I need your advice on what I should do about a relationship I once had.
I live and teach in another country. Some years ago, I was involved in a romantic relationship with one of my students. She knew I was married and was keen to marry me. But I told her that I needed to do right by my family as we had young children.
The last time we had a telephone conversation, we talked about whether I loved her more than my wife. I knew what her question meant. She apologised for asking and told me that perhaps 10 years later, we could take the relationship further.
After she returned to Malaysia, she called me up. But I later lost my phone, along with her phone number. So I wrote her several e-mails but she did not respond. In the meantime, she came to my country and visited some of the associations I used to work with.
It has been almost 10 years and she is currently pursuing her doctorate overseas. When I visit her Facebook account, I see that her status is “single”. Often, I feel for her and hardly a day passes that I do not think about her.
Now that my children have grown and my wife is more focused on them, I want to rekindle our relationship. But I am unable to reach her, even after contacting her friends.
What should I do? Any advice?
Looking to reconnect
Dear Looking
There are two things going on here that you have to examine in order to find a way forward.
First is that affair you had 10 years ago. I won’t go into the ethics of a teacher having an affair with a student, nor will I ask whether you went the whole way or whether it was an emotional affair. What I will point out is that you believed at that time that you had found your true love.
As you chose to keep to your marriage vows and maintain your family, I want to ask you this: when you decided not to pursue your romance, did you think of it as a sacrifice?
If so, did you also make some kind of bargain with yourself? Did you secretly think, “If I make this sacrifice now, I will get my just reward later.”
If you did, that’s quite a common type of bargain. Life is difficult and uncertain and so we’re constantly bargaining with fate. You may have done this as a child, with those little urgent prayers, “Please God, if I pass this exam, I’ll be nice to my sibling forever.”
While these thoughts are natural, you have to accept that life doesn’t work that way. Yes, our actions do help shape our environment. However, giving up a romance in 2008 doesn’t guarantee a karmic reward in 2018. Principles don’t function on the basis of blue-chip financial investments.
For all you know, she was simply enjoying the excitement of a forbidden affair.
The second thing is that you have no idea what your romantic interest is really like. It’s been 10 years since you spoke. Perhaps she is an amazing person, your romance was meant to be, and you are soulmates yearning to be reunited.
But for all you know, she was simply enjoying the excitement of a forbidden affair. In the cold light of day you have to examine what kind of woman is happy to pursue a romance that she knows will break up a marriage and leave little kids in a broken home.
I must say, I don’t like the sound of her at all. I think it much more likely that you had a little fling 10 years ago and that you proceeded to romanticise it into the love story of the century out of sheer guilt.
However, you are an adult, your children are grown, and you are entitled to happiness.
I suggest you do this. Be honest with yourself and see if this dream romance has any foundation in fact. Be cold, analytical and ask yourself what was really going on 10 years ago.
Also think of this: you have a wife you loved enough to marry and have children with. As you say, the kids are adults now. What would happen if you dated your wife, making love the way you did when you were young? Could you perhaps fan the flames and rekindle your romance, reforming your marriage and make it better than ever before?
Your wife has loved you all these years; that’s not something you want to just chuck away.
Do all of that and if you are still convinced you want to pursue that other woman, it means talking to your wife and coming to a reasonable, kind understanding of how you divide your property, and of how divorce will affect the two of you.
Still want to go for it? Then telephone that woman’s university and leave a message with the department secretary. Or e-mail the dean and ask to be put in touch. In the age of the Net, it really isn’t hard to find people.
10 Comments
Elaine
August 19, 2018 at 12:39 pmWow really? People actually write this? Either I’m crazy, or this world must be going crazy.
Bill
August 19, 2018 at 5:44 pmMy advice to you is to forget that girl and be faithful to your wife and family! Move on and cherish your relationship with your wife and don’t add in another one to complicate the relationship. And don’t try to be a hero!
