My Ex: At the age of 17, I fell in love with a guy who was 15 years older than I. We both were head over heels in love for the next 6.5 years. We never used to fight or have any arguments; he cared for me and loved me soo much for 6.5 years i was with him. He was completely crazy about me, treated me like a queen and always used to say i was best thing that ever happened to him and doesnt know what he would do without me. He proposed to me during the first week we were together. However our religions were different our families being very strict, it would;ve taken time to convince them. I was ready to tell my parents about him if he talks about me to his family first. I couldnt risk telling my parents when i dont know if his parents would agree or not. Please note: Both our families were conservative and were going to have our marriages arranged with a person they chose. Religions being different was going to complicate things further. I waited for him for 6.5 years and he never mentioned a word about me to his family as he wasnt ready for the marriage. I had several doubts that he might have been already married and was lying to me; but found out that wasnt the case. My parents were looking for a guy for me and I couldnt have waited any longer. This is because i wasnt sure if he;s ever going to mention about me to is family. I broke up with him . He was very hurt; he begged me not to break up. But I couldnt wait any longer but agreed to remain friends. After I broke up with him, I went through online matrimonial service. I met a nice gentleman and got engaged in 4 months. When i broke this news to my ex-boyfriend, he got hurt; cried so much and asked for me to get back together with him. He said he doesnt care about his family anymore and he just wants to marry me. But it was too late then as i was already engaged with this other gentleman. He asked me NOT to leave, cried soo much, called me every single day, multiple times in a day to meet him just to see my face. I agreed to meet him just as a friend and I saw him crying so much. I never realized a guy can get hurt so much and cry so much. I couldnt console him NOR i could go back to him at this point. But i continued to meet my ex; trying to make him feel better to get over me. He used to tell me that his heart and stomach would ache so much that he felt like he was going to die. He used to say that every time i spoke to him. I didnt want to hurt him especially when we had such a nice relationship with him for more than 6 years. At the time, I didnt feel like i was in love with him anymore BUT couldnt see him getting hurt and crying so much. I had never seen a guy cry so much. His friend used to call me and used to ask me to meet him just once as he is unable to control himself, cannot work, cannot think, except thinking about me. His friend told me that he almost got into an accident too. I met him one last time 4 weeks before i was getting married and told him that i cannot continue to see him but would remain friends. I got married. I was still in touch with my ex as friends as i thought i would reduce my contact with him gradually. I used to talk over the phone once a month; then once every 3 months and i started to feel that he was feeling much better. We continued to talk atleast every 3 months until now.
My current husband: I have been married for the past 3 years but it wasnt the same as with my ex. In the beginning when we were engaged, I didnt feel that there was any problem...he used to kiss me, meet me every weekend, we used to talk a lot for hours on the phone etc. After we got married, we used to have sex every day for about 3 weeks; after that, it got reduced to every week; then every month. During the first year of my marriage, I realized we are soo different in many ways. We had completely different hobbies, different way of thinking etc. I expected him to behave the same way as my ex, be crazy about me, talk about how beautiful i am etc. Until now, he never mentioned NOT once that i am beautiful. His expectations of me were very different. He wanted a girl who is less aggressive, doesnt talk back, doesnt yell back - a traditional wife. But I wasnt that. We used to fight about other silly things too as normal couples do. However, my husband started to become distant from me. After few months of marriage, my sex life became once in couple of months to 0. It has been 2.5 years that we didnt have sex NOR kiss each other. I asked him many times what the reason was and he tells me it was due to the fights we had at the beginning. Every couple has fights; and I treated them normal. As we had no physical intimacy in our marriage, my self esteem went downhill in the past 2.5 years. Every day i think about not having physical intimacy in my life. I am 28; young beautiful but NO kiss/romance in my life. I hear this problem in this forum in many marriages but only after many years; for me it started just after few months of my marriage, Apart from physical, our normal life is very good. My husband and I became best friends over the past 3 years, have less fights now and understand each other much better now. We hug each other, sleep next to each other hand in hand, cuddle etc but no sexual intimacy. I asked him multiple times whether or not he is atttracted to him and why he doesnt want to be close to me sexually. He tells me that he feels pressured if i ask him and it was due to the fights we had during the first year of my marriage. But those were normal fights and they were 2 years ago. He tells me it will get better with him; but i feel like I cannot wait any longer. Not having any romance or intimacy in my life is frustrating me every day. This is affecting the way I feel about my husband too. i feel like I am not attracted to him anymore; When i think about sex, it turns me off when I think about my husband.
