The love of my life has returned, but I'm now married.

Hello everyone, I'm in a pickle and would really appreciate some advice. When I was sixteen, I met the man who I have always considered to be the love of my life. We spent a year together before parting. I wanted to experience all that life had to offer, and go a bit wild, holidays with friends, work abroad that kind of thing.

He was two years older than me at eighteen and, he said, he wanted to be with me forever. He had suffered an extremely traumatic childhood, including prolonged sexual abuse by a family friend. His family weren't tight-knit and loving and he saw my family and I as a safe and secure environment. He felt as though he had "come home" to that which had always been missing from his own life.

Time passed until we met, briefly, around twelve years ago. At that time, he had a son of ten years old, and a daughter of two years old - both with the same woman he had been with since a year or so after we originally split up. He still seemed to possess that child-like quality, and I felt him to still be the same, incredibly sweet man he was all those years ago. I felt I loved him, still.

I was living with someone at that point, but the relationship was in its final months, and I moved out of the house we were sharing together shortly after meeting my first love again.

Seven years ago I met my now husband, and we married last year. My husband is one of the best men I could ever have hoped to meet. He is incredibly supportive, caring and provides me with all the love, emotional and financial support I could ever need. He takes care of my family, and loves them as his own.

However, when I met my husband, he had a history of being unfaithful throughout the duration of his previous thirteen-year marriage - including numerous affairs with his wife's female relatives. During our courtship, I experienced many instances of his propensity for not being satisfied within a monogamous relationship, and constantly questioned whether to end it with him.

The last instance of his having gone some way towards "cheating" on me was around two and a half years ago, when I discovered extremely explicit emails and Facebook messages between he and a girl he worked with at the time.

I guess I have never really gone all the way towards trusting my husband, and have alternately felt that he had mended his ways and decided to be satisfied with our relationship, and that a few casual instances of text and email flirting probably wasn't the worst thing I could ever discover. Men love flattery, right? What's the harm? etc etc etc (and I've driven myself near-crazy with this kind of internal dialogue in the past).

I love my husband immensely, and I care deeply about his emotional well-being and ultimate happiness. I don't think he has required the kind of , let's call it "ego massaging" that other women used to provide for some time - at least, not since I moved in with him two and a half years ago.

My husband expects a great deal from me in terms of how I perceive my own "success", and my place in the world. I'm a writer and poet, largely unpublished, though continually seeking outlets and opportunities for my work. In order to go some way towards contributing to the domestic coffers, I undertake occasional work, which pays well, but intermittently.

I find my husbands constant questioning of my "progress" and critique of my writing efforts hard to deal with, because I always feel I am doing my best to a) further my writing career, and b) provide towards our lifestyle by working as and when I can. We have a very comfortable lifestyle, and my husband is extremely well-paid, so we are never destitute and my husband does not wish for me to simply do any job I can get in order to contribute towards the domestic requirements. Rather, he would that I become successful with my writing career.

Anyway, my first love (I'll call him "Nick" from here on in) contacted me a few weeks ago. We spoke, at length, and talked about the past. He described himself as now feeling as though he were "the finished article", having made peace with all the terrible things that happened to him in the past.

He asked me to meet him. And I wanted to. So I did. I knew as soon as I'd heard his voice on the telephone that I still loved him. I realise now that I have loved him, and kept his memory alive in my heart for the full duration of the twenty-four years since we parted as teenagers.

Nick has stated that he wants us to be together.

I am so torn between my supportive, driven and protective husband and the utter sanctity and solace of a love that has been waiting inside me for so long.

Maybe I just need a "reality check", which is why I'm writing here on this forum. There is no-one I can confide in without compromising that person as my husband and I only have shared friends.

Any thoughts and comments will be very gratefully received and considered.

Thank you x