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Your wife casually mentions that she connected with her ex-boyfriend from nearly 20 years ago through Facebook. It seems innocent enough, and you’re not worried, but maybe it’s not something you want to overlook.
Some fires never fully die out. And apparently for women, re-kindling a relationship with an old flame is becoming increasingly common.
According to The Normal Bar, one of the most extensive studies on love and relationships, 32% of women who admitted to having indiscretions outside of their committed relationship did so with an old boyfriend or crush. Men who had affairs, on the other hand, only did so with an old flame 21% of the time.
When two people are disconnected from one another, the relationship is vulnerable.
Consider my client, Maggie.
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James sent a friend request to Maggie. She accepted. He had once been the love of her young life and the man she thought she would spend eternity with, but life got in the way, they both made some missteps, and they chalked it up to being young and foolish.
But a lot had changed for Maggie since that time so long ago; she had changed.
She was now married with two children who were teenagers. She and her husband, Peter, had done what most parents did—put the needs of the kids first and moved through their days running between work, the kid’s functions, and taking care of the household.
In the midst of that busy-ness, there simply wasn’t time to connect in any meaningful way with the man she pledged to love forever. They had placed their relationship on auto-pilot and had grown apart.
As the children needed her less and less, she was left facing the emptiness and disconnection in her marriage, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
She tried to convince herself that this is just how marriage is after so many years. She told herself she should be grateful; after all, Peter was a good man, a decent man. He was responsible and stable. He worked hard and was loyal and honest.
While Maggie was craving a deeper connection, she was simultaneously trying to convince herself that she shouldn’t want or need anything more than what she had. But she felt numb, empty and alone. The marriage was vulnerable. She was vulnerable.
Enter ex-boyfriend, James, from nearly three decades ago. He had also gotten married and had children that were now off creating lives of their own, but had since divorced. He had been on his own for several years now and had built a very successful business for himself; it gave Maggie some comfort to see for herself that he was doing well and that he seemed happy. She had loved him years ago and always wished him well.
Their initial messaging conversations were harmless, the two of them catching up on all that had changed in their lives over the years. She had even mentioned the conversation to her husband, Peter, but he didn’t seem either interested or concerned. It only took a few weeks for the conversation to move to text messages and become a bit more flirtatious.
She began confiding in James. She began sharing how she felt about her marriage, and he opened up to her as well and shared how he thought about her often over the years. She felt seen and heard for the first time in more than a decade. And now, even though it was only a conversation via text or email, she finally had something to look forward to when she awoke each day.
She knew engaging with an old flame was dangerous. She knew she was playing with fire. But she couldn’t turn away from the heat it provided.
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Social media makes connecting with old flames easy; many times, they’re only a shared connection and a click away. And the allure of an old flame to a woman feeling disconnected in her marriage can be particularly dangerous. Here’s why you shouldn’t ignore it:
There’s the Romance of It
There’s a nostalgic aspect of remembering the good times from when we were all younger, back when we felt more alive, had more freedom and had the world by the tail. Those good old days were before we started adulting and before time began moving as quickly as it does now. It’s easy to romanticize it.
There’s Comfort
Even though a great deal of time has passed, there’s a comfort and a sense that the two people still know one another. The shared history makes it feel safe and easy, almost picking-up where it left off. Therefore, these relationships develop much more quickly than a new relationship might where two new people spend time getting to know one another.
There’s Regret or FOMO
When a marriage is vulnerable, and an old flame comes back in the picture, it’s easy to see the missteps in the rearview mirror and feel some regret. Our minds will also tell us maybe this is our second chance and show us all sorts of tempting possibilities that we don’t want to miss now in this second half of our lives.
For women, in particular, there’s an allure to an old flame that doesn’t exist with other new relationships. There’s a certain romantic quality to an old flame, there’s a comfort there that feels safe and easy, and there are the regrets that are playing over and over in the back of the mind that make this kind of an affair much more dangerous to a struggling marriage. It’s much more personal and intimate than a typical affair created with a stranger. And it catches fire more quickly.
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If you’re a man whose marriage has been existing on embers for far too long and you see your wife talking to an old boyfriend, it’s time to pay attention and start a new fire for the two of you.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
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The post Guys, You Better Pay Attention to Her Old Flame appeared first on The Good Men Project.
