Heartbroken

Recently, as a result of some of my posts here on 24, people have been coming to me and sharing personal tales of love and/or betrayal with me.  Sometimes they let me share their stories with you.  I change identifying details to protect them and always ask their permission, of course.  

I'm really honored every time someone chooses to share their heart with me.

What's been surprising to me, is more men have shared their stories with me than women have.  I think, perhaps, it's because men aren't free to discuss deep feelings to the extent women in our society are.  Sharing with me via email, however, is easy and more acceptable to them.  (That's my theory, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.)

Recently, the love of Jack's life told him their relationship must end.  Jack is heartbroken.  Jack is distraught.  Jack understands fully why she wants to stop all contact but he can't imagine not having Katie in his life.  

"I can't bear the thought of losing her again," he wrote.

Yes, again.

Jack and Katie dated in their early thirties for three years.  Jack was just coming out of a serious relationship when he met Katie.  Jack felt like he needed a little time "to play the field" before settling down.  He hadn't expected to meet Katie when he did.  He hadn't expected to fall in love, but he did.  Jack and Katie were a couple, but they were also best friends.

"She's the best friend I've ever had," states Jack.  "We just clicked on every level.  I didn't realize at the time how rare it is to find that."

And yet, Jack says he knew he needed some time on his own, without a partner for awhile.  In his words, "Katie was the right person, but at the wrong time. I wasn't ready to settle down coming right off another relationship."

Katie and Jack broke up when Jack was 33.  They stayed in touch at first and then they began dating other people.  Jack was "absolutely positive" they would get back together for good.  Apparently, Katie was not as sure.  He wrote, "She gave up on me.  She gave up believing I'd ever be ready.  She wanted to start a family."

Katie married someone else.  She was 35 when she married and her relationship with Jack had been over for two years.

Jack tells me that he understands intellectually why things happened the way they did.  Emotionally, however, he felt "betrayed" when he heard Katie was marrying.

"I didn't believe she could love anyone else the way we loved each other.  We were soul mates.  I kept asking myself how she could do this to me?  How could she marry someone I knew she didn't love as much as she loved me?  At the same time, I knew it was my fault I lost her.  I didn't give her any reason to believe in me."

Fifteen years have gone by.  Katie and her husband have two young teenagers.  Jack just turned fifty.  

He wrote, "I just floated around with no focus for a long time after Katie got married.  I think a part of me was hoping she'd realize her mistake and we'd end up together after all.  Instead, I never heard from her again.  I finally gave up.  I was convinced I'd never talk to or see her again." 

Jack got married when he was 39.   He says he loves his wife and has a good marriage, "but it's not the same."  

"I tried to find another Katie, but there is no other Katie," he wrote.  Jack also has one daughter who he loves "dearly."  He told me he has never stopped thinking about Katie.

"There's just something magical about her." 

Eight months ago Jack and Katie ran into each other.

"Time stopped the minute our eyes met," he reports.  They both made a quick change of plans and spent two hours together talking and catching up on each other's lives.  

"It was as if no time had passed.  I think we could have talked for ten hours straight.  I immediately had my best friend back."

Jack felt euphoric after seeing Katie again.  He alleges they have a "connection like no other."  Then he went home to his wife and child and felt guilty.  

Since that initial, unplanned, reunion Jack has seen Katie only one other time.  They met for coffee one afternoon.  Jack has also called Katie at her work four or five times, "Just to see how she's doing."

He's asked to see her again, but she has refused.  Jack says he is "dying" to see her.  She's told him that being with him evokes too many emotions. 

Katie told Jack she's scared.  She told him she doesn't know if she can handle all the emotions that come along with a former lover.

Jack says he thinks about Katie "day and night."

"In a perfect world I'd like more, but I'm willing to settle for a platonic friendship with Katie just to keep her in my life."

I emailed Jack back and asked him if he really believes he could keep an ongoing relationship with Katie platonic.

He answered, "I'd like to think so.  To be honest, though, I'm not sure.  I just feel like I have to see her.  I need her."

The last time Jack called Katie she told him they should break off all contact.  (Not because she doesn't want to see or talk to him, but because she does.)  She told Jack she still loves him but she wants to do "the right thing."  She was crying when they said good-bye.

Jack asserts he wants to do the right thing also, "but is it really the right thing to walk away from a person you love this much?" 

Jack closed his letter with this:

"I will always love her.  It seems impossibly sad to think of not having her in my life now that we've finally found each other again.  Losing her again is killing me."

Pain is etched in every word he writes.