In the interrim, my ex would call once in a while to see how I was doing. Every time he talks to me he mentions how hurt he was when we broke up. Every time he talks he would mention, his heart and stomach USED to ache so much and he felt like he was going to die when i broke up with him Everytime i talk to him, he says how he is still in love with me and can never find a girl like me. He doesnt have any girlfriend; nor he is trying to find one. He tells me he doesnt want a girl in his life as he thinks his ability to love is gone and he cannot love anyone else except for me. Every time we talk, he talks about the good times we had, the way i look, the way i smile; the way i responded to certain things etc.
My husband doesnt know i still talk to my ex because I didnt want to complicate things. Recently after 3 yrs of my marriage, my ex requested me to see him once; just as a friend. I went to see him with FRIENDLY intentions BUT he tried to kiss me. I backed off. He started telling me how beautiful I am than before and started remembering old times. In the past 2.5 years, no one kissed me NOR touched me and I was longing so much for it. When he tried to kiss me again, I kissed him back. One thing let to another and we ended up having sex. Now this has complicated things so much. i felt so guilty that I have cheated on my husband and swore that I would never do it again. But once in a while in the night, my memories with my ex keep coming back to me. In the nights, I keep remembering about my ex and his sexual thoughts overtake me. My ex asks me to meet him again; i cannot control my thoughts thinking about the sex we had and get tempted to meet him but i know this is wrong.
But, to be honest with you, I love my husband with no physical feelings. I cannot leave my husband; just the thought of leaving him drives me crazy, I cant spend few hours without talking to him but I dont have those intimacy feelings with my husband that I have with my ex. I get very confused because the mere thought of leaving my husband freaks me OUT.
I am not sure why I am feeling this way and confused about my relationship with my ex and my husband. Can anyone provide any insight?
Hi kya--I don't know about any real good advice I can give, but I will tell you some of my story with ex-loves. I was once married to the love of my life, very passionate and loving. We were very close like you and your ex. Some circumstances happened in our relationship, and we were just too young to deal with them emotionally. We still loved each other very much but ended the relationship eventually. We moved on to other relationships, but somewhat remained in contact and still had the feeling of love between us, but could not leave the relationships we were in. We had always thought that we would get back together sometime in the future. That future never happened as he died this past Feb. He was only 37.
I don't mean to scare you or make you feel you should leave your husband for your ex, but I just wanted you to be aware that if you truly love your ex...with all your heart, you may have a regret later in life that you did not get that chance to be with him. I don't pretend to understand religion, but truly loving someone is a blessing and religion should not stand between someone's happiness.
Your husband is your friend and you do not want to hurt him. I can understand that, I am in the same situation with mine. I don't want to hurt him, yet I am not truly happy either. We don't have sex, we are just friends. I want the love i had with my first husband. Had I known what the future held I think I would of held onto him and made sure that I made that marriage work, I don't have that opportunity now and I will live with the regret forever.
I guess the best advice that would be seen as 'proper' would be to work on the marriage. You made a vow, and are expected to keep it. If this is more important to you than the feelings you have for your ex... then you need to break any contact with the ex. Staying in contact with him will damage your marriage even further.
When it comes to matters of the heart nothing is 'black and white.' Only you know what your heart is saying. I know it is not any fun dealing with the conflict of mind and heart, I've done it for yrs! Right and wrong are never as simple when dealing with love.
If I were to be able to look back and tell myself advice when going through all the turmoil, I would have told myself to follow my heart, and that would of led me back to my first H. But that is ME, if you want to fight for your marriage then do so, that is the 'right' thing.
I wish you the best of luck, and I hope your heart leads you to the right place.
thanks so much stumblealong for your excellent insight. Yes it is a game of heart and mind in the end. You are absolutely right - there is no "black and white" when it comes to love.
I think the "proper" way is the right way and I should stick to my husband and sort out things with him hoping that the things would change. I dont think I should be selfish for romance and have so many people's lives at stake. It is not just my husband but it also involves 2 families that are going to be at stake (his family and my family) who will be extremely hurt. Hopefully god will provide me strength to stand by and stay away from frustrations. Just the thought of hurting so many people involved is MORE painful than being happy that I have love of my life. As far as cutting contact with my ex, he would be hurt so much and I think about doing that every day but somehow not getting the strength to directly tell him that I cant talk to him anymore.
Confused about relationship 
Re: Confused about relationship 