Ember
August 19, 2018 at 10:06 pmDon’t ever betray your family or your wife. I suggest you should forget all about that woman. You should not just throw away the legacy and family you and your wife have built over many years (even more than how long you’ve known that woman) just for a short fling.
From a Hamilton Musical fan: Don’t pull a Reynolds’ Pamphlet or get back to your Maria Reynolds, unless you are really sure you want to sacrifice everything you ever built, then feel free to get Burn.
Think of how your WIFE and CHILDREN will feel about it.
Sarah
August 19, 2018 at 10:44 pmThe letter sounds like it was written by an immature teenager. You want to have your cake and eat it too. You are not thinking about your wife and your kids who have to put up with you.
Digimon
August 20, 2018 at 1:44 amwhat about if your wife want to restart an affair with her former boyfriend and younger than you?
Enlightened
August 20, 2018 at 10:01 amA great lover is not a man who loves many women. A great lover is a man who loves one woman for life.
Geeta
August 20, 2018 at 4:41 pmWhy do want to risk your marriage of so many years, why do want to hurt your wife and family. What if they want to disown you after knowing the truth. Are you willing to leave your family for her. Dont be stupid.
Monniee
August 21, 2018 at 4:35 pmIf you were trying to contact her noew after all these years and she has not responded back to you, despite you talking to her friends, than I would say that she had moved on. Well i hate to say this, what if the tables were the other way around, how would you react… Anyway the ball is in your court dude. Think wisely before making the next move.
Dozey
August 26, 2018 at 12:25 pmAnother clear cut case of a man who thinks with his little head instead of the big one.
hantu rayau
September 3, 2018 at 10:05 amPeople are naturally good judgmenteers, till they themselves experiencing it.
It’s cliche to say things like, “dont suicide, you are selfish, how about your family”, dont have affair, “think of your wives and kids blah 2”
in the former example, people themselves never experience the bleakness, the depression and shall never understand.
similarly, in your case, it is obvious and so common.
there’s nothing new under the sun.
talk about ethics and all that courtesy, decency, right or wrong is a bunch of bs.
Ultimately, in chinese idiom, when fate is over, whatever you do, you can’t salvage.
It is apparent things will never be good as well, if you “forced” yourself not to cheat in order to superficially be a good “husband and father”. Day and night, your mind will continue to dwell on your other love.
If your heart is wrong, your outer “right” actions means nothing.
Everyone here will be professionals and condemn you, how you are a screwed up person, and judge you but shall never empathize. In their mundane opinions, you are wrong and deserve no empathy, until things happen to their ownselves.
Judging is easy. Like me, im slim and fit, and I could easily judge on how others who cant keep in shape and be fat. I could be like, cant you eat less and exercise more, u lazyasses. it is not difficult.
But truth is, everyone had their own obstacles. Everyone is different. Some always struggle in love and trapped in triangle relationships. It is all past karmic issues.
If you took their advice, by forcing yourself to stick with your own family and repressing your hidden love [or adoration] for your student; it is simple, just ask yourself, can you forget her ? can your heart be solely for your family ?
Nothing repressed is of positive value, ultimately, it will burst and you may just have heated arguments with your family from time to time.
Ultimately am i saying it is right for you to rekindle ?
This is even trickier question. In the grand scheme of things, what is right, what is wrong ? It is all human’s perception.
The law of the universe is, you register your consciousness and through law of attraction, what you’d lodged in your consciousness is what will return to you; this is the so called KARMA is bitch.
So if even when you do rekindle with her, or even married and have kids with her, and you give 100% to her, due to your past actions, someday, she might similarly leave you for her other affairs like how you did your wife.
The generic storyline is usually, you dumped your family for her, and eventually your young lover will dump you back and you are left, old, regretful.
Right or wrong ? No. Do what thou wilt. Ultimately, you pay your own price.
The world is full of attachment, desire and truly, later suffering and misery.