We get a lot of advice questions coming in at EMandLO.com, but sadly, we just can’t answer them all. Which is why, once a week, we turn to you to decide how best to advise a reader. Make your call on the letter below by leaving your advice in the comments section.
Needing advice pls. A man that I once knew many years ago contacted me on Facebook 2 years ago and supposedly had searched me out for 10 years. Before we got separated….mind you, we never had sex, he laid a kiss on my forehead to say goodbye to me before I moved out of state later that same day. Only after I left town did he reveal to me that he was in love with me. Fast forward….after he reached out, I learned that he was married and I wished him well via email, but then admitted that I loved him too. That’s the only email we ever exchanged, and I told him that because I respected his married status now that we couldn’t be digital friends. ..this was in 2013. In 2014 I’m looking through my Twitter account and see that he’s following me. He said that he was happily married, yet he contacted a woman (me) who he never even kissed on the mouth or touched intimately aside from that forehead kiss. I can’t stop thinking about him. What’s the deal?
— The One Who Got Away?
Johnny is completely right! Regardless on what you’re feeling towards him (I agree that I’m not sure “love” is the correct word), his motivations for reaching out to you do not seem good intentioned. Regardless of any of the motivation on either of your sides, there’s really nothing you can do. He’s married, and whether or not he intends on leaving his wife or he hates his wife or anything else, he IS married, and there’s nothing to do about it.
This is silly.
He’s getting in touch with you after ten years because he wants to get with you, or wants to feel out whether he could get with you, or wants reassurance that he COULD have gotten with you ten years ago if he hadn’t been such a wuss. Maybe things are awful with his wife, maybe things are fine with his wife and just a cheater, maybe he’s going through some sort of mid-life crisis where he needs fresh attraction to feel alive. Maybe he’s convinced himself that you were the one and his whole life would be different if he’d taken a shot at a relationship with you back then. Who knows.
As for you… what’s YOUR deal? After not seeing this man for ten years – not that anything happened back then anyway – you admit you love him? You don’t even know this guy anymore. You can’t possibly be in love with him. Maybe you miss him, maybe the unexpected overture has thrown you for a exciting loop, but I’m pretty sure “love” isn’t what you’re feeling for this guy.
Fantasize about a hot affair with this guy, rub one out, then move on with your life. There’s nothing here for your. It’s a mirage.