I’m in my late 30s, married, but lately I find myself thinking a lot about someone I haven’t seen in seven years.
We met in 2014 and were deeply involved for about a year. Then we lost contact for two years, during which I was with someone else. When we reconnected, we spent another intense year together. It was never an official relationship, but it was the most magnetic connection I’ve ever had: emotional and physical. We both had strong feelings but expressed them indirectly, never fully saying what we meant.
Toward the end, I hinted that I wanted more than just a casual arrangement. He agreed in words: “If that’s what you want, we can do that”, but then he postponed the date we’d set. That small action hit me harder than I expected. Instead of pushing through the discomfort, I shut down. There was no fight, no big conversation. I simply withdrew and disappeared from his life.Looking back, I know I played my part in how it ended.
I thought marrying someone else would close that chapter. My husband is steady and safe, and our marriage works in many practical ways. But there’s no real depth or emotional closeness. For years I told myself I’d moved on, but lately, memories of him have been flooding back. I’ve realised I never truly processed my feelings, I just buried them.
Now I’m left wondering: is this just my mind wandering because of the emotional gaps in my marriage? Is it unresolved feelings I never dealt with? Or is it nostalgia?
PS I’m not looking to have an affair. But I am starting to question whether my marriage is the right place for me. This isn’t about sneaking around: it’s about deciding if I should stay in a relationship that feels safe but emotionally unfulfilling, or take the risk of leaving, even if it’s not for him specifically.
I want to figure out if these feelings are about him, or if they’re just showing me that something much deeper is missing in my marriage.
TL;DR: Married, but can’t stop thinking about a past connection from years ago. Never fully processed my feelings back then. Wondering if it’s nostalgia, unresolved emotions, or gaps in my marriage and how to handle it without sabotaging my relationship.
Comments
I understood your whole story until the end.
“Handle this”? “address the part of me”?
What are you saying? You want to go find that guy and try to restart a relationship to see if you should have married him instead?
You want to try an affair to remind yourself why that all fell apart?
You want to call him and ask him why it fell apart and whether there was anything you could have done to prevent it?
What question are you trying to answer?
Do you just want to feel now how you did back then?
Can you just look the guy up on Facebook, see that he got old and less hot and now you feel better?
Do you want him to see you and still be hot for you so you know you still got it?
I can’t speak to what’s going on in your marriage, but I can say that the previous relationship you still think about was never going to be more than what it was. You may have had chemistry but it was not a healthy relationship. It was not even technically a relationship. You didn’t communicate properly. He wasn’t willing to commit to you. That chapter is closed. Focus on yourself – why are you so distant from your husband? Why have you not emotionally invested in your marriage? What can you do to improve it?
Why did you marry someone you have no emotional closeness to? Are you realising he isn’t the one for you? Do you have children?
I think this guy from the past should remain in the past. He wasn’t that in to you, or he wouldn’t have let you go twice. And he would have been asking to have more than casual with you. And he would have kept that date.
Doesn’t mean you can’t find someone else that you have more of a connection with in future if you leave your husband.