Dear Emily,
I was in my late 50s when I fell madly in love with my daughter’s officemate.
Meeting her felt like a bolt of lightning—my mind just went crazy.
I pursued her like a lost puppy. Left my family for her. Lost my closest friends over her. I even got an annulment for her and married her abroad.
My first wife and I had supposedly the strongest marriage among our friends, but when it collapsed, my friends had to choose between her and me.
My new wife and I had two children together who were always mistaken for my grandkids.
Seven years on, a friend took me aside and said my wife was having an affair. Years ago, I allowed her to have a little business on the side for her amusement, and it was on one of her trips that she met this guy.
She didn’t hide it. I only asked for her not to leave me so I wouldn’t be the laughing stock of friends.
I made a happy home for the kids in her frequent absences. Then one day, the unthinkable happened. On one of their trips, my wife’s lover had a surprise waiting for them in the hotel.
His wife with his young children in tow came calling! She’s had enough of his womanizing and gave him the ultimatum.
He chose his family.
That’s when my wife realized she wasn’t as precious as she had thought. Humiliated and dejected, she called me to pick her up from abroad—wasting precious funds to get the messy business done.
After all that, it seemed I suddenly woke up from a bad dream. Her unabashed affair with her lover, and the thousand mini-deaths I felt all those years, made me cling to the only person I knew who’d stand by me and give me strength—the wife I left behind.
When the dust settled and my young wife promised to come home to me “for good”—it was then my turn to walk away.
She got what she wanted and I only took my essentials to go back to my devoted first wife. I get to see my young children, who I consider the gifts I got from a bad dream. —Old Stupid Fool
Isn’t this love at its purest? What your first wife did for you when you were most vulnerable proves she never forgot the marriage vows she made with you, which she now had to fulfill, with no ifs and buts. She doesn’t look like she even stopped loving you despite your abandonment of her, or had an accounting ledger of the other myriad hurts you unleashed on her when you went crazy over your daughter’s friend.
Had your first wife been a meaner, more wicked woman, who could have turned her back on you to get even or feel vindicated by your adversity with your second, you probably would be feeling like the most unfortunate husband this side of hell.
But instead, she has shown you what true love is, what loyalty and devotion are, and how liberating forgiveness is.
You’re one lucky fool. Treasure her because fate could have broken her mold, and there may not be another one like her again.
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