For Those With Lost Loves Rekindled

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Registered: 03-26-2003
For Those With Lost Loves Rekindled
9
Sun, 08-17-2003 - 11:51am
Anyone experiencing this?


• Loves from the past shake up the present



By Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff She was not looking for an affair. She loved her husband. Her life was fine. But then the 41-year-old Ohio woman reconnected with her first boyfriend.

''Your heart is kind of open to this person already,'' she said of the meeting three years ago. ''It's like with an old friend, the way you pick up where you left off, but it's not as innocent as an old friend. And then you start thinking about it and going crazy.''

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous because she is still married, had fallen victim to what appears to be a growing phenomenon: long-lost sweethearts who look each other up years or decades later and find that their old love returns with a passion - at the expense of their current marriages.

It's a little discussed downside to technology that has made finding old flames remarkably easy, thanks to such enormously popular websites as classmates.com that help people locate long lost friends and relatives.

Though no one seems to keep national numbers on reunions of former lovers, psychologist Nancy Kalish of California State University in Sacramento may be the closest thing to a ''lost love'' expert, having studied 2000 such relationships in the last 10 years.

Kalish believes the romances are increasingly common; earlier this month, 82-year-old actress Carol Channing married her junior high sweetheart. Her Internet website, which solicits lost-love stories from visitors and offers paid consultation for relationship issues, is increasingly visited by married people who are seeking past boyfriends or girlfriends.

Rekindled love, she warned, ''has a life of its own. One person said that, for her, it was an emotional steamroller, and it just rolls over everything in sight.''

Not every reunion sparks a romance, but when it does, her research shows, the couples tend to be unusually happy compared with others. Among those she has studied, Kalish said three-quarters of first loves who reunite years later decide to stay together, even when the reunion begins as an adulterous affair. Normally, most marriages that begin as affairs, fail.

But the reunited lovers' happiness comes at a clear cost, from the destruction of marriages to the bitterness of children when parents leave to be with a past lover. About half of those in Kalish's sample who divorced to get back together reported that before renewing contact with their earlier love, their current marriages had been good.

Kalish's work focuses increasingly on how the reunion of past lovers affects married people, who account for 82 percent of those who contact her through her website, lostlovers.com, compared with about 30 percent when she began.

Almost all of them find each other using the Internet, she said, and that is part of the problem: It has gotten easier and easier to look somebody up, and what begins as idle curiosity can so easily morph into big trouble.

Some people use search engines to reconnect, plugging in names in hopes of a hit. But many use websites such as classmates.com, the Web's 15th busiest site, which adds tens of thousands of members each day to its current 35 million-plus. By filling out a short registration form, visitors gain access to classmates.com's database, which can be broken down to individual graduating classes all over the country. It also offers access to a site called kiss.com that specializes in finding high school sweethearts.

''It's one of the most amazing catalysts for humanity that you can imagine,'' said its spokesman, John Uppendahl.

Reunion.com, a similar site, boasts 10 million members and similar growth, and includes a dating directory. And Kalish's own site is also growing fast, she said.

They are on fertile ground. A national survey commissioned by classmates.com found that 36 percent of respondents had used the Internet to look up or contact an old boyfriend or girlfriend.

Thinking about an old flame is fine, said a 43-year-old Colorado woman who, like the other unfaithful spouses quoted here, responded to a Globe query posted on Kalish's website and spoke on condition of anonymity. But, she said, beware of contacting them because it can escalate into an affair with amazing speed and force.

''It's like you're falling in love all over again,'' thrown back to those dewy teenage days, she said.

Her first boyfriend found her on classmates.com, she said, and before she knew it, she was obsessed, and then lying to her husband, and then sexually unfaithful, and then caught by her husband -- who, to her continuing gratitude, stuck with her instead of divorcing her.

Therapists tend to underestimate the powerful nature of such old loves, especially first loves, Kalish argues. As a result, they tend to tell such patients that their feelings for their re-found loves are based on fantasy and that they can find the same feelings in their own marriages if they only try. But that fails to take into account that reunited lovers really do know and love each other, and a first love, in particular, remains unique.

''This is not about sex, it is not about the spouse or the marriage, it is not a midlife crisis,'' she said. ''The reunion is a continuation of a love that was interrupted.''

Shirley Glass, a leading authority on infidelity, offered similar warnings. Her latest book, ''Not Just Friends,'' explores how friendships can turn into affairs. ''If friendships and collegial relationships can become overheated, former lovers are positively flammable,'' she said.

