite a bit younger than me, has just died so it's been a day for reflection :)

@Salome61 you sound so lovely- I'm 61 and would really like someone like you as a friend. Join a few things, get a few bits done in the place , lots of people will want to be your friend, I can just tell - you know what they say you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs