DEAR EMILY,

I am in my late 40s and have fallen in love only twice in my life.

My first boyfriend was a neighbor. We started in high school and continued on to college. We broke up when I discovered he had a gay lover on the side.

The second was with an officemate after college. Our relationship was intense from the start. When we met, I didn’t know he had just gotten married to a woman he had impregnated during a one-night stand. He said he had no protection.

I didn’t care about his status because we got too involved too fast and too much before I could end it.

When he told me that he was having another baby with her, I knew I’d have no future with him despite his promises. I finally left him when his jealousy turned into physical abuse. He got angry at every man I talked to, even the balut vendor.

When he saw I had gone, he was venomous, sending me messages that were hurtful, vicious and very insulting. I changed my address and cell-phone number to escape him. He became a nightmare. That was five years ago.

Early last year, I was attending a training course in an Asean country and had booked a vacation after, when I met someone on my flight. We were seated side by side and found out during our conversation that he was staying in the same hotel I was.

He was younger than me, quite shy and very intelligent. For two weeks we were together every free time we had. It was when he came along for my vacation that he told me he was an only child adopted by a childless couple. We didn’t offer information about our families. We didn’t care. We just knew we were both independent single adults very attracted to each other.

We had been together a few months when he invited me to a family reunion. It was his biological mother’s birthday, who he confessed is actually his adoptive mother’s sister. Guess who I would see in the party but my last boyfriend! Turns out he’s my new boyfriend’s eldest brother! They had different surnames, grew up in different provinces and met so seldom that they hardly knew each other.

I could not have known all these. My boyfriend said they have a huge age difference and never liked each other. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

My old boyfriend approached me after the introductions and whispered that we should talk. He warned me that if I go ahead with my relationship with his brother, he’d e-mail everyone in the family about our affair, and that would be the end of me. His anger at the way we separated and his hate for his brother piled up in an instant.

I ignored him and left early, saying I didn’t feel well. My boyfriend asked later what we were talking about, as we had just met. I answered casually that I had met his brother before.

That was two weeks ago, and my old boyfriend hasn’t made good his threat against me. I am afraid, of course, but should I take a gamble?

Your only fault was that you continued being the older brother’s mistress long after you found out he was married. You opted out only when you could not stand being his punching bag anymore.

You did nothing wrong falling in love with this wolf in sheep’s clothing. You were just being a fool in love, that’s all.

You can probably beat the snake in his own game by being truthful to your boyfriend. There’s nothing like telling it like it is. Don’t wait for the right time to do it. The calendar will never give you a hint on when the right date is. Dive in immediately and hope for the best.

Give him a general landscape of this past relationship and skip details that are none of his business. You both could not have known your entire life histories in the short time you’ve been together. As you already noted, you two didn’t care about details because you didn’t see any impediment ahead then. Being adults and single were the only stuff that mattered at the time you met.

If this new boyfriend hems and haws, and gives you hell for your (gasp!) past and for being honest, then it’s going to be another unlucky find for you— having two brothers made from the same fabric.

But isn’t it all a matter of being safe than sorry? In your case —better now than later?

E-mail [email protected] or emarcelo629@gmail.