| Wednesday October 08, 2003 | |||
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AMANI COUNSELLORS Married, but obsessed with my first loveDear Amani,
I am a married women in mid 30s with five children. Although my husband is loving and caring, I am still in love with my first boyfriend. I met my boyfriend about 23 years ago, but before we could get married, my present husband persuaded me to marry him. I tried to run away, but by then it was too late because I was pregnant, and I did not want to pass on the responsibility to someone else. What is troubling me now is that I have been thinking about my first boyfriend constantly, although he is married with two children. He also says he feels the same about me, and that I have a special place in his heart. We have not had sexual intimacy again because of the respect we have for each other. However, my fear is that I may be affected mentally if I continue thinking of him all the time. Please help! Dear Disturbed, Thank you for honestly sharing your feelings about your first relationship. It is also clear that this is creating turmoil in your life. On the one hand, you have a loving husband and children, and on the other, memories of your first love keep cropping up. You wonder if this state of affairs is healthy, especially mentally. Given the way you are writing about your former boyfriend, he was someone you felt deeply for at that time. Therefore, it is normal to think about the person from time to time. After all, you have pleasant memories about him and you almost married him. However, in your case, he seems to be preoccupying your mind most of the time. Has this been the case all these years you have been married or is it a recent thing? I sense a feeling of frustration and being stuck, although you describe your husband as loving and caring. Could it be that you are dissatisfied with your marriage, which is making you yearn for your ex? Perhaps this makes you compare your husband with him and brings back memories of what might have been. Sometimes, when we are faced with difficulties in a relationship and we do not want to confront or deal with them, we regress. That is, we go back to some pleasant memory and want to relive that experience. Conversely, your feelings for your ex-boyfriend may be rekindled by the realisation that you might have made a mistake by marrying your current husband. In this case, the mutual feelings you and your ex share may be giving you hope for a future together. Clearly, yours is a challenging situation. But it is one that you will have to deal with because there is a lot at stake: your mental health (emotional and psychological) and the two families, your own and his. Still, I commend you and your ex for the mutual respect you have for your marriages. As I said earlier, it is tempting to think of what might have been if you are dissatisfied with your marriage. But this is only an illusion because, in the meantime, both of you have changed. You are not the same young lovers you were then. The man you remember is probably not the same one you would be dealing with now. He may share the same feelings as yours, but both of you may be in love with a past fantasy. You both share some memory or memories, but this may not be the same as the reality. You may just be setting yourselves up for disillusionment once you realise things are not the same as before. It would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. As one writer says, we cannot recapture what we have lost. Although nostalgia is real, it is not reality. People and things change (Robert Raines: Living the Questions). Therefore, a few reflections on this issue might help. * What do you mean when you say you still love your ex? * Why did you marry someone else a if you loved him? * It seems you got married fairly young, could this be the result of frustration attributable to being tied down too early and now you miss the freedom of the past romance? * What does family, in particular your own, mean to you? * You have a loving and caring husband and five beautiful children, would you risk losing them for something that ‘could be’ or might have been? There is also the other family to consider: would you like to be responsible for its break up? * If the problem is your marriage, how can you and your husband make it more satisfying? Thinking about your first boyfriend may not be the main issue, but the reason behind it. That is, why is he preoccupying your mind so much? This is what you need to deal with. Hopefully, these reflections will help you make a choice which you will not regret later. You could also seek professional help to further explore this issue. Good luck! |
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