Have you reconnected with someone from your past?

LAURA STASSI  

I’m Laura Stassi, and this is Dating While Gray: The Grown-Up’s Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships. Okay, who hasn’t gone online to try to find a flame from our younger years? But taking the next step and reaching out might get complicated. That’s the topic of this episode, Boomerang Love. 

I get so excited reading true stories about former loves who reconnect, like the high school sweethearts who broke up and then 33 years later, they run into each other virtually on a web site for alumni. He travels across the country to visitor and boom, they get back together. But not all reconnections have happy endings. In fact, Boomerang love can be tricky. There’s actually a whole body of research on this topic. It was conducted by a psychology professor in California named Nancy Kalish. 

In the early 1990s, Nancy reconnected with her college sweetheart. Sadly, it didn’t work out. But the experience prompted her to launch what she called the Lost Love Pproject. Nancy spent the next quarter century serving people all over the world, writing books and research papers, and establishing a website where people could join forums to talk about their experience making love connections. Here’s Nancy on NPR’s Weekend Edition, in 2003. 

NANCY KALISH: These people were couples in their formative years, they went to school together, they grew up together, they knew each other’s families. And together they actually define what love is. And it’s a very comforting and familiar sensation to see these people again. The other thing which I don’t do research on, but I know about is the physiology of this that these first loves may actually be hardwired, in the brain as a memory of sensations touch, smell, hearing. And these memories all come back when you see that person again. 

LAURA STASSI: Nancy died unexpectedly a few years ago when she was 72. But the forums continue. These days, a woman named Jeannie Thompson is leading most of the online discussions. Jeannie’s background is in mental health, nursing and clinical psychology. She first found the website after experiencing her own love reconnection. Jeannie explains why for older people, reaching back to the past is so tempting.

JEANNIE THOMPSON

If we’re married at the time, we’ve been married for a period of time, and you know, maybe it has lost some of the zing that was there. We aren’t investing as much in the relationship as we could be. And so it’s lost some of the excitement, some of the connection, and we’re kind of missing that. And we start to look back, I remember that time, I was so crazy in love with that person. You know, back in high school, I wonder Whatever happened to them. And then we start getting those reunion letters and emails and invitations and it’s like, oh, my gosh, you know, and so then that kind of triggers everything for us to take another look back. And who was that one that got away?

LAURA STASSI  

The people who you’ve worked with, through Dr. Kalish in her work? Can you say whether the people who were older were most of the married when they reached out to other people where they divorced, where they separated? I mean, is there any kind of like, I guess, statistical analysis that you can give her some sound bites.

JEANNIE THOMPSON: Before the internet became a real thing. For most of us. It was more difficult to make that reconnection. And then once the internet became available to everybody in their home, you know, your curiosity would get the best of you. And at 1030 at night, you’re googling and trying to see what you can see. And, and, you know, it kind of triggers everybody to maybe go a direction they wouldn’t have gone before. And so before the internet people were generally widowed, or single when they were making reconnections, but with the birth of the internet a lot of the people that we’re we’re seeing on the web forums are married or one of them is single and the other one is married.

LAURA STASSI  

A mismatched relationship status that might be a pitfall or or no — Is it is it kind of nice just to reconnect with someone and it not lead to a you know, an emotional or physical affair but just sort of affirmation that at some point in my life, I was very important to another person.

JEANNIE THOMPSON:

Well, I think that it’s a huge pitfall if either party is married, so if you’ve googled your lost love and you’re trying to find about what you know what’s gone on in their lives, if you get any claim that they might be married or coupled, definitely don’t make contact. That was something Dr. Kalish was very, very clear about. And I have to reiterate that. And so when the reconnection takes place, you know, many years later, you go back to that same developmental phase, you were in at 17, or 19, when you first fell in love, and so there’s all that impulsiveness and that huge passion. And, you know, and it feels wonderful, you feel alive, you know. And so there’s a huge draw to that. And so you start over again, with a new beginning, a new middle. And if both people or one of the other is married, oftentimes there’s another interruption.

LAURA STASSI 

Do they typically not get a divorce? So it’s painful for you the second time around? Or is it? They get a divorce and you get together? And it’s like, you know what, this was not a great idea.

JEANNIE THOMPSON:

Well, Dr. Kalish’s research told us that 5% of reconnections actually end up in the lost lovers reconnecting and being together, when all is said and done. If you have an affair, odds are you’re going to get caught, we have that very often, you know, on the web with a webform members one or the other is getting caught. And then of course, there’s devastation all around. And so, you know, it really isn’t recommended at all to make contact, we know that if both parties are willing to get divorced, and then move on together, they do very well. Oftentimes, one will get divorced and go through that process, and one that is still married, and not through their process yet sees all of the trauma drama that goes along with divorce, and decides, gosh, I can’t do that. And so then one is divorced, one is staying married. And then there’s, you know, a lot of betrayal felt between the last loves. And then there can be a, you know, a pretty painful ending there.

