Community: I'm Married. Should I See My Ex?
I'm 42, married for 20 years and I have been faithful to my husband for the last 15 years. At the start of my marriage I was not ready for it, and I fooled around with a few men but stopped after a long term affair that I had with a mutual friend of ours.
My first infidelity, however, was with an old boyfriend of mine from college. It was soon after I gotten married and I went to visit some sorority sisters that lived about 90 minutes away. My old boyfriend lived near there, and I ended up calling him.
I had dated him up until I met my soon-to-be husband, and I called him because I needed some closure. We ended up having sex that time and one other encounter later that year (1991). I had not talked to him—lets call him Ken—since then.... until recently when he put in a friend request for me on Facebook. We've now been been emailing and chatting now for about 2 and half months.
Several years ago we moved 900 miles away, and I don't have any family nearby nor any really close friends. So when Ken said that he and his girlfriend would be coming out to where I live to go to a baseball game, I offered to meet them for drinks and dinner. He thought it was a great idea.
Ken and his girlfriend are supposed to be here in mid August. I wanted to be honest with my husband so I said to him, "Guess who friended me on facebook?"
He knows my history with Ken (even the phone call I made to him in 1991, minus of course the physical act), but his response surprised me when he said, "I know, I've hacked into your Facebook account." He'd already read about Ken and his girlfriend coming to town... he knew about the whole thing... and was waiting to see if I would tell him!
I passed his little test but the whole thing kind of creeped me out and made me feel dirty even thought I didn't really do anything wrong. My husband was cool with it but did ask the question, "How would you feel if I friended up on of my old girlfriends?" He later said rather crudely that he knew I had a relationship with Ken—not the infidelity but from college—and that if I wanted to meet with him and his girlfriend, it was all right by him.
Having felt creeped out about this, I did cancel my Facebook account... but now I'm a little upset. Like I said, I don't know a lot of people where we live now and FB was a way for me to stay in touch with old friends.
Ken and I had our private Emails accounts, he sent me an email wanting to know what happened on facebook.... I didn't go into the details but just told him that I didn't like all of my information being out there so I cancelled it.
He asked if we were still on for drinks and dinner. Having received the half-hearted blessing from my husband (coupled with me being mad at him) I said yes.
However, earlier this week, I got an email from Ken telling me that his girlfriend can't make it, but he'd still like to meet me for dinner to catch up on old times. Part of me really wants to do this because I don't go out that often. I keep telling myself that he is in a relationship and I'm married—though we do fight a lot, we also make up a lot—and it should be ok.
In prior emails and chats, he's given me no indication that he wants to have any type of relationship other than the small talk we do online. I know this sounds stupid and wrong, given my past with him, but I think this can be ok... It's been almost 20 years since I've seen him, and I'm not the same woman I was back then (physically or mentally).
My husband knows that I'm going to go, but I have not told him that Ken's girlfriend has backed out. I'm still a little mad at him and I think I deserve a night out so I don't think I'm going to tell him about the girlfriend backing out because I'm sure he'll change his mind.
I'm undecided!