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[conuly]

DEAR ABBY: I've been married for eight years. I love my wife with my heart and soul. The problem is, although I'm in love with her, I still love my ex-wife. I never actually expressed these feelings toward my ex until recently. I write to her and call her, hoping she will answer. I don't want to leave my wife because she's a good woman. But so was my ex. What can I do?

Every time my wife and I have a disagreement, I start thinking about my ex and what life would've been like if I had stayed with her. I find myself thinking about her more and more often each day. I know my ex still loves me, although she won't come out and say it. Is it OK to be in love with one and still love the other? -- LOTS OF LOVE IN FLORIDA

DEAR LOTS: May I inject a sliver of reality into your fantasy? You say you "know" your ex-wife still loves you although she won't come out and say it, nor does she answer your passionate letters. I'd say her refusal to communicate sends a pretty strong message that she doesn't feel the way you do.

I don't know what is wrong in your current marriage, but if you don't stop pining over the wife you dumped, you are going to lose this one, too. Counseling may help you accomplish this, and it is what I strongly recommend. Start now.

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Comments

[conuly]

I know I'm usually on the therapy train, but therapy works when the person seeking therapy understands that there is something wrong with their actions and/or thought processes. I'm not sure this dude does, he's living in a fantasy land of his own devising and it's so much better than reality.

But sure, it can't hurt.

In the meantime, somebody needs to let his wife and ex know how obsessed he is. I guess his ex has already guessed, but she still needs to take out a restraining order on him.

[carbonel]

From a practical point of view, I don't think an occasional email or phone call, annoying as they might be, rises to the level of needing (or being legal grounds for) a restraining order. Of course, if his self-reporting is only the tip of the iceberg...

[minoanmiss]

It is possible to love more than one person but this dude is not exactly a poly posterchild.

Every time my wife and I have a disagreement, I start thinking about my ex and what life would've been like if I had stayed with her. I find myself thinking about her more and more often each day. I know my ex still loves me, although she won't come out and say it.

1) he's comparing his real life warts-and-all wife to a fantasy of his ex. I wonder if he remembers what he thought of his ex back when he had disagreements with her?

2) "I know X thinks Y though they won't come out and say it." Sorry, dude, we're not a telepathic species.

I know the river Nile is warm and wide but he has to come out of de Nile sometime.

[green_grrl]

😂 Co-sign every bit of this.

[purlewe]

co-sign and add: LW you are having a very bad case of the what ifs. You need to grab ahold of the current nows/reality.

[oursin]

I am regretting the road not taken, can I go back and take it, even though the road isn't even there any more?

This sounds like one of the subplots in JM Barrie's Dear Brutus: where the philanderer will always chase whichever woman he is not committed to - in the Midsummer Night section his mistress and his wife have changed places, so he is yearning after his quondam wife.

[castiron]

Dude, there was a reason you divorced your ex. What makes you think it'll be magically different after eight years? Even if you dumped your wife and your ex took you back, what are the chances that in a few years you'll be going "crap, I shouldn't have dumped wife #2; it was so much better than with wife #1"?

Also, seriously? You think about leaving your wife every time you disagree with her? You're looking for that Magical Woman Who Thinks You're Perfect And Never Complains, aren't you?

(There's one or two exes who I'd hypothetically consider dating again if I were single and if the circumstances that made me go "nope, not good long-term prospect for me" had changed. But I wouldn't end my existing marriage to get back together with them.)

[melannen]

Anyone want to offer odds this guy was still married to Ex when he started dating Wife?

[sporky_rat]

I won't take that bet!