Ask Me Help Desk - Finding my first love during divorce

I met my true love in 1991. He fell in love with me, and I fell in love with him. Due to inequity and societal bias at the time, he chose to break up with me; however, we never forgot about each other. He is black and from the deep South, while I am white and from the far North. Which did not matter to me at the time. I love him and his skin colour was never a factor in my love. We went on to marry other people (the wrong ones for each of us) and were each married for 19 years before we proceeded through divorce and started trying to find each other.

I found him this spring. My divorce is effective May 31st of this year. He is coming to join me prior to my divorce. We both want to honour each other; he lives in the U.S. and I live in Canada. We are both in our late 40's, want to have God in our life together, and miss each other a great deal. I have plenty of room in my home (medium sized city in Saskatchewan) for him to have his own room until June, if that's what we decide will work the best for us. To respect my two teenage sons who stay with me often.

We are trying to do some brainstorming to determine what's best for everyone. My ex-husband found a new girlfriend one month after I left him and he is still with here (I feel happy for him, as our relationship did nothing to feed the two of us, and she is a much better match for him).

What do you think? And thank you for your help.

I believe you are in love with a memory, and the real life person will not ever reach the lofty goals you have in your mind.

I believe if it had really been true love, the difference in 1991 (which the deep south had mixed marriage by then) would not have been that much of an issue. True love does not give up and go off and marry other people.

I think, you need to to live apart for months, talking, and dating, and actually getting to know him, not the memory you had over 20 years ago. The plain fact is, that over 20 years you and he are not even close to the same people, same goals, and same dreams as you were back then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

I believe you are in love with a memory, and the real life person will not ever reach the lofty goals you have in your mind.

I believe if it had really been true love, the difference in 1991 (which the deep south had mixed marriage by then) would not have been that much of an issue. True love does not give up and go off and marry other people.

I think, you need to to live apart for months, talking, and dating, and actually getting to know him, not the memory you had over 20 years ago. The plain fact is, that over 20 years you and he are not even close to the same people, same goals, and same dreams as you were back then.

Thank you for your answer, Fr Chuck - I appreciate your perspective,

We are not in love with a memory, actually. And neither one of us have lofty goals. I'm not sure what lofty goals you think we have in mind. In addition, we have spent many months talking because we are far apart right now. We are not the same people at all - and have discussed this at great length with each other.

I do appreciate your suggestion about dating for months, talking and getting to know each other. That's part of our plan together anyway. We want to make sure that what we have together is what we believe it to be. We have many years of life experience combined, and are not going into this blindly.

Consider your mention of wanting God in the life that you build together. Would that include waiting to be intimate until you are married? If so, might be best to have him get set up in a place of his own, date for awhile as Fr_Chuck suggested, and take things slowly, especially since you are both coming out of long term relationships, and, as you said, you are different people now.

I wish you much joy in discovering if it's meant to be!

Sounds good on paper, reuniting and building a life together after so much time and life has gone in between this great love. You are not picking up where you left off, you both are starting over. So do it right and find out if the years have changed you, and how, since you both have two failed relationships/marriages a piece, and share one with each other already.

Moving in together after just talking is a lousy idea at this time, and I wonder what the rush is. Date for a while and get reaquanted as he makes the transition from talking to living in a new place. And you make the transition to having someone back in your life.

You both are older but you are making the same mistakes of young people, rushing to make a decision based on feelings with few facts. One would hope you would use that wisdom from experience you both should have gained to make a better plan for yourselves that was more thought out, than based on high hopes, and expectations.

You can afford to go slow and find your way, rather than jump into something that looks good,and you want it to be good, but don't know if its good for you. There is much to learn, and relearn that talking doesn't reveal, and can only be discovered after much personal interactions.

Like I said it looks good on paper, but we all know people, and life are much more complicated, after the newness, and thrills have worn off, and the reality has set in. When you have a chance to take your time, and do it right, take it. As you can tell I disregarded the whole part about race, and God, as excuses for failure, or justification for the future, since the bottomline is how two people work together to build a life. Love is great, but compatibility and commitment is way better, and that remains to be seen.

Good luck though whatever course of action you take.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoulaLC

Consider your mention of wanting God in the life that you build together. Would that include waiting to be intimate until you are married? If so, might be best to have him get set up in a place of his own, date for awhile as Fr_Chuck suggested, and take things slowly, especially since you are both coming out of long term relationships, and, as you said, you are different people now.

I wish you much joy in discovering if it's meant to be!

Thank you for your well wishes! We want to temper our energy for each other with common sense and good will. We have discussed what kind of spiritual life we want together. Which means what God wants for us, before we are married and when we get married.

And p.s. - your encouragement and kindness in your response is appreciated. We both know life will not be perfect. But we don't expect it to be. We also know we only have so much life to live and to give on this planet. Not trying is not an option for either one of us.

Any scorn or derision coming our way from other responders is intriguing, certainly. And everyone is entitled to their opinion, since I put my query out there in the first place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by talaniman

Sounds good on paper, reuniting and building a life together after so much time and life has gone in between this great love. You are not picking up where you left off, you both are starting over. So do it right and find out if the years have changed you, and how, since you both have two failed relationships/marriages a piece, and share one with each other already.

Moving in together after just talking is a lousy idea at this time, and I wonder what the rush is. Date for a while and get reaquanted as he makes the transition from talking to living in a new place. And you make the transition to having someone back in your life.

You both are older but you are making the same mistakes of young people, rushing to make a decision based on feelings with few facts. One would hope you would use that wisdom from experience you both should have gained to make a better plan for yourselves that was more thought out, than based on high hopes, and expectations.

You can afford to go slow and find your way, rather than jump into something that looks good,and you want it to be good, but don't know if its good for you. There is much to learn, and relearn that talking doesn't reveal, and can only be discovered after much personal interactions.

Like I said it looks good on paper, but we all know people, and life are much more complicated, after the newness, and thrills have worn off, and the reality has set in. When you have a chance to take your time, and do it right, take it. As you can tell I disregarded the whole part about race, and God, as excuses for failure, or justification for the future, since the bottomline is how two people work together to build a life. Love is great, but compatibility and commitment is way better, and that remains to be seen.

Good luck though whatever course of action you take.

Thank you for your insight and caution. We can take our time - we know we have a great love. We don't know how that is, we just know. This does not come through the eyes of naiveté. It comes through years of learning, experience, and not having what we sought from the beginning.

My question came on paper. It is not my intention to get permission from anyone to go ahead and do this. I didn't need to put my question out there if I thought it would look good and paper and help me rationalize. I wanted other's perspectives, which is what I am receiving. Race is a clunky term to me. We all, on this planet, belong to only one race. But we've all had our lessons and learning in life. And use that to move forward.

Good luck in your own life - and bless you for responding to me, with logic and luck. I think we all want happy endings in our lives.