Asking for a friend

Your problems solved by The Midults

Q:Dear A&E, between the ages of 29 and 33, I was in a relationship with a kind, attractive man who doted on me and made it clear that he’d like to marry me. I loved him, but didn’t feel ready, and when I was offered a job in LA I accepted. A year later I ended it. Fast-forward four years: I’m moving back to the UK and can’t stop thinking about him. He’s now married. Mutual friends tell me that he married her to get over me. Everything tells me I should respect his new life, but a bit of me keeps thinking, what if he still thinks of me, too? — Regretful

Dear Regretful, regret is terribly hard because it is about ships that have sailed, milk that is spilt, horses that have bolted. It’s very hard to do anything about, beyond forgiving ourselves, understanding the why and, where appropriate, making amends. Regret can poison us, disempower us and obsess us. It can, of course, also teach us, but we must be careful to learn the valuable lessons because otherwise all it teaches us is that we were wrong and bad… and that is why we have been left behind. You were not wrong nor bad. You were younger and hungrier and you believed there was more out there. There is still more out there, but now you are operating against a different landscape. So some of this is about acceptance. Accepting yourself and your choices, and that he has moved on.

We all have friends who tell us what we want to hear. They were the friends who told us that men didn’t call us because they were trapped under a rock and couldn’t reach the phone. Or that boyfriends dumped us because they liked us too much and couldn’t cope with that depth of feeling. These friends are trying to be kind but they are enabling us in our fantasy.

People very rarely get married in order to get over a lover. Sure, they may go on a casual-sex spree, but taking actual vows? We would advise you not to dwell on that idea because – painful as this realisation is – it feels improbable. Stay on Earth. Anyway, this is not about him. It is about you and where you find yourself.

In our experience, 37 is starkly different from 32. At 37, reality bites and the awfulness of feeling left behind starts to sting. Moving abroad can deliver real elation; a sense of cutting all ties and devouring the world. But that can turn, on a pin, into a feeling of rootlessness. And now that you are returning to England your brain is not computing the change that has occurred because the last time you lived here, this man was desperate to marry you.

The pandemic proved a particularly fertile time for us all to sift through our memories to find a nice fantasy to chew on. There has been something intense about the nostalgia element of the Covid crisis: we missed our friends. Then we missed holidays, then being 15, then various ex-boyfriends. We flicked through our emotional photo albums to find something that felt safe. One toe in the water and suddenly you’re up to your neck. We can convince ourselves of anything if we fixate on it enough.

Don’t contact him, Regretful. Let him be. Be kind to him, as he was to you. The cost of telling him could be very high. There was a reason you didn’t want him and you can’t know that this time will be different. Guard your sanity and your dignity. Get some therapy to unpack this.

The way the world works means that these same mutual friends will tell him that you are back and single. Or he will see you on social media. And if his marriage is failing then... who knows? But, for now, it seems that you dumped him, he was heartbroken and then he moved on.

You moved on first. Don’t ram yourself into reverse because the future feels scary. You are the kind of woman who moves continents and conquers careers. Be the grown-up that you are and look forward. This is a personal crisis. Your reignited feelings are a symptom rather than a cause of that. Hold yourself with compassion and live your life like the brave, dynamic woman you are.

Most likely, the feelings will fade and he will assume his rightful, cherished place in your past.

People rarely get married to get over a lover. Sure, they may go on a casualsex spree, but taking actual vows?

Do you have a dilemma that you’re grappling with? Email Annabel and Emilie on themidults@telegraph.co.uk. All questions are kept anonymous. They are unable to reply to emails personally