Writes Save the Date reader Anne:
I had known this guy for a while from church, but we had never dated because we weren't both available at the same time. Then he and his longtime girlfriend (they were together for four years) broke up, and we were married five months later. We've been married for two and a half months, but I have a strange feeling he's still in love with his ex. He's emailed her a number of times. In fact, a week after our wedding, I found an email he wrote saying he was thinking of her. Was it a bad idea to marry my husband? What do I do now?
Here are my thoughts:
Hoo boy. Well, plenty of guys go through a breakup and go on to marry the next girl who comes a long and live happily ever after. I've seen it happen several times in real life. (In fact, didn't they make a movie about this phenomenon?) And plenty of guys (and girls) stay in touch with an ex without harboring feelings. I email my college boyfriend—we broke up more than a decade ago—on his birthday or occasionally when something reminds me of him. I don't think that makes me shady, and I certainly don't have romantic feelings for him. I also don't try to hide our limited contact from my husband.
The only thing that concerns me about your situation is that I feel like you're being sneaky. I'm wondering how you "found" an email your new husband wrote. If he left it up on his screen and you stumbled across it later when you were going to use the computer, I think that's totally fine. He's not trying to hide anything from you, and you're not breaking into his email. But if you ARE breaking into his email, that's a problem. Your whole relationship is pretty new (less than a year old), and it sounds like you're building it on a foundation of sneakiness and dishonesty.
If you want to know whether your husband still has feelings for his ex, don't ask me {as much as I love hearing from y'all! }, ask your husband. He's the person who can give you the most straightforward answer, and he's the person who you're supposed to be able to talk to about anything! You can casually say, "Have you talked to so-and-so lately? What's new with her?" and see where he takes the conversation. If he says, "Yeah, I emailed her because I saw her brother's Little League team made it to the play-offs" LET IT GO. If he denies being in touch with her, it REALLY sucks that he's being dishonest, but breaking into his email isn't the most honest thing, either, so he's not the only one being dishonest. If that happens, I think you have to 'fess up to being shady and hope that he does the same.
If you can both move past this bump in the road, I don't think it has to derail your marriage. But I think, moving forward, the two of you have to make honesty a priority. Rather than worrying about his last relationship {he married YOU! }, put your energy into this relationship. Focus on your marriage, and hopefully everything else will fall into place.
Ladies, what do you think? Should Anne be freaking out? Or is she WAY over-reacting? Are you in touch with any of your exes?