Q&A: I’m Married but Can’t Forget My Childhood Sweetheart. What to do?

When I was in college I was in a relationship with a girl. It was the first real relationship of my life. We were together for five long years – right from 11^th standard till graduation. One thing led to another and we broke up shortly afterwards. Suffice it to say that we felt our life goals were not aligned.

Four more years have passed since then. I’ve settled down in a good job. I’ve also been married for almost a year now – to a girl I’d met at work and dated for less than a year.

Sometimes I feel I’ve made a mistake. I feel she was the love of my life (my childhood girlfriend from college, I mean). We’ve grown up together. We’ve spent our most formative years together. We were both part of each other’s families. She knows me more than my wife ever will. I feel I could give anything to rewind the last four years and go back to her.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but not a day goes by when I don’t think of her at least once. But I never contact her because I don’t want to disturb her life. (We’ve not kept in touch and I don’t know anything about her current life, apart from the fact that she’s alive – thanks to Facebook.:))

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Poignant question Shankar. Inside our hearts, many of us have been there and I’m sure all of us would benefit from knowing how others deal with it.

You think you’re telling me the story of your lost love, but I’m reading the story of a disillusioning marriage. It’s the disappointment with your marriage that is central to your emotions Shankar, not someone you’ve broken up with four years ago and haven’t thought about ever since.

Tell me honestly – would you have remembered her if your marriage had turned out to be exactly what you’d expected it to be? We both know the answer.

This might be disappointing, but let me state one of the hackneyed principles of life upfront – it takes a second to break something, but years to build it.

Your wife and you might have had an insufficient courtship, but you’ve still chosen each other – not had each other thrust down your throats like in arranged marriages. Moreover, in spite of differences you love each other and she’s even quite dedicated. You’re married – I hope you’re much more grounded in reality than a starry-eyed young romantic. Given that, are you even thinking of breaking something that’s in perfect working order? I’m sure you’re more mature than that.

So now that we’ve ruled out acting on your feelings, your immediate course of action is to understand them and to deal with them rationally.

Finding the grass on the other side greener is human nature. As you know only too well, if you let yourself fall prey to the kind of regrets you’ve described, it’ll become a never-ending, no-escaping black hole that’ll eat you up. Here are some points to consider.

1. Relationships change: First recognize that no one is perfect, and there will always be moments when you feel, “She’d have been so much better than my wife.” But hey, a relationship (especially a non-live-in relationship) always changes vastly after marriage, like I’ve discussed here: Why Marriages and Relationships are like Apples and Oranges (Part 1) and Why Marriages and Relationships are like Apples and Oranges (Part 2). And while you know what a relationship with her was like, you don’t know what marriage with her would’ve been like. Who knows – may be while living with her in your day to day life you’d have discovered a hundred tiny but obnoxious things about her which you don’t know today.
Photo by DaizyB
2. You broke up, after all: Someone had said, “The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was and the present worse than it is…” Don’t choose to overlook the negatives of that relationship which you consider ideal today. It wasn’t as perfect as you think. In fact, you broke up after being together for five years. Your “life goals were not aligned” then, right? What makes you think they’ll be aligned today?
3. People change: People change over time. You knew her then. You’ve been out of touch for four years thereafter. Trust me, you have no idea what she’s like today – what her thoughts, beliefs, aspirations are like. They may have remained the same as they were four years go, but they may have changed drastically. May be if you meet her today you’ll feel you don’t know her at all.
4. You change: In your case I’m more certain – certain that your needs and desires have changed substantially over the last four years, that is, going by the course of your life. You had certain needs then, which she fulfilled. May be you’re unaware of many other needs that you’ve now developed, which your wife must be fulfilling, at least partially. You don’t know if she would’ve fulfilled these new needs.

Think very carefully. Keep these points in mind. I’m sure they’ll help you think more clearly and make the right decisions in your love-life.

To all other readers – have you ever pined for a long-lost love? Feel free to share your story (anonymously if you like) in the comments section.