LAURA STASSI  

Just to clarify, the 5% is only if one of the two people is partnered when they reconnect correct. So there’s Okay, so that’s a pretty bad.

JEANNIE THOMPSON:

Yeah, it really is.

LAURA STASSI  

So but you’re saying that if both people are available, when they reconnect, there’s a much higher likelihood?

JEANNIE THOMPSON:

Definitely, definitely. And it doesn’t matter if they’re on opposite coasts, or different countries, or, you know, because we’ve got web four members from all over the world. And you know, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing that will stop them from finding a way to be together if they’re both available. I had a first high school love, we met at 17, we were first boyfriend and girlfriend for each other. So we were reaching all those first milestones together, first kiss first everything. And he went off to college. You know, we kind of went different ways. And many years went by I kept all the letters and mementos. From the time that we were together. All those years, I kept everything, and always wondered, you know, where is he? What’s he doing those kinds of things. And one day, I found out about Google, and there you have it. And I looked him up. And I contacted him via an email that I found online. I you know, I felt like I was that 17 year old girl, and we knew that we were going to meet we set a day in time. And it was in a park, you know, late, just early evening, and I had my girlfriend on the phone and I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’m so nervous. It seems you know, he’s gonna be here any minute. I’m so scared, but I can hardly wait, you know. And I saw his car pull up. And I could see him walking from his car to where I was in the park. And he’s walking on the sidewalk towards me and my heart is pounding out of my chest. And I was hoping I wasn’t gonna faint or do something really human like that. As he approached me, and all I wanted to do was grab him. I just wanted to grab him. And so immediately when he came up, we hugged free brings tears to my eyes. It was awesome. And his and I said, I forgot how tall you are. He said, I forgot how short you are. And you know, and it was just amazing. But we were both married and his are walking around this lake in this park and the sun is setting and you know, the smells of fall and the leaves are crackling under our feet. So that we went and had dinner on a veranda at sunset and it was beautiful. And he sat across the table from me, and he’s looking at me and I’m looking at him and he said, I have to move on too far away from you. And he moved to the seat next to me.

LAURA STASSI  

It’s okay. I mean, okay. Do you regret having experienced that?

JEANNIE THOMPSON:

Well, it’s the highest high you’ll ever feel. But there’s also the lowest low the greatest pain and despair that you will ever experience.

LAURA STASSI  

You heard Jeannie advise against contacting a married lost love. But despite the pain she experienced doing exactly that she has no regrets. And she was strong enough to close the door. Jeannie and her last love have not had contact for 10 years. As far as she knows he’s still married. But Jeannie got divorced. My heart hurts a little. 

Jeannie also said that one one person is already partnered, the odds are against a happily ever after with a lost love. But what if you could beat those odds, not with a loss love but a childhood crush. We’ll hear story about that after the break.

BREAK

LAURA STASSI  

Suddenly reaching out to someone from the past can be emotionally dangerous. You have no idea of the ripple effects your attempt might cause that’s what happened to Grace. That’s not her real name. It was about 10 years ago, when she was 50. And in a long term marriage that had gone stale. Grace told me about her married life and what led to a sort of perfect storm for reconnection.

GRACE 

I moved overseas with my husband’s job. And I started having kids pretty much within the first two years and was in enveloped in that for decades. Volunteering Team moming substitute teaching just so I could be kind of close to them at the school, completely enveloped in my children. And during the time when we lived overseas, I had gone through a few traumas, a couple of wars, a couple of bomb shelter experiences. And I think it was at that time that there was a shift in my perspective that I was the guardian of my children, I was the only one who could be trusted with my children. So I spent the next 20 years protecting my children. I did work. I didn’t have a career, my career was just being a ferocious, small,

LAURA STASSI  

Ferocious mom. So it sounds like your entire identity was wrapped up into being a wife being a mother.

GRACE 

Yes, 100%. And when my children left home, I felt I was laid off, or let go from the only job I had ever had and ever wanted. So it was like a forced retirement and I I didn’t like it. You know, I spent a lot of years doing something very important to me. And the thanks I get is I successfully raised my children to leave home and they did.

