is it true you could be in love with someone from 20 years ago without seeing them?

Question

I use to date this guy like 16 years ago, Even though we havent seen each other in like 13 years , i still have feelings for him , I recently discoved that he is in prison and I wrote him a letter , do you think that is normal

Answer 1

It is not a common thing but it's not "abnormal" either..I know many women in the same or a similar situation. Here's my own story: I first met My Whateverheis nearly 23 years ago, when I was 15 and dating a friend of his, I fell in lust at first sight then grew genuinely fond of him as the weeks passed, then one day, I heard him laugh out loud for the first time and that was that, I lost a piece of my soul to this reckless, untamed, redheaded James Dean reincarnate....and couldn't do a damn thing about it (His brother had already taken away my boyfriend's former fiancee....) but hooked up one Halloween (Wrong, wrong, wrong but......) and I haven't been the same since.... Boyfriend and I broke up, partly over that, mostly over other things....My redhead and I crossed paths now and then for the next few years and I was terrified that he might realize I took him seriously and vanish from my life in a cloud of dust...his taste in women always ran to dramatic, high maintainence party dolls and I'm a reserved, intellectually driven, serious minded bookworm...figured I had no chance at all to hold his interest as anything more than a pal and playmate... it was not what I wanted but a lot more than I was willing to risk losing.
Life, as it tends to do, went on....I never quite got over him but moved along.... got married, got divorced,went to college.....All the while thinking of him often and everytime I ran into him, spent a while mourning what might have been.....7 years ago, I met my second husband, a couple of years ago, we moved to Montana.....ln January '05, word finally reached me that my Whateverheis was about to be tried for 1st degree murder....I stewed a week or so, then wrote him at the County jail... a short, cautious note with a picture enclosed because I was not positive he'd recall my name without a face to go with it....He wrote back immediately, a letter that began.... "Oh, Girl, it is so good to hear from you! You must have caught my vibe one of those times I was thinking of you..."
In my next letter, I wrote that I didn't know if he ever knew it, but that he'd always mattered to me a great deal, that I'd never said anything for fear of his vanishing in the aforementioned cloud of dust.... the response to that was a simple and heartbreaking "Yes, I always cared for you, and I still do..." backed up by a stunning collection of little memories I'd carried for 20+ years and never dreamed he'd held them as well..... He was convicted before I could get to California to see him, but I was there before sentencing in March, as soon as I laid eyes on him again, I knew nothing had changed or dulled with time....I had to be the one to tell his mom that he'd been moved out of county and was headed for reception... and have been writing, visiting every chance I get, keeping in touch with his appellate lawyers, etc ....I don't know what the future holds but I'll never let him out of my life again, come what may, he's stuck with me....and my husband, bless his generous heart, accepts it.

And even if it's not a "relationship",After dealing with this for almost 2 years, with no end in sight, I can tell you with absolute certainty.. Loving an inmate is a VERY HARD ROAD....it's about slogging through endless paperwork, it's trying to keep up with rules that seem to change every week, it's waiting for incredibly expensive collect phone calls that might or might not come and when he doesn't call, praying with all your heart that the phones in the day room are just either too busy or broken and that he's not hurt or on lockdown, it's becoming obsessive about checking your mail and the heartsick feeling that comes over you when the letter you want so badly isn't there,it's about getting writers cramp and spending $20 a week on stamps and stationary, it's about dealing with either keeping it secret or dealing with disapproval of the relationship everywhere you turn and mostly it means living in a future you can't be sure of and that really does take a toll.
If I had a choice, I wouldn't do it, but I've loved the guy for over 20 years and I can't quit now...and I'm almost 40, so it's not as if I'm spending my youth dealing with the Dept.of Corrections...think carefully before you get deeply involved here, Sweetie, it is a hard, hard thing to do and no guarantees.

Answer 2

Memories, work weird things on a person, but try it, why not? Good luck!

Answer 3

yes