ANSWERS: 22
  • If this is your problem, then I think if you want to get over him you will have to stop talking to him. I didn't think I would ever get over my first true love too. So we stayed talking and I still wasn't sure I ever would. Then one day we just stopped...cold turkey, and I learned that I really didn't need him and I didn't have to love him anymore. Now this is how I got over him and may not be how you need to but it could help. My suggestion on telling him though is no. You are married. If you want to tell him, get a divorce since you are risking your marriage liking this man. What is more important to you?
  • You still feel for him because you still have contact, the best way for you to forget about him if that's what you want to do, is to no longer contact him and tell him not to contact you. The other point to consider is, are you sure he feels the same way about you? If you do and you don't love your husband then maybe you should tell him.
  • I think we will always love our first true love. I don't think there's anything wrong with still loving him. However... When deciding whether or not to tell him, first consider the damage it could cause to your marriage. Secondly, are you prepared to hear what he might say back? It might not be what you want to hear. Third, do you want to tell him because you simply want him to know that you love him, or are you expecting him to love you back?
  • You are not alone. Others have been where you are. Some have made the right decisions. Others have shipwrecked their lives and other peoples' lives by making the wrong ones. i am counting on you to make good decisions since you have taken the time to seek counsel. You have feelings. You will always have feelings. Feelings come and go, but some persist. You are feeding these feelings with the possibility that you are allowing yourself of getting together with the old boyfriend. It may be a fantasy, but you are in contact with him. You can choose to live by feelings or by commitments. With commitment comes deep and abiding love. With feelings come thrills. Thrills won't be enough when you are old and worn out. Love will. Stick with your husband. That is where your commitment lies. Nurture that love and feed it daily. You asked, so I know you expected some advice. That was very brave of you. All the best of good things to you.
  • I am in a similar situation where my first love and I still have feelings for each other and just recently started talking. It has been 20 years since we broke up and I have thought about him almost daily. I will think about him regardless of whether or not we talk. He is a permanent fixture of my thoughts.
  • Thank you everyone for your help. I have stopped talking to my first love for almost 2 years. I still think about him daily, and love him the same. I wish I had him to talk to now that my marriage is rocky (which has nothing to do with my "first love".
  • What I don't understand is the whole TRUE love thing. Have I like not ever had a TRUE love. I've had two somewhat serious relationships in highschool. Puppy love I suppose. My first "love" I was crazy about for years. Even after I got together with my second "love" who I dated for only a year but remained friends since. Soooo...what's the deal. I can't tell if the 1st or 2nd is the TRUE love. The first didn't love me as good as the second. AHHHHHHHHH lol....
  • Do NOT tell him...you will wreck your marriage which is very selfish. Be content with what you have NOW and don't live in the past. Often when we live with someone, we see their bad habits, etc. because we are with them all the time so we like to think about greener pastures and live in the past. That is often why we are kinder to our neighbors than our own partner or children because our neighbors are not around us 24 hours and in our "space".
  • I think it's important for people to continue in their marriages when reflecting back on a first love. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the memories and having a few fantasies to keep life interesting. Not such a good idea to act on, as it's unfair to your spouse to ruin your life over something that isn't a sure thing. I do think however, that if a marriage breaks up on it's own, or the spouse dies that it's worth contacting that person. I think first loves can last a lifetime, and the outcome of these matches are supposedly excellent. My aunt and uncle were married forever when my aunt passed away. He ended up remarrying, and that wife ended up dying also. He is now 83 years old and just recently married a friend he had known well over 40 years. Anything is possible.