LAURA STASSI  

So you’re going through this. And then

GRACE 

I got on Facebook just prior to that. I only learned about things like that social media and stuff because I still had some late high school early college kids around or I would never, never have done it. But yes, I got a message just before Christmas. 2009 Hey, remember me from an old neighbor, who I had not seen in 35 years.

LAURA STASSI  

Wow. And what were your feelings? You know, what were your memories of this person?

GRACE 

childhood crush? Oh, he was so cool. He had long hair and played the guitar and it was unrequited. It was an unrequited situation back when we were teenagers, we we never dated at all. So I think it was just the fantasy I was looking for.

LAURA STASSI 

What did you find out about him?

GRACE 

Gosh, that he was not married but in a relationship that he had had a different path than I had envisioned for him as well. Maybe a little unhappy When it came to relationships hadn’t really had much success in that arena. And was in a very unhappy relationship at the time, but with the mother of his child, so it was committed, but in a very unhappy way. Yeah.

LAURA STASSI  

So I guess I’m trying to figure out how, how much back and forth was there before you even contemplated? Also, where was he living? You were in one state at the time, and he was in a different state. Is that correct?

GRACE 

Yes. And we probably messaged back and forth for Oh, I don’t know, I think I made a trip back east within about a month. So it was not very long that we were talking.

LAURA STASSI  

So you kept it to yourself, and you were feeling probably traumatized. Before this. So you must have been really kind of an emotional wreck. I mean, I can’t imagine what you were going through. There’s excitement. But there’s also maybe guilt, shame, dread. I mean, it, you know…

GRACE: All of the above. 

Yes. All of the above all rolled into a ball in the knot in my stomach. And pounding through my chest. Yes. But there was nothing going on in my life. So that seemed acceptable at the time.

LAURA STASSI  

Yeah. So you went to visit. And

GRACE 

I remember, I can see him getting out of the car. It was a snowy day. He came towards the door, and I jumped into his arms. Like an excited kid.

LAURA STASSI  

Yeah. So but did it become physically intimate? If you don’t mind me asking?

GRACE 

It did, it did on the last day, and four times three or four times we’d seen each other been together. And I remember he turned and he said, I love you. And I remember thinking at that time, Oh, don’t do that. You know, don’t don’t make it that.

LAURA STASSI  

So you were thinking, Okay, this is the answer to my, you know, to my boring life, I’ll just have this affair. Is that what you were thinking? 

GRACE Maybe even just the one trip, you know? Oh, yeah. 

LAURA STASSI: Okay, so he loves you. And you’re like, oh, shoot, but you go back home, and then what happened?

GRACE 

And then it started getting very messy, because it’s virtually impossible to keep something like that under wraps, you know, so it got discovered. And then I would say, in my poetic way, all hell broke loose. My, one of my children determined that there was something going on with me, and actually put a tracking device on my laptop.

LAURA STASSI  

Well, of course, not without your knowledge, but had he told his dad?

GRACE 

No, he wanted to save that job for me.

LAURA STASSI  

Okay, that’s just really, I mean, talk about boundary issues. I mean, the fact that he didn’t, he didn’t ask you about this. He didn’t say, Mom, what’s going on? Or she didn’t say, Mom, what’s going on?

GRACE 

After he knew?

LAURA STASSI  

Okay, wow. And what did you say?

GRACE 

Okay, I’ll tell your dad.

LAURA STASSI 

So all right. Wow. So were you thinking I will tell him and then end it? Or what? What were you thinking? 

GRACE 

I don’t know what exactly I was thinking. At that time. I was leaning heavily on little wine and Xanax. So I’m not exactly sure how clear headed. I was about what the end result would be. I didn’t know what door I was opening or closing at the time, but I didn’t like the feeling of being policed or hounded. And so I thought the only way to end this is to just lay it out there. And yeah, I did. And it was painful all the way around. And the funniest sort of juxtaposition of the whole thing was, when you say you’ve reconnected with someone from your past, you get lots and lots of romantic notion kudos from people who find it almost fairy tale like you know, and then on the other hand, it has caused a lot of pain for those that you are closest to. So, on the one hand, people are telling you how wonderful it’s so romantic and, you know, and on the other hand, Do you have about a decade’s worth of bridges to mend with children and people you love? So?

LAURA STASSI  

So then so you got to divorce, he ended his relationship and then you two became a couple

GRACE 

against all advice and kind of warnings that you know, this can’t end well, this didn’t start well. But we did. And we started trying to mend the damage we had done to probably each other and those around us

LAURA STASSI 

Do you have any regrets?

