So fresh on my mind but I’ve been impacted by an old relationship that wasn’t dating. I feel I have a precautionary tale to tell.
I’ve had in my life 3 girlfriends that I’ve dated. I’ve only kissed 2 of them including my wife so I’d like to tell a story.
Girlfriend number 1. We had a good rapport. I hadn’t considered the issues of dating with her. In hindsight I feel she stole my first kiss but that could come across as blaming her as I didn’t stop her. It was a physically stimulating relationship that didn’t go beyond kissing physically but I had that bad feeling in my stomach from day 1. I felt that the physical was getting in the way so at some point I asked to back off the kissing totally so I could see clearly but that sinking feeling never went away.
Now not sure about the timeline; the order of events get a bit jumbled a quarter of a century ago, but I had a girl that was a friend so not in my list of girlfriends, Let’s call her Joan (sorry to all the joans) we were best friends and we were both aware of and looking at each other towards marriage. We probably hadn’t consciously chosen a path of not dating. In the course of this I had asked her to marry me; which she declined at that time. I was broken hearted, I was losing my best friend. We had to part company as it wasn’t healthy for me any longer.
i had girlfriend number 2 in this period, lasted a few months, never kissed, always had that sinking feeling. So it didn’t last. She was heartbroken for a long time after.
A couple of years later Joan got engaged and married, I went to the wedding and I had given her up as she had made her decision, it was a melancholy experience but I was happy for her; just not for me.
Not long after I started dating my wife to be, let’s call her Fran (Sorry all you Fran’s) at some stage we broke up during the dating process. She’s an amazing lady but I couldn’t get to a place where I was confident that I had what I had experienced with. I had a decision to make. I wondered how it was that I couldn’t love her. I felt broken inside and maybe not capable of love maybe from this experience with Joan.
I don’t think we consciously think the thoughts or understand what was going on but in hindsight I wish for my wife that I was far more transparent about Joan but it was a brutal experience that I didn’t want to revisit and the door was well and truly closed to Joan.
In this breakup period I did a lot of soul searching. I resolved that I was going to ask Fran to marry me. This I did and she said yes!
So here we are a couple of decades on happily married with children life is good but I’ve never felt for my wife what I had with Joan.
Now Joan came back a couple of years after we were married and visited. I wasn’t quite sure how to take it; I just sat there like a stunned mullet. But a couple of years back she requested friendship on Facebook. I had thought about her nearly every day of my life since. I knew there was just no way that I could be friends with her. By this time my wife was aware of my proposal to Joan so to some extent the relationship was more in the light. I wasn’t prepared to tell my wife that I thought about Joan every day. (For all those reading here it’s obvious that I’ve got a stronghold functioning; I’m trying to be frank so others might learn)
The request sat there for a long time before I decided to write to her. I knew in writing that I had to trawl thru some very intense memories and I didn’t want to hurt Joan or reject her friendship lightly. I frankly told her about my stronghold and how it had affected me and I requested that she never come looking for me in friendship again. I told her that the situation was not her fault and I was happy for the fact she had found what she was looking for. The issue I had was my problem not hers.
It was a painful letter to write and now a few weeks later I’m still recovering. My wife knows about the letter and though it’s been tough it’s been good for us. I’m growing in the Lord and our marriage is stronger than ever. I will never and have never considered leaving Fran for Joan but I didn’t trust myself to any connection to Joan in any form of relationship. Even though I long to see her again I know it cannot be. I call it an uncovenanted affection that goes beyond normal friendship. If I see her in this lifetime it’s got to be Gods timing not mine.
In the post script I can see why the relationship would have been difficult for me. She was a far stronger character than me. I think of my failings with GF1 it was because I was a weak character; I could have resisted her physical advances but I didn’t. In hindsight I may have had a chance at dating Joan but for how I behaved here. We’ll never know eh.
If I had ended up with Joan I believe her stronger character would have caused me to shrink into myself. If it was today I probably would have the capacity and strength of character to stand up to her. It’s important in a relationship to test the word No on each other to see how each other deals with some confrontation.
The other hindsight that I have is I should have pursued despite her rejection of me (my own weakness of character comes into play here also) this is not to say that we shouldn’t as men understand the word no but the man needs to demonstrate his pursuit in adversity. Difficult to explain but I hope the readers will understand. I guess I needed to woo her. All this may not have changed history though. I have wondered if I had met Joan a couple of years later weather it was a timing thing but this too is unknowable.
So there you go. I asked 2 girls to marry me in my life and neither of them was I dating at the time.
My wife would say that if I had asked her to go out again she would have said no but the fact that I asked her to marry me meant that I was serious about where we were headed.
