Dear lost123:

I am very familiar with the movie Bridges of Madison Country. The character Francesca Johnson, chose to not join Robert Kincaid and remain in her marriage to her husband because she was afraid, this is my understanding. She was afraid to leave the familiar and engage in the unfamiliar. She was afraid to leave the predictability of her life.

Is it fear in your case as well? I understand that you were not living with your wife while engaged with the better matched-to-you woman. But could it be that you  were afraid nonetheless?

anita

I see this much as Inky does.

I’ll put it a different way, though, just for fun and maybe it will be helpful also.

Falling in love is very much a chemical experience. Your brain gets flooded with phenylethylamine, which is a stimulant. You feel high, confident, amazed at how perfect your love interest is. I suppose that’s how nature gets people together to procreate and perpetuate the species.

But what happens inevitably is that concentrations of phenylethylamine will fall off, and the very same person who once seemed perfect inexplicably has flaws you didn’t see before (they were there all the time).

The bad news is that one typically feels disillusionment at this stage. The good news is that now you can get busy building a real relationship based on who the person actually is.

It could be that the woman you were with for a couple years would be a happier match for you. I don’t know.

But I think comparing your wife (who’ve you known for a long time) with a woman with whom you probably never moved out of the romantic stage, is comparing apples and oranges.