Some research indicates that a teenager may attach specifically to a first lover in much the same way as a baby attaches to a mother, said Linda Waud, a psychologist who wrote her dissertation on three reunited couples.

''There is an actual neurological attachment that happens between these individuals,'' she said, ''and that's why it's enduring and it never leaves your mind. It's there forever and ever.''

Waud, 61, was reunited with her current husband after more than 35 years apart; they met at a high school reunion after each of their marriages to other people had ended.

''The first time I got to be alone with him, I felt such power and such extreme happiness, that I can't even describe it,'' she said.

Her experience prompted her dissertation and her in-depth interviews of the three couples found, among other things, that they had unusually intense sexual connections, which made her posit that sexual attachment may work with the same kind of specificity as baby-mother attachment.

That may help explain why a 54-year-old Illinois man who is now having an affair with his first girlfriend could never get her out of his mind, through 30 years of marriage to another woman.

''There was a kind of crystallization that went on in my heart of `This is the one,' '' he said.

Two years ago, he left her a message on classmates.com, and they e-mailed for months before starting to arrange secret meetings.

''I care for my wife,'' he said, ''but it's like my first love and I were together first, and it seems like my wife kind of came between us.''



iVillage Member
Registered: 04-24-2003
Mon, 08-18-2003 - 9:22am
YES, this is exactly what I am going through! MM and I (neither one of us was married then) met in college and instantly we were attracted to each other. Over the next four years we dated off and on, but he would pull away everytime we started to get really close emotionally. The closer we got to senior year, the more involved we became, even talking about plans together after college. He told me loved me once the beginning of senior year, but again pulled back saying that things would never work. So at graduation time, we left without having talked for more than 3 months. The only way we "kept tabs" on each other was through mutual friends.

After graduation, I didn't see us getting back together -ever- nor did I have the desire or the heart to want to see him again. I ended up marrying my off and on b/f from high school, and figured that he was who I was supposed to be with. Things were fine between us for the next year or so, before I had the strongest urge to try and find MM. I ended up finding a website of the organization he belonged to and posted in their guest book. It took about a month before MM got the message, and we ended up emailing each other constantly for a while.

He told me one day that his g/f was moving where he was and that our conversations would have to slow down because she had access to his account. Then he hit me with she was pregnant, they were buying a house, and getting married. I have to admit that hurt....tremendously. I told him that I was happy for him and would leave him alone. He emailed me back and said that he had moved on with his life only because he heard that I had moved on. So for the next five years, I would send him a friendly email every 6 months just wanting to know how things were going for him. He would always email right back asking me the same thing.

One day I emailed him and in his reply he gave me his #. It took me about a week to decide to call him. I was preparing myself to hear him say that he didn't want to hear from me any more. So I call and we talk for almost an hour. All he kept saying was how crazy he was about me and how much he wanted to see me again, etc. etc. So 6 months later I took a trip to see him and it was almost like we had never left each other. The same attraction was there instantly, and we couldn't keep our eyes, or our hands off each other.

We talk all the time now. He is not afraid to express the way he feels now, and tells me how special I am to him and how he has not been really happy since we were together. He has apologized for all of his stupid mistakes of the past and thanks me constantly for wanting to be with him. Honestly, I feel the exact same way.

BUT, now we are both married, we both have kids, and getting a D to be together at this point is out of the question. There are so many more people involved now, and finances and insurance, and bills, are keeping us apart. I know to some those are excuses, but for us it is real, and neither one of us is ready to face that.

So yes, this love from my past has really shaken up my present....but I wouldn't have it any other way right now.
Avatar for prettyribbons4u
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2003
Mon, 08-18-2003 - 9:51am
I am involved with a MM that I first dated at the age of 16, though I didn't really consider him a 'first love' I did lose my virginity to him and I never, ever forgot him...I hadn't seen or heard from him until I was 21 and he was my boss at the time, we worked together for 2 years before starting an affair when I was 23, we were both married at the time. His wife became pregnant, my H and I were going through a divorce, etc., and things became too complicated, too many people found out, etc., so we split again only to talk once or twice more in 1992 over the phone.

I never heard or even really saw him again even though we still live in the same small town. I didn't know what had become of him until I saw him about a year ago at a town picnic. I had always kept in somewhere in the back of my mind, wondering where he was and what he was doing, but after I saw him during the summer of 2002, it seemed he stayed on my mind ALOT to say the least.

