I recently married a man I thought I could learn to love. I love my husband, but I don't think I will ever be in love with him. We share many of the same interests, and despite my feelings of confusion we have a great marriage. We are very good to each other and very respectful. Despite all this, I know in my heart of hearts he is not my soul mate, but I know the person who is. For years, I had an on and off relationship with my ex-boyfriend, but because of timing and maturity issues we took separate paths in life, however, neither of us ever forgetting the other. After all these years (8 in fact), my heat still yearns for him, I can truly say I love him and will always love him. There is no one I have ever loved more in my life, not even my husband (who I have known for 7 years). When my ex-boyfriend and I broke up, I started seeing my now husband, since then my now husband has always been so good to me and has never given me a reason to break up with him. Quite frankly other than his "love-affair" with fishing, he is perfect. We had never talked about marriage, however, having asked my parents for my hand in marriage, they warned me ahead of time that he was going to propose. They did this because they wanted to give me time to think about my decision and not continue wasting his time if my answer was going to be no. In my hearts of hearts, I knew I didn't really want to marry him, but not having a reason to say no, I accepted anyway. I have never stopped thinking or even loving my ex-boyfriend and my husband knows my ex is special to me (although I am sure not to the degree discussed here). For years, even through my relationship with my now husband, my ex and I kept in touch at times, but a relationship was just was not feasible not only because he was finishing up dental school and I medical school in different states, but because when he wanted me, I did not want him, and when I wanted him, he did not want me. The problem now, is that he has returned to California (our home state) and once again we have crossed paths. When this occurred, I really thought it was in the cards (despite my marriage) that we were meant to be together. And again, all my feelings for him surfaced-not that they had ever gone away. Before his call, I so badly wanted to believe that I was able to move on with my life and learn to fall in love with my husband and quite frankly, this was just starting to happen and then we crossed paths. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't just be better to cut all ties with him and continue on the path my life was on before we met again. But the fact is, matters of the heart this strong can not be ignored. And besides, my ex really is a great guy too; he is the only person I can completely be myself around, however, he is not as “perfect” as my husband and my relationship with him is not as stable and balanced as it is with my husband. My life with my husband has a lot of stability and balance; it is what everyone would call the "perfect life" but at times I question it myself because it all seems too good to be true. Quite frankly, there are no financial difficulties and we are very happy, but my heart yeans for my loving ex. Now that we have crossed paths again in life, I can't help but wonder if I should leave this "fairy tale" life I live and leave and start a new life with my loving ex. My ex is very hurt I am now married and wants to respect the fact that I am married and not pursue a relationship until I have made a decision. Part of me does not understand why, but I am thankful in a way because at least one of us has morals. Stability and balance are very important to me, but building a life with someone is too. With my husband, I will never feel like we are building anything because my income will never matter. With my ex I will feel the ever so human feeling of creating something together, starting with something small and building a life together. The life I live today was given to me, I did nothing to earn it, but as my ex tells me, "say I do." My husband would be so heart broken if he found out I was contemplating these ideas, because he truly is good to me and I to him. I don't know if I should risk all I have for maybe even nothing at all. Thoughts prayers would be greatly appreciated.

Laci, I am not sure what you should do about your marriage and want to think about it longer, but I am sure of one thing. And that is that your H has a right to know all this. This is about HIS life. He has a right to know exactly how you feel about him. He might not choose to be married to someone who is not "in love" with him. Otherwise, you are basically holding him in the marriage through deceit without full knowledge of the facts. Those are my only thoughts for now and I will chew on the rest of it.

<small>[ April 27, 2003, 02:29 PM: Message edited by: MelodyLane ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>"my ex really is a great guy too; he is the only person I can completely be myself around"</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You have done your H a great wrong by deceiving him and becoming his W. You are also doing him a great disservice by NOT being honest with him about your true feelings.

You can't love someone if you have a wall of dishonesty between the two of you that prevents the sharing of feelings.

Sooner or later something is going to give and it may turn out to be your H who ends up leaving you.

<small>[ April 28, 2003, 12:33 AM: Message edited by: T00MuchCoffeeMan ]</small>

Are you sure this yearning for your ex is not just because your life Is so perfect and you crave excitement? re you sure you are not idealising this relationship with your ex? If you two were so perfect for each other, surely you could have found a way to be together? Maybe the fact that you aren't tells you something.

Do you have difficulty making decisions? Maybe not in your professional life but personally? We all have a tendency to hanker for what could have been, rather than what is.

Revisit your reasons for splitting all those years ago, and then ask yourself why you stuck with your husband so long, if he wasn't what you wanted.

I hope you get some more helpful responses than mine!

Deluded

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I recently married a man I thought I could learn to love. I love my husband, but I don't think I will ever be in love with him.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Laci, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the first step is to tell your H the truth. I seriously doubt he knows you married him under these circumstances and he absolutely has a right to know. Not telling him is tantamount to marrying him under false pretenses; a cruel and manipulative act. H

He probably would not have chosen to marry you had he known this. But, you never gave him that choice because you withheld the truth. He has a right to know this so he can decide if he wants to be married to someone who is not "in love" with him.

What a wonderful website and terrific support system. I have posted this message on two different threads and have received some really insightful advice. I feel invigorated and ready to give my marriage a chance. I am thinking about writing ex-boyfriend an e-mail and asking him to please stay out of my life and my marriage. As I stated in my post above, I was happy with my marriage before ex-boyfriend came into the picture and I want it to return to this and better. As I was reminded, I have made a commitment to my H in front of our family, friends and God and I want to stay true to those vows...Forever. Thank you to everyone for making me reflect on what I could have lost. I am especially grateful to all who responded because I could not talk about these feelings to any of my friends or family (in all reality, this has been my only outlet). The forums here have made me see that the people who come here really want their marriages to work out and want the marriages of others to work out too. When I first came here, I didn't know what to expect, I thought some would even say to follow my heart and leave my husband for the man I think is my soul mate. I am glad I did not get these suggestions here. Thanks again for everything.
Laci

Oh boy, didn't Redhat say something about this being the summer of love???? Geesh. Laci, I am glad you came here. The fact that you did come here and are honostly listening to what everyone is saying says you DO indeed have morals. What disturbs me is your conitnued use of words/phrases like "soul-mate", and "in the cards". I don't think there is a BS here that doesn't cringe everytime someone uses those words. Best of luck in bringing your M to what you desire it to be. Melody is right about you need to be radically honost with your H about your feelings. It isn't fair to do this to him, and quite frankly, without him involved you won't get the type of M you want. toodles

MTD