© Twenty Four At Heart

Comments

[Jack]

It is a rough situation with no easy answers. If you'll forgive me, I'd like to refer you to a post of mine that kind of ties into this:

The Heart Wants What The Heart Wants

http://wwwjackbenimble.blogspot.com/2007/10/heart-wants-what-heart-wants.html

[Kelly]

This is really sad. How can a person not be hoping they'll find a way to be together eventually?

[Kate]

Do their spouses know they've been in touch? And if so, what was the reaction?

[Pseudo]

I think this is a good example of "sometimes in life there are no second chances."

Sorry, but I don't feel that sorry for Jack. Only Katie. I've known too many men like that who take too long to realize what they have. He deserved to lose her. I feel sorry for Katie that she has to relive regrets.

[hillary]

I agree with Pseudo. This is not an easy issue but you make your bed, you have to lay in it. To disrupte two families for a crush you didn't act upon earlier in life is selfish and immature.

[Ann's Rants]

This is gut-wrenching, but I also think he is idealizing her and what they had, etc etc

It's obvious that the passion is abundant, but the foundation they had was shaky to begin with. Throw in adultery and children and divorce, and I wonder how strong their bond would prove over time.

[san]

As heartbreaking as the story is - it's Jack's own fault that he lost Katie.
They dated for three years when he suggested that they both see other people, that he needed "to play the field", even though he knew that she was "THE ONE".
He can't blame her for getting married when she did. She was 35, her biological clock was ticking and she wanted a family. Who can blame her? Jack didn't give her any reason to believe he would be ready for that - even two years later - and to think that she would continue to meet with him (with the very likely possiblity of more happening than just a platonic friendship (who is he kidding?)) is very irresponsible and selfish.

[Mike]

I am good friends with an old lover. It wasn't easy to turn the relationship into a friendship at first but it has worked for us. Sometimes the ties to a person are too strong to ignore. Its possible to channel them into an appropriate relationship. Not easy, but possible. It requires a lot of communication honesty respect and boundaries. Getting together for a drink when your spouse is out of town is not an option.

[Michelle Pixie]

As sad as it maybe for Jack and Katie all I could think of were the spouses of these two. Do they know that they have been back in contact? I know that if my husband were to become in contact with an old flame I don't think emotionally I could handle it but I truly wouldn't be able to handle the situation if I knew that I could never hold a candle to her and that she's the 'one' in his mind. I too have come across a past lover on my road and my husband was with me at the time he hated every second of our 'niceties' with each other but nothing made me more grateful than to know I was in the arms of my husband. How sad for Jack's wife that he doesn't feel this way for her and that in a sense he settled for his wife but will always long for Katie. :(

[Joanne]

The strangest part of the whole issue is that I keep reading into his sad words something I came to believe many years ago..... A love lost, or denied can be so easily idealized in the private of our own imaginings. Kind of like making a mountain out of a molehill, but in a warm fuzzy way. there is no love as sweet as lost love. The disappointments in any relationship can be easily wiped away by the good times remembered, and only rekindling that flame will allow us to remember why we broke off the first time. He is imagining his "perfect love" but has allowed himself to put a face on it, but it still has little to do with reality. He would do himself a favor to stop living in "what if" and invest in his family.

[tina]

He should definitely respect his wife and family and not see or think of her again. They should not pay the consequences of this "choices". He chose to marry and create a child instead of wait for Katie so he should "chose" to make his marriage better and love his daughter.

[Kari-Mel]

I believe they need to let sleeping dogs lie and just keep the memories. Too many lives would be torn apart for what may not even work - and that is not worth it!

Tearing any relationship apart can be so heartwrenching! I know - and it was simply a friendship! http://www.deminimis.net/karimel/

[Liz C]

Jack may think he can have a platonic relationship with Katie, but what he wants is an emotional affair. Big gold stars to Katie for just saying no.

[Anonymous]

I'm in the minority here I guess. I'm not suggesting an affair or condoning one in anyway. Still, I think this is a very sad story and hope maybe they can find a way to maintain some type of relationship or friendship. Maybe just get caught up on each others lives a couple times each year? Maybe in time they really could be "just friends" ??

[Cari]

I have a friend who met an old boyfriend for coffee and an hour later an affair began. Jack's playing with fire.

[Janine]

Seriously? None of your commenters are friends with any old boy/girlfriends? I'm friends with all of my exes and its been great. Yes, the transition straight out of a relationship to friendship can sometimes have awkward moments but given time you get past that. As long as they both agree teh past is the past ... it can be done. Now if Jack is looking for a little action on the side thats an entirely different situation.

[Jack]

Live unfulfilled lives that are empty and hollow or take a chance. It is easy to judge and say what you should do, far harder to do it. We all make choices and sometimes we make mistakes.

