Dear Emily,
I’m in my mid-60s, have been married for 40 years and living in the US for the last 30.
When I attended our high school reunion in the Philippines for our 50th year, I saw my first love and learned she has become a widow and is unattached. I was absolutely smitten again. I was tongue-tied in high school and never got to express my love. It was unbelievable that the dormant love of 50 years was re-awakened.
I called her every week when I returned to the US and finally expressed my love for her. I went on a month-long visit to Manila again and was ecstatic to get her “yes,” albeit reluctantly due to my being married. But that did not matter. We lived together during that glorious month and loved every minute of it.
I love my wife and care about our 40 years together. My first love and I agree that my wife should not be hurt. But how? I can’t hide the fact that I love two women at the same time—but love my first love more than my wife. There is not much time left to share a life together and we feel we cannot live without each other anymore.
I am at a difficult crossroad and I want to be true to myself. I really desire to spend the remaining years of my life with my first and true love. I’ve never ever fooled around in my marriage, till now.
DESPERATE
Love sucks at whatever age it strikes, doesn’t it?
Have you any other reason to discard your wife of 40 years, except having found your first love again this late? Was she ever mean to you, failed in her duties as a wife, made your life hellish and miserable, and was a horrible mother to your kids?
Did she look at other men, went on dates and made a cuckold of you? Or was her only mistake marrying a man, who, unbeknown to her, carried a torch for someone else all these 40 years, and just realized he had never really loved her?
You cannot find someone more sympathetic to great love stories than me. But if there is nothing wrong with your marriage except lusting for someone else, what you’d be doing is simply emptying your garbage of a dirty rag.
You’ve already, for a month, consummated, sated, fulfilled your unspoken hunger for each other these 50 years! That, besides the profusion of love letters, phone calls and whatever else in between. Meantime, this old wife is coasting about her quiet life totally unaware of the plot you two are hatching for a future together.
If you think you can’t live without this first love, be honest with your wife and tell it like it is. It’ll be kinder to be cruel now with your honesty than be a jerk, all the while concocting a song and dance for her, only to hurt her big-time in the end.
Nothing is ever sure or perfect in this world. Think twice, five times, more, before you take the plunge. How do you know you’ll even like each other in the long haul? You two are too entrenched in old habits and have no lifetime of history together. You only had this puppy love of half a century ago that’s making you both giddy.
After a certain honeymoon period of making up for lost time, reality could still hit you—later. Anything is possible.
Sometimes, a fever is simply just a fever. It always cools off after it has run its course.
E-mail arcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com