GRACE 

Oh, absolutely. I wish I had checked in with myself decades earlier. Um, you know, I lived a lot of years fiercely protecting my children, only to be the one who hurt them. So that regret that won’t subside anytime soon, I don’t think.

LAURA STASSI  

Grace and her childhood crush had been married for six years now. Grace’s ex husband has also remarried. And after some roller coaster years, Grace and her kids are on good terms. And Grace is now a grandmother. 

Up next: Can boomerang love work if your former love is more than just a snapshot in time during your young life? Much more? We’ll find out after the break. 

BREAK 

LAURA STASSI: Picture this: A couple has been married for 20 years. It’s the second marriage for both of them. They’ve stopped having sex — for a decade, in fact. The wife is frustrated, and the husband won’t talk about it. Then one day he announces he’s leaving. I bet you think you know where this story is headed. I thought I did. But then I met this couple, Mary and Del. I talked with them at the same time. But they were in separate spaces. And they began by describing their relationship in the years leading up to their split.

MARY 

He’s not talking. He doesn’t like to talk about himself. And he’s not saying much.

DEL 

And that was very frustrating to Mary and a little scary. And it was frustrating to me as well. You asked if we were happy. In many ways, we were happy. We were deeply in love with each other, we respected each other, we trusted each other. We had good times. But we also had troubles. And I was having a hard time in our discussions with each other in accessing that and getting a clear picture of it. So I started to feel this is this is odd or unusual to say but I felt I needed to be outside the relationship in order to see things clearly. I couldn’t explain that I couldn’t articulate it. It didn’t seem logical. This is why Mary was so frustrated. But it was a very strong gut feeling that I had, along with the feeling that it wasn’t really about Mary or the relationship. It was something I needed to find out.

LAURA STASSI  

But Del, you were having sexual intimacy with other women?

DEL: 

No, there were no affairs there. There were a couple of examples like in party situations where I, I did kiss other women and this was an where Mary could see me and I don’t think those couple of incidents are all that important. They didn’t lead to anything. They were just single incidents. I think that you know what part of the trouble we’d been having was around sex and this is a little harder to talk about, but I may have just been kind of acting out. Saying to Mary, you don’t really get it but I think maybe To the person who didn’t get it was not her it was it was maybe me.

LAURA STASSI  

When you say she didn’t get it, do you mean she didn’t get how you’re feeling about your body? Or how its functioning or 25:10

how I’m how I’m feeling sexually?

MARY: 

And I didn’t think that he was having an affair. But I would say that I did think that it’s a pretty aggressive act to kiss another woman in life. So I did have to think about that. I did say things such as should I think about taking a frying pan and hitting over the head? I mean, can you explain this to me why this is happening?

DEL 

Well, that that might have helped. But thankfully, you didn’t. You’re saying that he wants to x i don’t want sexy. I’m over it. And I was saying, you know, I’m not. But you know, we have something we need to work out.

LAURA STASSI  

So are you saying, Del, that you felt like you couldn’t express to Mary what was going on, or you couldn’t put into words yourself what was going on, which was leading you to not want to have sex with Mary.

DEL 

I couldn’t put it into words, as I was trying to describe earlier, because I didn’t really understand what was going on. And so that’s why I had felt I needed to be outside the relationship. I needed to live alone. I didn’t say I didn’t want to be married. I need to live alone, which is what we did.

MARY 

Well, I think also, LAURA STASSI, you’ve talked about this on your show, there’s a fair amount of shame that goes with the feeling of a marriage breaking up. And one of the things that I thought was, I’ve messed up. I have messed up big time. And I just was paralyzed. And although Del wanted to stay married, he insisted that we sell our home. He said, I want to stay married, but we have to sell the house. And I’m thinking, Well, okay, I think I need an attorney.

LAURA STASSI  

And so I’m curious about you said you needed space, which I have had marriage counselors tell me that when couples separate if they separate, because a lot of couples feel like, okay, we need to separate, but then somebody goes and moves into a different bedroom for a while, or maybe to the basement or something. But that when a couple separates to two separate residences, it becomes very difficult to get back together because it was just like, now you’re out. And it’s kind of a sigh of relief. But it sounds like you’ve truly just felt like you needed space. However, why did you want to sell the house?

DEL 

I don’t know that I can answer that. I guess I felt that we really needed to be to be separate. Probably at that time. We couldn’t afford to keep up this big house that we lived in and a separate apartment. But we I felt we needed to live separately. So I don’t I don’t know. I don’t know that that’s a big important factor in this. The fact that we ended up living separately as what’s important, rather than the circumstances, right?

