Just curious if anyone has any insight/feedback on this topic how/why one would carry fond feelings for an old flame, even if NC, and how those feelings of comparing to spouse, thinking of what might have happened if, etc. could impact the M.

Any W out there happily married that still carry feelings for old relationships to the point of frequent dreams and in some cases, serious longing and fantasies to the point of feeling sadness over missing them?

Thanks,
EM

I thought I was happily married, but I still carried feelings of deep affection and regret for my former BF.

I dumped my BF for the man who would become my H. My BF was deeply in love with me, and I hurt him very badly. After we split, I never saw him again, and almost daily would wonder about him - what he was doing, whether he was happy - whether I'd ever get to say sorry to him and feel forgiveness from him.

What I didn't realise was that I was behaving exactly like a WS behaves. It didn't occur to me that I'd had an affair, because I wasn't married to this chap - but the guilt and remorse I felt from what I did to him tells its own tale.

Yes, I dreamed about him all the time - dreams where I would receive the forgiveness I craved. Of course, I never told my H about how I really felt - I'm 100% sure that this affected our marriage badly. Not to say that the marriage was all bad - it wasn't - but it was founded on the betrayal of another person, and all the secrecy and lies that inevitably exist alongside such a relationship.

I say I thought I was happily married, but my STBX left me for another woman. He is perpetuating the cycle that began when the two of us betrayed my BF. I am so grateful that I found this site, and now understand something about the dynamics of affairs. STBX has no idea of the pain to come.

Alph.

EarthMan,

I have an MB friend that was in this sit. I will send her your way.

KY

Depending on the depth of your curiousity, and your willingness to wade through the interminable telling of my life story (The Sad Saga of OtherSusan the Stupid), you could start on page 9 of the feminine hygiene products thread where I told what happened to me--to my family, my marriage, my life--because of a love that was never fulfilled, but never went away, either.

t&l

P.S. I'm not recommending that anyone follow in my footsteps, by the way. Shoot, if I'd known where I was headed, I wouldn't have followed myself! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Wow, welcome to MY nightmare. My H had a very intense relationship with his high-school girlfriend -- they talked about getting married, dreamed about what their kids would be named, spent hours sucking face behind the bleachers, fed each other at the lunch table, grossed out their friends, the whole thing.

She dumped him when they went to separate colleges, I'm not really sure of the details. Anyway, he was crushed for awhile and then met ... me! Whenever she came up in occasional conversation, he would mumble something about being glad it didn't work out since she was very different from me, the life he would have had would have been very different, he wouldn't have done the things he did if they had gotten married, blah, blah.

She wrote him an email last year just to say hi and catch up -- and he was off to the races. He said they discovered they were still in love. When he had said "forsaking all others" at our wedding, he didn't really mean her. He went off without a backward glance and now we are divorcing. I am afraid that I have may have been his rebound relationship lo those many years ago.

Unfortunately, he was MY first and only love so I have nobody of my own to rekindle a romance and destroy a marriage with. FWIW, I found a professor who researches this who says rekindled relationships with former lovers are wildly successful; the MBers poked holes in the research.

I'll also note that the internet and other technology has made this rekindling thing incredibly easy. The professor said that pre-internet, if you wanted to look up your old girlfriend for an affair or if you were single you had to put some effort into it. And then once you contacted her, the relationship had to proceed more like a normal one, with dinner and dates and such.

Now, you can click on classmates.com and start an affair in between your morning meetings. It has all the "unreality" of a long-distance affair conducted via the screen combined with the combustability of old feelings. And so here we are.

yeah, but my W never had a relationship per say.. they were never BF and GF, they never shared anything more than talking at a bar.. even the sex sucked.. it's like she had/has this crush that she's hung onto our entire marriage...

that's the strange part... they were never a couple..

I'm getting some good feedback in Emotional Needs forum...

what is STBX?

apples to bowling balls..

they never had anything.. She may have liked or loved him but... it didn't happen..

STBX = Soon To Be Ex.

Alph.

please send me the link. I can't find the post you are referring too above.

thanks

Ky is referring to me. My A is this story.

I had the A with my h/s boyfriend 30 years after we had last seen each other. I'd carried a torch for those 30 years but the impact on my marriage was having the stupid A!!!!!!

Any mental illness involved or just life as it goes...

30 years is a long time... I will look for the thread...

We all make mistakes and fall... It's how we get back up and move on.. and learn/grow that matters!