  • My first "true" love and I had a special, special bond. We spent years as best friends. We established our relationship on intellectual, spiritual, and emotional matters, and this made for a love based on loyalty, honesty, dependability, and genuine love for one another. When it came time for me to leave our hometown and go to college, splitting apart from him was devastating. Over the final six months of high school, we finally allowed our best friendship to grow into courtship. It was bliss. Still, we are both rational thinkers. Each step along the journey of our relationship was methodically taken. For two months we maintained our romantic attachments, but the reality is that things just weren't the same. Neither of us felt like putting our life on hold for hopes of something to happen again in the future between us was fair. One other friend of mine endured the same thing come the close of high-school. She and her boyfriend had dated for years. They're what I'd call "the real deal." He left for the Air Force, and the breakup took a devastating toll on her. She spent the summer depressed. She and I have often wondered, as the adage goes, "When you love someone, and you lose someone, where does the love go?" I don't know exactly what happens to the love, but I know that the exact and specific love of a true love is never fully replaced, and it's not fair to expect it to. I'm a big believer in purpose, and I believe everything happens for a reason. This hope has protected me time and again from devastation. I truly believe that there is more than one "right" person for each of us in this world. Think of the countless remarkable men and women out there! For some of us lucky few, we just happen to come across multiple of them in a lifetime. That's wonderful. Learn from the one you encountered first, and choose to allow yourself to use the things you experienced from that one to improve your relationship with the present.
  • No. At least not until you tell your husband first.
  • No. And if you have children, not only "no," but HELL no!
  • Your first 'true love' (which is true by virtue of the random capitalizatio of true as everyone knows) but yet you're married to someone else. Ain't love grand?
  • why not. if you dont, you might regret it.
  • I don't think you ever really get over your first love. I dated a great guy when I was 19 until age 21. I had gone to a local 2-year college and after I transferred, I was ready to spread my wings a bit. I never stopped loving him, I just wasn't ready to stay with the same guy for the rest of my life. He could not handle even the possibility of me dancing with another guy, much less having dinner with one. So, he gradually stopped contact with me (with much trouble and weight loss). We went out on another date a year or so later, but I don't think he could ever go back because of the pain I caused him. We never went out again. I had hoped he would call but he did not (he said he would). I am 40 now, and I still think of our relationship and how I regret not saying and doing everything I should have in that relationship. We truly had a storybook romance. I am VERY happily married to a great man who I am still crazy about after 15 years and we have an awesome family. I know our personalities fit better, But, I still regret not staying together longer with my first love and I too think of him and replay events in my mind adding what I should have said or done. I would recommend to all those who are not married and are thinking about their first loves (as long as they are not married also), contact him or her and let them know how you feel. You will at least get some closure even if it doesn't work out...no regrets about not saying or doing something.
  • I believe you are fantasizing what a life with this person would be like. Think of the reasons you stopped being with him. You may be confusing this nice friendship (joined with the whole male/female sexual tension thing) with what a life with him would actually be like. There are reasons you chose your husband. Do you love your husband? Married life can feel routine, but you have to do things to help keep it exciting. Thinking of an old love is living in the past and idealizing it and doing nothing for the present and future. All your doing with your first love is flirting and that is what feels exciting to you. Appreciate the qualities in your husband, there are reasons you chose to marry him.
  • I have a very good idea of how you must feel. I too had true love...I first saw his smile and felt completely whole inside and connected at a time when I could barely handle being with anyone. I had a horrible home life and had just taken control of myself, as I thought, and dealt emotionally with all of the series issues I had...and then I met him. It was too amazing for me to believe after two years, I had issues still, and when I went to college, I was so afraid of being apart from him- so lonely- that I basically broke up with him and hurt him horribly as an instinctive protective response I had developed over my childhood. And he tried for a year, even after I was dating another guy for most of that time, to rekindle our relationship...I denied my true feelings, knowing that his family couldn't forgive me for how I had hurt him and other things that I reasoned made it impossible. He stopped trying. And now, i am with the same guy going on 2 years and my ex went to the same college as me, but he has been with his new gf for like a year now-his new true love as he puts it. We still talk occasionally. Basically, I came to grip with my childhood issues and realized how much I had always loved him...and every day, every moment my heart breaks for him. I know its only continuing the pain to give in to those thoughts, but I cant help it, cant control it. I think of how amazing it really was and how much i hurt him and I cry, cant breath, cant move. But I know that the guy im with sees me as his true love and although i love him, it will never be like the way i loved my first true love. BUT i know that the break between my true love and I made me fix my issues, made me grow as a person, made me strong. And I cant change the story now, neither can you. THere is a reason that you married another man. After so long, you must realize that you have a commitment to your children, imagine how they would look at their mother if they see you leave their daddy and go after some guy theu dont even know. That conflict of family will change your children, maybe tearing away at your ties to them over time. SO is this guy more of a love to you than your flesh and blood children? Talk to your true love about all of this, tell him you have a family and cannot break from them, but that you needed to tell him how you felt. Also you need to be honest with your husband because otherwise talking to ur ex will allow a secret sort of relationship to possibly blossom, which ur husband wont be aware of and then u risk the temptation of cheating on him. But u need to ask ur husband to help you through it. Or dont say anything to anyone and u wont hurt ur husband and family, but u will sacrifice yourself instead. Just consider what means the most to u.
