Here’s another side to this story: I am the ex.
In two different cases, I have been contacted — out of the blue, without provocation — by great loves of my past — important men in my life, to whom I may have been married had things not gone awry at the end.
In one case, we broke up over 17 years ago and he married another several months later. Now he has called me several times over the past few years to tell me that he is still in love with me, thinks of me all the time, wishes it could have been me he married. The odd thing is that he broke our engagement — not me.
Oh, and he intends to remain married: “I’m trying to make it work.”
In another case, it was over forty years ago when we parted, simply going different directions in our youth. Now he is married, of course, but “it has always been” me, he says. He even nearly hired a detective to find me not many years ago, he said.
And, yes, he remains married.
To be clear, I didn’t initiate the contact with either of these men and have not had “affairs” with them — it’s only been them contacting me. It seems cruel to me that either of them would tell me now how they feel, having married someone else, and knowing I am single.
So I am in a place where I have to simply have compassion for each of them and their poor wives: them, for carrying this longing over such long periods of their lives; and their wives for living with men whose minds are elsewhere.
Sad.
