Asking for a friend

Your problems solved by The Midults

Q: Dear A&E, My ex-boyfriend recently said that he’d like to reunite, after 11 years apart. We had a quiet, lacklustre relationship, which lasted almost a decade. I was in my late 20s when I ended it as I felt it wasn’t enough, but we remained friends. He hasn’t really dated since, whereas I had some fiery, short-lived relationships. Now I’m 39 and I want to settle down and have a baby. I’d always held out for someone special, but I’m wondering whether to reciprocate as he ticks all boxes – reliable, secure and thoughtful. I just don’t feel that ‘zingy’ thing. Does that matter? And would it make me a bad person if I did it without telling him this? — Cynical

Dear Cynical, oof. It’s awful the way the landscape changes in your 30s. One minute you are all single and getting drunk at weddings, the next everyone else seems to be planning their second baby and life has suddenly become like those timelapse nature videos, where you find yourself looking at tiny shoots and, before you can blink, an entire forest has grown around you, and you are standing there, alone, lost, thinking… ‘How on earth did I end up here?’

Our hearts are with you, Cynical, and with all the folk who feel that all their past mistakes have concertina’d up on them and every romantic decision they’ve made is laced with regret. You are lost in a relationship thicket where there’s only one sound echoing. And it’s a ticking clock.

So you are in a risk-management situation. And as Annabel always says, ‘You might as well suck it and see.’ You might like it. You need to be in it to know if it’s a goer – boots on the ground. You will also know pretty quickly if it’s going to work. In our experience, the nice ones get sexier as they get older, whereas the impassioned maniacs start to look a little silly. Not to mention dangerous. In fact, your pursuit of swashbucklers for short, sharp heartbreaks might be rather telling and unhelpful. What those men ignite in us is often something other than true love. But we digress.

Chasing the idea of the perfect romance can keep us in the wilderness. When we are single, the idea of meeting ‘the one’ is like a narcotic, it’s so seductive, but it’s basically gambling. So you owe it to yourself to have another look at this kind man, Cynical, and you owe it to him to be honest.

This could sound a little like this: ‘I don’t know how this is going to go, but you were very special to me, and I’d like to give it another try. To be truly honest, I don’t know how much of this is about the situation I find myself in because I am a bit lonely and I would like to have a baby. How do you feel about giving this a go, knowing that I have huge affection for you, but I don’t feel swept off my feet?’ Hold his hand and see whether this is a hand you can hold for the next 20 years. But be transparent and candid with him, because pretending to swoon will get old and embarrassing pretty quickly. And could flip into revulsion and resentment.

Now, if you are honest with him and he says, ‘No. I will not be your consolation prize,’ then you are going to have to hear that. It’s going to sting but… nothing ventured.

So go forth, Cynical, and reconquer. Make sure you are constantly checking in with yourself – we feel it’s essential that you are in therapy during this process – because otherwise you run the risk of hating him, hating yourself, brimming with the kind of frustration and guilt that can turn into corrosive, toxic anger.

Bear in mind that plenty of people reunite after five, 10, 50 years apart and it’s a great success. Remember you are not the same person you were all those years ago. What you can’t be is in a relationship with this man and simultaneously looking around for a bigger, better deal. A half-heart will only end up as a broken heart.

Chasing the idea of the perfect romance can keep us in the wilderness