LAURA STASSI  

Well, I don’t know. So I just again, to play devil’s advocate, it feels like Mary felt kind of blindsided all along, like, Okay, if you need some space, go rent an apartment for six months or furnished apartment or something. And again, I’m not trying to take sides talking to you both. I feel like now I can understand. It just seems like there was a disconnect. He says he wants to sell the house. And so you leave town.

MARY 

And I get in a cab and I go to Missouri with very little of anything and some money in my pocket. And I’m hit like crazy. When I went to come back from Missouri, where I have been internet dating, by the way, I go into therapy, okay. And I have a therapist who says to me at one point, she has two chairs in front of her chair, and she says in the other chair is your husband and we need to get them out of here. Yeah. Did you know Laura that many people are most people who go into couples therapy end up divorced, they don’t end up together, they end up divorced. She says that to me. So I say I need an exit strategy. And I call him and I say to Del, I need an exit strategy. And I want us to go to couples therapy to talk about how we can cleanly and humanely separate from one another. And he says no.

LAURA STASSI  

And so Del, were you not dating during this time?

DEL 

I was not dating. I you know I didn’t I as I told Mary I didn’t want an exit strategy I needed to live alone. I felt from my gut very strongly about that. But I didn’t see it as a as looking for a way out of the relationship. I saw it as looking for a way into the relationship. And I knew that was very risky. I was reading Mary’s blog. So what she was doing live

MARY

I did not know I did not know this but By the way,

DEL 

but I but I always, I always felt through all of this, that we would get back together. And I would tell her this much to her aspiration, but I really believed it. I knew I might, I might lose her through this process. But I thought I have to do this in order to, to somehow fix this and bring it back together better than it was. In fact, Laura, I something that you said on I think it was your first podcast really resonated with me. Okay. You said, Maybe I wasn’t home when I was married. But now years later, I’m home now. And that it’s my process was very complex and very deep. And it’s hard to describe in 25 words or less, but if one can describe it in a sentence that describes it.

LAURA STASSI  30:49

And Mary, did you It sounds to me, like you just didn’t believe him that you thought I gotta find another partner, because I like being in a relationship, and Del is just not going to come through for me.

DEL 31:00

Well, that’s right, in the sense that I just didn’t understand and he wasn’t explaining. And when you’re surrounded by this kind of silence, at the same time that I’m being told, it’s really not your fault. And I figure Well, isn’t that what everybody says when they break up? It’s not your fault. I just see, you know, I just need to move on. But don’t think it’s your fault. Well, I’m thinking that it must be my fault. And I don’t know what I did. I’m going to try to keep my heart open to you. I would say this, that I never shut the door on him.

DEL 31:52

Yeah, yeah. And a very important sense. And a lot of ways I came out of this a different person, of course, had Core i was the same person, but I, a lot about me had changed, you know, outwardly, I was more at ease, calmer, more assured about life. But this these changes went very deep. So it sort of gradually became apparent to me that I was getting to where I needed to be and that had to do with this this process with myself, much more than had anything to do with Mary or our relationship per se. But at just the right moment, in all this I had a sign. I was on a plane. I was returning home from somewhere. And I was I was reading Ian McLuhan’s novel on Chesil beach, which is a short novel about a couple who are very much in love and, but sadly, they they part. And he tells her in a note, after they parted, that when she hits it big and performs before an audience with her violin, he will be there. Sorry, it gets to me. He won’t be there to cheer her on sitting and seat nine, see. And at just the moment, I read that passage. So I reached for my bookmark, which was my ticket step. And as I looked at it, I was just stunned. I was sitting in seat nine seat.

LAURA STASSI  33:34

And so then you thought, I gotta go get Mary.

DEL 33:38

That’s what I thought.

MARY 33:41

I never really thought that this would happen, even though there are a lot of steps that were involved. And I’m not saying that it just magically happened. But it does feel magical and miraculous to me. And I think that’s the way love ought to be.

LAURA STASSI  34:09

Del and Mary were separated for four years before reuniting. They’ve been together again now for more than a decade. 

Okay, I feel like I should go on the record to say I have been in contact with my high school boyfriend. he emailed and then called a few years ago to talk about a creative project. And he mentioned that his wife knew he was getting in touch and was fine with it. And then he sent me a text a couple of months ago, after hearing that my mom had died. And that’s it as it should be great guy, but he is married. You know, I do like thinking about a pool of potential partners among anyone I knew when I was younger. 

And here’s where I tell you that since getting divorced, I have gone out with four guys from my high school four. One was just a coincidence. We found that we went to the same high school on our date, no lasting connections But hey, it’s a big school and I haven’t even yet tapped into the potential pool from my college years. 

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