"He was the love of my life … now I'm friends with his wife!"

By Mixey Blob

It was the height of summer and we were young and carefree students enjoying the best that life had to offer. We met … after a week he invited me to a Bond film … after a fortnight we went out for dinner … after a month we were madly in love and planning our first holiday abroad together.

It was all so perfect, and we felt like the golden lovers of every great novel and play! Nothing could have been further from my mind than 'how to get my ex back.' Ex? I knew I would never have one!

Then …
Unexpectedly …
The first row. Over something completely meaningless. To be honest, I don't even remember what we argued about. But we never really sorted things out again after that first disagreement … and the first seeds of doubt and anxiety were sown.

Then, he had to move to his first job. And I was under a lot of stress during my final exams.

A mutual 'friend' suggested to me that he was having a bit too much of a good time in his new flat in the town where he was working.

And that led to the final row and our break-up, two years after our 'golden summer'. Suddenly, not only did I have an ex, I was desperate to get my ex back and knew nothing about how to do so. It was the worst time of my life by far. I had loved him so much but somehow I'd done everything wrong … or that was how it felt at the time. Looking back, he probably felt the same way, but I never found out.

Instead, I tried to at least 'become good friends.' But from the point of view of an expert on 'how to get your ex back ', I made SUCH mistakes:

1. The first time we met after the break-up, I had still not acknowledged to myself that we had actually broken up. I was still trying to 'sort things out' and 'get back to normal'. Talk about 'wake up and smell the coffee'! Normal was way, way behind us by then. We had said too many hurtful things. I was trying to stick Band-Aids on a massive third-degree burn.

2. The second time we met up, I wanted to 'get to the root' of the problem. I wanted to tell him EVERYTHING that I felt I had done wrong … beg for forgiveness … change my ways … if he'd just say we were together again. Mistake.

3. And the third time we met up was at a party and both of us ended up staying the night … in the same room … actually sharing a double mattress on the floor. And he … kind of … made an advance, let's say. Now can you guess what my mistake was that time? And … are you sure you've guessed right what that mistake was?

Well, time passed and we moved on, slowly (very slowly, in my case.) But I was determined to make the best of life. I told myself I had two years to get over him, and, in the end, I did. So I never did get my ex back . We're good friends … not close, but we get on fine. And I was even invited to his wedding. And I even went. And his wife is a really nice person and we get on too. I helped her get her first job, which she still loves.

Still … sometimes I look back and feel just a twinge of regret for all the mistakes I made and all the ignorance of 'golden youth'. If I knew then what I know now … then I wouldn't be 'friends with his wife'.