The dilemma I’m a married man in my mid-40s with two deeply loved children. Nine months ago I found and reread some old letters from my first love. I cried my eyes out and ever since she’s been in my thoughts day and night. For 15 years I have buried my feelings for her, yet the release valve has been opened and I am unable to shut it off.
At the time she was married to a cheating husband who had supported her through some horrific experiences when she was younger – and I was emotionally insecure and unstable. Yet we came together and my relationship with her remains the most beautiful and profound experience of my life. It ended because we both gave in to fear – mine of attachment and hers of letting go of the security of a (broken) marriage. We have had no contact since.
While I’ve always had a strong and loving relationship with my wife, in my heart of hearts it’s never quite felt the same. My ex-love subsequently divorced, remarried and now also has children. Sometimes I indulge in wild fantasies that one day, after the kids are grown up, I would get in touch and we could finally be together. What should I do?
Mariella replies You’ve got two kids you love deeply and a strong and loving relationship with your wife, both of which are under threat because of a past relationship that didn’t work out. Maybe I should cut off here and make this the shortest column I’ve ever written but, no, let’s carry on and see where it takes us.
I used to think the reason I had an aptitude for dilemmas such as yours was because my own life has been liberally scattered with problems. Recently, I had a Damascene revelation – it’s not my own life events that guide me, but the diet of fiction that comes with my other day-job, talking about books on Radio 4.
I was reading a passage from Graham Greene last week in which he described the euphoria he felt when he discovered he could read; how huge the world felt and how endless the possibilities. Not only have I come round to his way of thinking, but I’d say that novels have given me both an appetite for stories and the ability to guess where they might end up. So you’ve definitely written to the right person.
Of course, the ending of any tale also depends on the bravery and ambition of the writer. If you want to inhabit a romcom and give readers the answers they want, I’d say there’s every chance of reigniting this first love. It would occur entirely by chance at a reunion you didn’t want to attend and, after breaking a few hearts along the way (especially your children’s), conclude with you setting off into your twilight years, hand in hand.
That is just one possibility, but my taste-buds are tickled by the wider, less trammelled paths this story could take. I see you lingering by her front gate, having tracked her down, and looking longingly into the light-filled kitchen where she’s making supper for her teenagers. She’s laughing and not only is she as beautiful as you remember, but perhaps even more so thanks to how happy and fulfilled she is. That storyline, I’m afraid, ends up with you slinking into the shadows feeling foolish for believing that she, too, was waiting for you.
My next foray into the realms of make-believe brings a chance misfortune (near-death experience, illness, unfaithful wife, drug-addicted child, etc) threatening the life you’ve made. In that awful instance you perceive how rewarding the life you already have is and how foolhardy you would have been to sacrifice it for what was, after all, not an unrequited relationship but an unsuccessful one.
Or here’s another potential story strand: the choice you make to pursue this union wreaks havoc in your family, bringing emotional turmoil and long-term damage to those you love most. While at first it seems worth it, soon all those nights spent reminiscing about the good old days start to lose their allure and you begin hankering for your old existence.
The bottom line is that although I can see many eventualities, none of them comes with a guarantee of elevated happiness and most ring a far more cautionary note. You may be looking for a more inventive answer, but you have to admit yours is not the most original story – the middle-aged man, tied down by family life, looking to restart his engines by harking back to when they ran at their most powerful. To be brutal, this woman has gone on to divorce and remarry, so it seems optimistic to imagine she’s got a third round in her – particularly when it initially requires you to become the sort of cheating husband she started out with. But, as we both know, this is not her story. The nostalgia, the yearning and the desire to tread old ground flowed from Pandora’s box the moment you opened those letters. It’s a lid you may want to try to slam shut. I’m certainly struggling to conjure a happy ending.
If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1
