I am a married 36 yr. old mother of 4 who has been married for 19 years. We married when I was 17 yrs. old. My husband had an ex-girlfriend contact him via Facebook this past Valentine’s Day Weekend. I am typically no more of a what I consider a fairly normal jealous person. Prior to these events I was not a snooper. My gut, little voice, woman’s intuition or jealousy whatever you call it told me to check his facebook. He and her had been reminiscing about the past and it upset me because I knew how much he loved this girl. He tried to commit suicide over her when he was in the military.
I found out after confronting him that their relationship was much more than I had ever known. I was under the assumption they dated in his senior year in high school, he left for the army and it didn’t work out. On his 40th birthday (at first I was thinking stereo-typical mid-life crisis) he told me that they had continued dating the entire 2 yrs. he was in the army and that he had planned on starting a life with her when he got out of the service, and that they communicated the entire 2 yrs. of his military career. After he got out of the service he went back to California to start his life with her only to find out she had married someone else the month prior and didn’t even give him as much as a Dear John letter or anything.
I met him 2 months after all of this had happened. Only finding out the whole story a months ago. Fast forward 20 yrs. to last month after I found out they were communicating on Facebook he told me his life was like a book and he was on chapter 40 (get the life analogy, 40th birthday?) and that somewhere back in chapter 20 there were some omissions and he needed some closure. He always wanted to know if he had done something wrong that made her leave him and marry someone else. I told him she got lonely, got pregnant and married someone else.
I told him that talking to her deeply upset me and some of the facebook private messages on his end was too much reminiscing about intimate events in their past. They exchanged messages, im sessions and he never told me any of it! I confronted him and told him I had known of all the contact and how deeply it hurt me and that communication needed to stop if he wanted to be with me. I told him to get his closure, but then that was it, no more contact!
He said he would send an e-mail asking her why she did that to him. He got online and started an im session with her. I could not stand that he was talking to her live instead of the e-mail he had said, so I logged on and read the im session. I know some may not agree and I am not defending myself to anyone, because if I had not I would never have read these things…..
He told her he had never gotten over her, that he had never stopped thinking about her, and that he married me trying to replace her and that it didn’t work! She told him she was sorry. That was the only thing she replied back as far as her feelings went. She asked him if he was happy and he said no never have been. She replied with you love your children. Meaning that was why he was still with me.
My heart felt like it was literally ripped from my chest. I did not know the human heart could beat so fast without having a heart attack. I came out from our bedroom where I had been pretending to read and told him I read everything in the im. He was completely shocked to say the least, his hands were shaking. I imagine the experience of fear he felt being busted by his wife professing his feelings to his old girlfriend to be right up there with a teenage boy having his mother walk in on him while he is masturbating! BUSTED!
I asked him to choose right then and there. He typed to her in the im with me standing there that he chose his wife. Her response was good… that is best… so is this it? He then deleted her from his friends list on Facebook.
He has since told me that he didn’t mean those things to her, and that he doesn’t know where they came from or why he said them. The only thing he can figure is that he said them to try and hurt her like she hurt him. IMO those aren’t things you say to try and hurt someone, those were confessions of love that he held onto.
He tells me that if he didn’t want to be here that he would not be, and that he loves me. I know we need to go to couples counseling if we want our marriage to continue. I just do not know if I can get past this. I almost feel like I have a little bit of PTSD as I feel like I am walking around in a daze and just feel like I am wearing a poker face trying to keep up with my life responsibilities, but I AM NOT OKAY. I am deeply, deeply depressed!
Please help and share this.

— Andrea B., Riverview, Florida