  • I'm kind of in the same situation right now. I'm married for 4 years with a son. He is on his 4th wife no kids. We talk by email every holiday and lately all the time on face book. If something is wrong he knows. If something is wrong with him I know. We have a strong bond you can't break. Recently we both admitted timing was all wrong for us. We dated from 15 years old to 25 years old. We both admitted we have feelings still and think of eachother regulary. It's out there now. No secrets and it felt good. Weird but good. Everyone says if you stop talking to him your feelings will stop. I know that's not true we have a love that I just can't explain. I want him in my life always. I say let him know. So you know. But, I will tell you it's hard to not think about him. Wondering what he is doing. It does strain your marriage a little. But we both agree life is short. I'm not saying do anything you might regret. Just think it out and see what it's worth. In my case I knew how he felt and I knew he knew how I felt. My husband is a great man. But sometimes I just wonder. Good luck Sweetie.
  • I understand your feelings. I really do. My first true love was my first boyfriend in junior high. We saw each other across the track field one day and were immediately drawn to each other. When he moved away in high school, I was devestated ,but he kept coming back in the summers. Aaaah, the bliss. Then the last summer he didn't come back. He stayed on my mind even after I heard he was killed in a motorcycle accident. No matter who I dated I still couldn't find the same kind of closeness and understanding like I did with him. I had dreams about him and I and our "what if" life. We had always talked about going to Greece together. But I went ahead with my life, got married, had kids, but not hardly a day went by that something didn't remind me of Roy. Some loves just never leave your being. After my divorce recently, I go to my 20th high school reunion. Here I am at nearly 40, and I hear from a fellow classmate (of course EVERYONE remembered me and Roy as the inseparable couple), that not only is he NOT dead, but he's also divorced and has been looking for me as well for the past two years. I called him that night and even though he lives 450 miles away, we met that weekend. The feelings were still there, stronger, and I can't express what I'm going through. The only problem now is that both of us with small kids and neither can relocate. So we tumble along pretending like we don't really love each other so we don't have to deal with the pain of being apart until our kids get older. After 26 years, I have the man of my dreams (literally!) back in my life, and he loves me. My point is: A mack truck wouldn't have had as much of an impact if he had found me while I was still married. To get a call from your true love from basically the grave? And he still loves me? Are you kidding me???? My marriage would have ... well, I can't honestly say what I would have done. But it wouldn't have been good I'm ashamed to say. Don't tell him if you're not fully prepared to divorce your husband. If you tell him and he feels the same, what will you do? Some would say what if you tell him and he refuses you - it would devestate you. I say what if you tell him and he agrees?
  • It's possible. Not easy, but possible.
  • I have no answer just the same question really. I met "the one" ten years ago. 3 serious relationships, none worked out but i have a child with one of them, and 10 years later i find myself seeing "the one" again and its like no time has lapsed. I feel the exact same feelings i felt then. She has a child almost the same age as my lil boy. we are both single parents and im ready to help her raise hers just like mine. I believe in true love just because of this. I get weak kneed when im around her still and i never did that before with anyone but her. She does things to my mind that noone has ever done. Im just like u, i dunno what to do. This post is worthless i guess but at least u know someone else feels the same as u do. I guess I just want the same answer
  • So many understand, thats great, because I dont. Who do you feel this love for? Another man that is not your husband? It IS possible to get over your first TRUE love, just to answer the first question. As for telling "him", I dont know who you refer to, another man not your husband? Don't tell. You can love him and thats fine, but remember that for these 15 years you have not been with him, and naturally you do not know how a relationship with him would have been. Your feelings have been spared being kicked at by him, so they stay intact.

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