Thanks for sharing,
EM

Please go the the thread, then cut and paste the URL/website link from up above.. It's the text that starts with http://www.marriagebuilders.com.....

Look above..

thank you.

Confusion and misunderstanding reign.

I'm nothing to with the linked thread. I was referring to KYellow's post.

I think that when old flames are not put out.. permently(sp?) then they surely can be rekindled and WHALAA>> here we all sit eh?

I dont believe you can LOVE two people at the same time. I think you can care about someone and LOVE someone. Caring shouldnt consist of sexual behavoir and memories of love and sex. I think (IMHO) that when you really love somone and give yourself to them for life there is no redreaming up ex's. I think that kind of fantasy life is a way someone deals with the emotional needs not being met in current relationship.

My first boyfriend (besides my hsuband) was in the military. His sister lives 15 miles from us and her hsuband and my husband are best friends. I always knew where the exboyfriend was, what he was doing, what war and country he was attending to now.. but I never got the FEELINGS or dreamed of him or anything. Now, when he was killed last april, in a motorcycle accident, i realized that i had once cared very much for that young man and I was crushed he was killed. I felt so bad for his wife and his daughter.

But that had/has never affected my relationship with my husband.

After my ONS, the man I see him daily. I pass him everyday going to take my kids to school. At times I get a flash of the life we shared for a short time. and THAT affects my relationship with my husband. I draw away because I then feel the guilt all over again. (does this make sense?)

Put the flames OUT... H2O!!

foot prints

The Sad Saga of OtherSusan the Stupid

It starts about 1/2-way down the page under "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It". And it's long. It was almost as long to tell as it was to live! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> And about as much fun... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

t&l

I am a FWW (very new in recovery with my H), and that was my story...it is very easy to allow old feelings, thoughts, memories to overpower and cause A to happen

Ok. MY XH HAD THE AFFAIR(S)...I am seeing off/on my college bf..whom I was on rebound from when I met my xh.

My xh and him are arch nemesis of one another...despite fact they live in different states. In fact, my xh's ow (his SECOND MISTRESS) who lives back home, tried to even put moves on my college bf just a few weeks back.

I was 10000 percent faithful and loving and good to my xh. I NEVER thought of anybody else when married to him...however...when the affairs began, I felt horribly neglected and the face of my cbf floated in/out.

About 2 mos. after my divorce was final, my xbf from college was grocery shopping back home and ran into one of my girlfriends there. He asked her how I was...she said "didn't you hear m? Peachy is single now. Darth well...turned out badly. He cheated on her". That was how my college bf found out I was single. Turns out HIS wife...whom he married ON REBOUND FROM ME...cheated too. He could barely wait to call me.

We're going to the beach next month.

My xh hates him. My friends love him (the college bf that is).

Sadly, I feel if there is a soulmate thing, he's it. But we reside in different states and are very responsible and 100 percent there parents to our kids. He has a successful business and one of us would have to make a terrible sacrifice if we were to proceed ahead with the M word.

Who knows what will happen.

Earthman....

My H has apperantly had this long term "crush" on some girl from long back. They never dated. They always were in different places in their lives when they would talk. Either he was free and she was not, or she was free and he was not, or one was doing drugs etc.....

Now, just 3 months back, he contacted her and told her he had always loved her, but it doesn't look like they are meant to be. (Her respond was that she had fallen in love with someone now...he did not repond back!)....but when I went back through the phone records, I found he called her whenever we were not doing great. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

The sad part is, I never knew anything about her. I did not know my H had this crush on her for years, and wanted to be with her, and thougth they belonged together all these years.....I did not even know she existed. He never even mensioned her. I justs found out recently (yes, I snooped!).

He did not leave me for her (as I said, she is in love with someone else), but he thought about her as the one he is really ment to be with....one of the reasons that they are compatible, get this, is because she did drugs like he did and has had that experience <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />....I cannot meet that requirement.... I have been reduced to the "friend" he married and has been unhappy with the whole time <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />...... Nice....don't you agree.


That is the problem, when old flames are not resolved. They'll come in at any time, not just physically, but as the what could have been. Sadly, H does not realize that even if he were to end up with her, marry her and all, he still would have to work on the M, which he was not interested to do with me. And you know, now the next woman in his life will be compared to this girl....and sadly will not know about it, like I did not <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />.

Daisy <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />