My 15 Year Secret

Forums: Relationships, Marriage, Love
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I've been married for 14 years. We get along great, never fight, enjoy each other's company and our opinions align on most things. We have 3 amazing kids together. But I have a secret that I have kept for over 15 years.

At 17 I felt like I had lost the love of my life and that the only way to get past it was to try and move on with someone else. So that is what I did. I married an incredible person, whom I feel I don't deserve.

No matter how hard I tried to forget about my lost love, I couldn't. Out of shame and guilt, I've kept the pain to myself and shared my thoughts and feelings about it with no one. I'm finding it very difficult to keep this inside any longer.

Unknown to anyone else, my lost love and I have been in and out of contact for the last decade or more. We both have always felt an uncontrollable need to be with each other. We feel like we were robbed of a future because we were young and didn't know how to communicate.

They presented me recently, with the opportunity to have what I've always wanted. If I take it then I destroy my marriage and my children.

Do I give up my lost love and continue on in my marriage? Or do I shatter the hearts of my family to follow my own?

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Type: Discussion • Score: 5 • Views: 1,439 • Replies: 6

[+5] - engineer - 06/09/2021There is something about being a teenager when your brain, body and personality are undergoing massive changes. I can remember people I went to high school with like it was yesterday, people in...

@Chained333,

There is something about being a teenager when your brain, body and personality are undergoing massive changes. I can remember people I went to high school with like it was yesterday, people in college not so much. I think there is a reason the high school reunion is held in such high regard.

What you remember from when you were 17 is a dream, not reality. You've romanticized it in your mind for fifteen years, whenever you faced a tough hurdle, you thought "if only". My guess is the reality will not match up to the dream. The likely outcome is you will end up disillusioned and lonely with your family's opinion of you destroyed and the happiness you dream of an illusion. You have the dream now, a man who seems to love you, three "amazing" children. Do you really think the grass is greener on the other side?

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@engineer,

Can’t add to that … pretty much sums up my thoughts.

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Do yourself a favor, Chained. Terminate the contact with the teenage love...and devote yourself to your present life and circumstances.

The name you use, Chained, is disturbing. Do you really feel chained...in a loving, reasonable, caring marriage with kids involved?

C'mon. There are people who would sell their souls to have such a situation to live in.

Feel blessed...not chained. Feel fortunate, lucky.

Only a guess...but wreck your marriage to pursue this daydream...and you will regret it in ways you cannot now imagine.

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@Chained333,

Chained333 wrote:

never fight

Well right off the bat you're not being truthful here.

With the one you're nostalgic, with the other delusional.

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Concur with all the above advice, especially engineer's explanation of it.

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@Chained333,

This is teenage love, it will forever remain in your heart. It's been a long time since you've both changed and become adults. Perhaps you no longer have those teenagers in love. If I were you, I would not ruin a marriage for the sake of fleeting feelings.

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My 15 Year Secret

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