Anonymous wrote:Long story short - he was the love of my life and without a doubt 'the one,' but I couldn't be with him because of so, so many circumstances. I was young (20-ish) when we met and we had a whirlwind but enduring romance for the few years it lasted. I am decades older now. Found out recently that he passed away some months ago. The death notice indicates a partner by first name only. I want reach out to thank her for loving him and to share with her that we have a common bond. Have no clue if this is even possible given only a first name at a great distance away with virtually no internet footprint. I am heartbroken. But I don't understand why. For someone who hasn't been in my life in many, many, many years? Mourning what I secretly hoped could have been? For the possibility that one day our paths may have again crossed? Because it drives home the realization that time is short? Because he really was the one that got away? I am surprised at my reaction and cannot lift the funk this news has left me in. Can anyone relate or have words of wisdom to share?

I’m sorry for your loss. I certainly have an ex I feel this way about, and against what seems to be the great weight of the feeling here, I think it’s is ok to reach out to an ex of this nature, if done respectfully and with no agenda, to check in from time to time. During life. But that window closed for you. His partner is a stranger to you, dealing with unimaginable pain and loss, and you would be betraying both your feelings for him and what you had together if you did anything that added to the partner’s pain, which this would surely do. It would be different if you knew each other, but you don’t.

As for your feelings,I get them. We are all supposed to pretend that feelings end at the end of a relationship, but in my experience for those you truly loved, they never really end. So a person you love is gone, and it’s an indefensible feature of the universe that such a person can be gone. But I would suggest to that the intensity of your grief now is bound up in the loss of youth, an awareness of the many paths that could have been but weren’t, and the many people you could have been happy with. It’s also a tragedy that we only get to choose one life.

The best expression of this I have seen comes from Joan Didion: “we are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. as we were. as we are no longer. as we will one day not be at all.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL.

A bunch of old ladies in here scared a letter is gonna come in the mail.

NP. Are you really taking a shot at…widows right now? My friend is widowed at the ripe old age of 37. So don’t add ageism to your nasty post.

She’s talking about the posters here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So bizarre that anyone would consider a “common bond” bc they banged the same dude.

My college/post college gf and I livded together for 3.5 years, moving three times, twice out of state. But to you it was just sex. LOL.

Again, please describe the common bond. “The one that got away”? Please.

Anonymous wrote:LOL.

A bunch of old ladies in here scared a letter is gonna come in the mail.

NP. Are you really taking a shot at…widows right now? My friend is widowed at the ripe old age of 37. So don’t add ageism to your nasty post.

Anonymous wrote:So bizarre that anyone would consider a “common bond” bc they banged the same dude.

My college/post college gf and I livded together for 3.5 years, moving three times, twice out of state. But to you it was just sex. LOL.

LOL.

A bunch of old ladies in here scared a letter is gonna come in the mail.

Anonymous wrote:So bizarre that anyone would consider a “common bond” bc they banged the same dude.

In the Kardashian Age, this is hardly a weird concept. It’s just the flip side of the Kennedy approach.

Anonymous wrote:Ffs, you do not have “a common bond.”

Mind your business and leave this poor person alone in their time of grief. They don’t need your selfishness right now. Or ever.

Agreed. Leave her alone, op.

You need a good therapist, OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So bizarre that anyone would consider a “common bond” bc they banged the same dude.

So bizarre that anyone would come to a thread about death and grief just to post crude "comments."

You apparently don't understand that a relationship can be about--shocking, I know, PP -- more than just sex.

Please tell me what the OP and decades ago ex’s partner have a bond over?

Anonymous wrote:So bizarre that anyone would consider a “common bond” bc they banged the same dude.

So bizarre that anyone would come to a thread about death and grief just to post crude "comments."

You apparently don't understand that a relationship can be about--shocking, I know, PP -- more than just sex.

So bizarre that anyone would consider a “common bond” bc they banged the same dude.

I think some PPs missed your follow-up where you said you weren't going to contact his widow/significant other, OP. That's the right call on your part.

I do understand the initial impulse, especially if you have long had regrets about the end of that relationship, but contacting her is wrong for her, for you, and for his memory. Be glad you chose not to get in touch. You have no idea what she does or doesn't know (and does or doesn't WANT to know) about his past. Believe me when I say that contacting her could truly unsettle or even upset her badly in her grief. My relative died suddenly and a never-heard-of ex contacted his widow, who was not at all in a good place mentally to deal with it. It only added to her pain that she found out, after he was gone, that she didn't know him as well as she thought she did.

An ex of mine died about a year after we ended things, so I get how this news is so disorienting. Definitely talk to someone who knew you as a couple if you can. Or maybe donate to a cause you think he'd approve of, a charity he'd like, based on what he was interested in when you knew him. But NO "in memory of, a donation has been made" card from the charity to the widow, though. Please don't do that. Just donate and know in your heart it was on his behalf. It will be an action, a gesture you can make, since you can't attend a funeral that's already over.

Do not contact his wife.

I get it OP.
I have a "one who got away" and I like knowing that he's out there in the world. I have no intention of contacting him but it would really upset me to hear that he died.

But yep, don't contact his widow. I like the idea of reaching out to a friend who knew you as a couple and sharing your feelings with this person. I have a few long standing friends who knew me and my ex boyfriend as a couple. I'd call one of them and just reminisce/vent. I know the friend would understand.