Sometimes you don't realize what you don't have until it is stuck in your face. There is no right or wrong answer here, just a lot of questions.

[Anonymous]

I don't feel sad for Jack at all - I feel sad for his wife. Does she know about the burning fire Jack has for his ex?

I've never been one to stay in touch with exes..what for? I see it as bringing baggage into a new relationship, which can lead to problems.

[Andrea]

Life is not black and white. Is Jack idealizing the past? Maybe. Do they really love each other still? It sure sounds like it. Do people ever get second chances? Sometimes. Do friendships with exes ever work out? Yes they do. Do they need to respect their current lives/spouses/families? Yes absolutely. Can they forge a new friendship with their current lives? No one can know that but Jack and Katie. Tina (above) says he should never think of her again. Um, THAT'S not going to happen. People may be able to control their actions, but their thoughts and emotions? Especially if you truly love someone? If they never see each other again my guess is they will think of each other every single day till they die.

[Sarah]

Janine - Being friends with exes is one thing - and I am with a couple. Because our relationships had run their course... and we know it, and are able to appreciate each other on a purely platonic level with zero regret. Clearly Jack and Katie did NOT have that opportunity, so YES, I think for many, being "just friends" would be more than a little challenging, considering his continuing and underlying desire for MORE, and how she recognizes how drawn to him she still is.

It's just a sad situation. Jack blew it. Now Katie knows that no matter how she feels about him, honoring her committments are what's most important to her. Just like she knew 15 years ago what was most important to her. Everyone makes mistakes they pay for, on one level or another, for the rest of their lives. I wonder if Katie would, retrospectively, have preferred a life with Jack, but possibly without children? Or without her own biological, anyway.

I wonder about Jack's wife... she's probably suspected all along that she is not his "true love". I wonder if she, too, gave up on HER theorectical true love and settled for a man who was willing to give her the home and children she wanted? Willing to compromise on the rest because she knew Jack would never have her whole heart, either?

[Jack]

"Now Katie knows that no matter how she feels about him, honoring her committments are what's most important to her"

What happens if she realizes that she is not really happy. What happens if she decides that she doesn't really love her husband. Is she supposed to stay married no matter what?

[jennster]

it's obvious she feels the same that he does, but she is choosing the smart thing by staying away from him. she is doing what she should, what's right, and what is respectful to her husband and family. he needs to respect that and he is probably only making it harder on her everytime he tries to contact her.

he needs to let her go... again.

[Michelle Pixie]

Jack, I don't think that you stay married no matter what that isn’t healthy for anyone involved. I just think you should finish the relationship you are in before allowing another one to begin. And obviously the giddy feeling after seeing Katie again and the guilt that was felt when with the wife and child after being with Katie speaks volumes to me. Honor the choices and commitments you have made and if you want to be somewhere else then be fair to your wife and let her move on rather then being stuck in a relationship trying to live up to something she is never going to be able to live up too. Honestly I think we all look at our lives from time to time and the what ifs flow its how we handle those moments that defines us.

[Janine]

I don't see where Jack (or Katie) was suggesting an affair OR getting divorced and running off together. Am I missing something? Isn't he trying to stay in touch with her, have her in his life in a platonic way? I'm not judging whether they CAN make that happen, but it doesn't read like he's asking her to ditch her kids and run away to Vegas together. On the other hand, if either one of them was 100% fulfilled and happy in their marriages I don't think they'd still have these feelings or a conflict about it at all. The fact that they both still care so deeply for each other after all these years? Clearly they have something unusual and special. Maybe its worth fighting to hang on to it even if it has to be a platonic friendship now?

[Paris Parfait]

Timing; it's all about timing. And sometimes timing can be a bitch. Sigh.

[dogmother]

Very sad story...but I have to agree with Janine..."it's all about timing"...absolutely. I have remained very good friends with an ex-boyfriend...we shared huge, important pieces of our lives when we were "together". I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will remain friends, nothing more. This has caused friction at times with my husband (insecurity), but it's a very precious friendship that I'm not willing to relinquish. I love the comments on this post...so insightful and obviously not a foreign topic to most people.

[lynn]

I kind of feel these two met again for a reason...maybe they are the other's soulmate. 50 years apart and BAM! a rekindled love that begins a whole new life..it's been known to happen! The old adage...the heart wants what it wants! We are, afterall, human. Please give us an update if you know what actually happens.

[san]

Janine - I am still friends with my exboyfriend. We spent 10 years together and I still think he's one of the greatest people I know. Friendship is possible, but I don't think that Jack truly wants friendship, even though that's what he suggests.