Around five months ago, on a Monday morning I went into work and while checking my email, I noticed his address among many others from an email that had been forwarded to me. I remember my heart was racing and it was the strangest thing because believe it or not...that very morning I had awoken and my thoughts were on him. I waited about a week before I contacted him, not knowing how he would react. I was on pins and needles and was scared to death to say the least. He emailed me back almost immediately and we talked through email for about a week before talking for the first time on the phone. We talked about 2 months before we agreed to meet with one another and thus...this is how my second affair with this guy has begun.

I have to say though, that we've been through alot in the several months since we first talked and it's better than it ever was before. From the first time I heard his voice on the line, it was as if we had never stopped talking, and this after 12 years of being apart. I don't know what my future holds, how this will turn out cause I do love my H and I think he still loves his W and we really don't have any intention of leaving our famililes. But, I know that I love this man like I've never loved any other, I know I see a part of me in him and it is all very sad when you stop and think about it. Fate seems to have played tricks with us all of our lives but I just can't ever see letting him go again.

Even though I know how totally unfair this is to his W and my H. This article really hit home with me especially the part about ---''This is not about sex, it is not about the spouse or the marriage, it is not a midlife crisis,'' she said. ''The reunion is a continuation of a love that was interrupted.'' ----Because that is really how I feel...thanks for posting this!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 08-18-2003 - 10:08am
My sentiments are the same as you both have expressed. I let him go once, years ago and he came back. I can't see ever letting him go again. He never told me how he felt back then. But he has no problem telling me now. In fact, he told me from the very beginning a few months after contacting me. It just grew and evolved from there and we are getting closer, even though we are LD. It does feel as though my husband is coming between us. Yes, the bills, insurance, extended family, etc. all add up to complicate everything. Our lives aren't that simple anymore. Also, I thought the neurological attachment was interesting. I have always felt a strong bond with him even after all these years. Not the same attachment I have to my husband.

How about starting a board for rekindled loves?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Mon, 08-18-2003 - 10:09am
This could have been written just about me and my MM. We were first loves about 40 years ago!! Never thought I would ever be involved in an A, but here I am.............
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-24-2003
Mon, 08-18-2003 - 10:36am
I totally agree. This EMA is not about not being happy in my marriage, or MM not being happy in his. We are both happy with our spouses. This is about he and I finishing what we started. Our relationship ended because of misunderstandings and bad timing, not to mention that neither one of us knew what to do with such strong feelings at the time. Now, everything is so much better, we understand each other better, we know how to communicate, the list goes on and on. It does seem like lost love relationships do work out better because of the history. You know where you messed up the first time, and have learned what not to do the second time around. Good luck to everyone here on finding the happiness and true love we all need in life.
Avatar for prettyribbons4u
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2003
Mon, 08-18-2003 - 11:13am
It's nice to know that many of you out there feel "just like me!" We too never talked of our feelings before in our prior relationships but this time, it's like we both just knew and we couldn't wait to really tell one another. Our timing has always sucked big time, and our lives are so much more complicated than in 1991, when he had no children and I just had the one. Now, I have three and he has two of his own...so now timing has taken an issue all of its own since we both are pretty busy with families and such. We often talk about 'ending up together' somewhere down the road, it's just so sad to me that we spent our so called 'young years' apart. I just don't think I'll ever let him go, even if I have to do this for the rest of my life. Good luck to all of you girls and I wish the very best for your relationships. I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one that felt as though there wasn't anything wrong in my life, or my relationship, or my self-esteem etc., to make me go and do a crazy thing like I'm doing now, it just happened...and I'm really glad it did, no matter how it ends....
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-10-2003
Tue, 08-26-2003 - 3:30pm
Very interesting article. :)
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2003
Tue, 08-26-2003 - 8:01pm
Oh, dear, this is us. We were buddies and flirtacious in high school, dated in college a bit, no sex, and didn't see each other for 35 years. He mentioned me in a HS reunion website, I emailed him, and 3 months later, we are in love and having a wonderful love affair.

Our situation is impossible, but these feelings are so strong, they won't be denied. I am so happy to be with him, I can't believe we found each other. We have "history". This is the sweetest thing that has ever happened to me. It won't be denied. *sigh*.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2003
Wed, 08-27-2003 - 9:20am
Nope, not me. LOL I recently met my first love, but it did not rekindle any love from either of us. I did meet him recently at a school reunion, and was very happy to see the progress he had made since I last saw him so many years ago. He is happily married to somebody I know, not a close friend, and has two kids. I was glad he had found happiness in marriage unlike me - I am sappy kind of person, when I see couples truly in love. LOL