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Monday, July 16, 2007

Lost love

Do you have a long lost love from your past? I have to say Matt was my one and only love. We started dating so young. There was a moment when I thought I was falling for a friend of mine, but I quickly discovered he would never be anything more than a friend. Matt had the same experience with a friend of his. Once in a while I run into this guy that I was friends with. I will tell you a story.


But the whole reason I thought about this is that Matt recently "found" his old friend. He's been trying to find her for years now. Does it bother me that he was searching for her? No, not at all. I was friends with her too. She knew Matt first and was better friends with him, but I'm OK with that.


This friend, let's call her S, got married one week after us. We happened to see her the day after her wedding by pure coincidence. Matt and I had returned the night before from our honeymoon. Then we went to my parents to open gifts that next afternoon. We were loading all the gifts in our cars to take back home. S just happened to be driving by with her new husband and saw Matt outside my parents' house. She knew my parents lived near there, so they turned around to see if it was truly us. It was, and it was nice to see her and meet her new husband. After that we never heard from her. We knew where she had moved to with her husband, but they moved and we couldn't find a new address. Well, we found out now that she had two kids (starting right after they got married) with this husband. She at some point divorced him, had a child with another man, and just a few weeks ago married him. Seems funny to me that she's been through all of that in the same span of time that Matt and I have been married and had one kid. And we are still very happily married. I know stories like hers happen often though.


Matt met S while we were in high school (while we were dating actually). They were in a church youth group together. They hit it off right away and knew that they could be friends. He told me about her, and I eventually met her. She was a super nice, caring person. Very genuine. Through knowing S we found out that she had a very troubled life. Her mother tried to abort her. She was raised by her aunt and uncle, who were to her Mom and Dad. There was a past of sexual abuse, and she had a general mistrust towards men. (Who could blame her, really.) But she saw something different in Matt immediately. She knew he could be trusted. Matt was a great friend to S. I think that she secretly (or maybe not so secretly) starting liking him as more than a friend. I was slowly becoming aware of this, and I was slightly jealous. After all he was my boyfriend. I don't know how long he had known her before he started thinking he had feelings for her too. And I don't remember for sure, but I think he told one of our other mutual friends about his feelings. But he very much still liked me and didn't want that to change. Somehow he ended up talking to me about it. I told him how I honestly felt about it. I saw their relationship more as a friendship or a brother/sisterly love. They got along very well and were good for each other, but I don't think a relationship would have lasted. After telling him that, I let him know that he had a decision to make, and I would wait until he decided but I was not leaving him. I don't know what made him see the light, but something did. And he soon realized that he could only be her friend, and he wanted to keep me as a girlfriend.

I still wonder about things that happened between them. I know nothing physical ever happened, but something emotional definitely started to take place. But our relationship in high school was a completely different story too. We changed and grew to love each other and respect each other more and more the older we got. (Although we didn't get too much older...we got engaged while in college when I was barely 19 and he was barely 20. We got married 9 months later.)

So, I do honestly think in this case it is good for Matt to reconnect with this old friend. I hope that they can catch up on each other's lives a little more and maybe develop a new friendship. How do/would you feel about your spouse rekindling an old friendship like this?


***I was going to post about the *almost* relationship I had with another boy, but I think that's too much story telling for this post. So, I'll save that for another time. It's a long story in itself.

6 comments:

Shannon said...

I love my husband completely; however, I do wonder about the guys of my past. I had three long relationships (one I even lived with) prior to Jeff, so they were huge parts of my life. I won't ever look them up though. I know it would hurt my husband or make him wonder my intentions, even though he knows I would never cheat.

Anonymous said...

My husband and I grew up together but did not start dating until college. We lived in a small town so we knew each other's high school sweethearts, too. I still hear about mine through my parents (who still see his parents around town) but we know nothing about the girl my husband dated. He has no desire to look her up, but I wouldn't mind if he did. He claims that despite being with her, he was in love with me throughout high school. I'm a lucky girl! :)

jen said...

would you believe my husband was the only other person I ever had that kind of relationship with?

I did have a friend, he was a soul mate kind of friend, but I knew we'd never be in a relationship. but we understood each other on another level that my husband is incapable of transcending. He's from a different place, and my friend and I were from the same city had had similar childhood experiences. I guess that's what you're talking about, I loved him, I did kiss him once, and it was an awesome kiss, but I always knew it'd never go on. but as it is with those types of things, we 're not friends anymore. That's due to his all or nothing and scary love/hate attitude towards people, and his lack of trust, more than anything else. I miss him, and want that person he was, back in my life, just as a friend, someone to hang around with and talk to.

Sarah said...

I don't know how I'd feel... Okay, I guess, because I believe that a cheater is a cheater, and a faithful person is a faithful person, if you know what I mean. Which is that some people are just that way, and will FIND a way to cheat and it will happen eventually, and some people are NOT that way and would never cheat no matter what the situation. And I (and you!) married a non-cheater kind of person, so it just has never seemed like a real threat or worry to me.

2Forgetful said...

My husband dated the same person for 3 years before we got together so it's pretty unlikely for something like that to happen. I agree with desperate housewife that I married a non-cheater so it wouldn't make me feel threatened. On the flip side, my ex-boyfriend became my best friend and comes over for dinner every other week and I spend time on my own with him. My husband is also friends with him and he trusts us both.

Laura said...

My husband is/was my long lost love. We met at 12, dated at 18 and broke up. I wanted a "bad boy" and he was just to polite to me and my parents liked him too much. What an ass I was, eh? I found my bad boy and it was...bad. I ran back into my husband at age 22- Me, with a two year old. He with a failed 2 year relationship and this time it was exactly right.