I won’t say I haven’t wondered about the “one that got away” on occasion, and there are two men I might put in that category as I look back over the years.
And I believe I know who my ex would place in that slot, though I imagine he would never admit it.
Are we haunted by the one we didn’t choose – or who didn’t choose us?
Is the one that got away merely a safe place to put our day dreams if we’re lonely or discontent?
Is it easier to justify divorce if we leave for the one that got away before we ever married?
The “Before” Trilogy: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight
This weekend I watched a film I’ve always enjoyed, “Before Sunrise.” Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are young lovers Jesse and Céline. They meet on a train in Europe, talk up a storm, and we fall in love with these quirky personalities and their 23-year old view of the world as they fall for each other.
“Before Sunset” picks up the story nine years later in 2004, as they meet again in Paris. They’re older, more cynical, and Jesse is in a troubled marriage. It was happenstance that kept them from making a rendez-vous in 1995, and apparently neither has forgotten the other.
You might say they are, for each other, the one that got away.
In the 2013 release of “Before Midnight,” which I have yet to see, we will encounter them some years their marriage – now fortyish. Jesse divorced his wife and left his children behind in the States to be with her, and they now have a family of their own – complete with the usual struggles and frictions of any married couple with children, not to mention – a blended family across an ocean.
Lying to Ourselves? Convincing Ourselves?
I haven’t seen the latest film in the series, so if you have, don’t spoil it for me! But it did get me to thinking about “the one that got away,” and how many of us have someone we look back on – wistfully.
Now just because we do so doesn’t mean we want to toss away our lives as they are and run off with the person who provides a fantasy safe haven. However, if we harbor strong and persistent feelings for the one that got away, isn’t that a different matter?
This leads me to the notion of living a lie, though that may seem too harsh a word for it and too simplistic an interpretation. Perhaps we should express this sort of ambiguity as growing to a place where we’re not entirely truthful with the one who shares our beds, our children, or to whom we commit a few years (or decades) of our lives.
Is the concept of “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” an impossibility in relationships? What about a more pragmatic and discreet method of picking and choosing what we say, what we don’t, and how much of ourselves we bring to our relationship table?
Are Half-Truths Lies?
Naturally, we hold back certain words and actions to respect our partners and also, not to hurt them. We honor them, we love them, though we may not love them in the way we once felt emotional intimacy with another.
Does it follow then that partial love is a sort of lie? Is going through the motions of caring but not feeling it another sort of lie?
Is a lie solely a statement that is intentionally false and intended to deceive?
- If your intentions are honorable, if you’re never caught, if no one’s the wiser, if you’re responsible in whatever role you’ve taken on, is there something admirable in “staying” – or is it a waste of a life?
- Is a marriage a lie if you’ve “settled” for one you know is second best, and another person lives in your heart for years? Is the answer “it depends?”
- What must it feel like to be the spouse who is left when a husband or wife meets up with that earlier loved one, and decides to leave? How must that feel?
The One That Got Away – You? Someone Else?
I’m not making judgments. I’m posing the questions. Can’t good relationships be built on the reality of loving solidly and responsibly? Since when can any one person be our “everything” anyway? Don’t we likely romanticize the “one that got away?”
Yet wouldn’t we be somewhat more forgiving if our errant partners accidentally encountered their one that got away – and the inevitable happened?
What about the spouse who is left in his or her wake? How must that feel – to find out that your husband re-encountered his true (or truer) love, and left to pursue her? Would you question everything? Would you note the moments that offered signs you should have paid attention to?
Of course, life isn’t a film script with a neat, audience-pleasing dénouement. Some of us live with lies in marriage — a spouse’s lies of commission, ommission, or our own, including those we tell ourselves to get through a rough patch. But what if the entire basis of the marriage is a lie?
Second Best in the Love Game
As I walk my way through the fictitious scenario of Jesse marrying someone he loved “enough,” but always recalling Céline, the notion of his leaving a troubled marriage (and children) seems less hurtful than if he met a stranger, fell for her, and took off.
Then again, maybe I’m kidding myself. No one wants to be second best for the one they love.
I occasionally ask myself if I was second best to my ex. I ask myself if I was the one that got away to someone else. I will never know the answer to either of those questions. And I wonder if the man I loved before I married knew that he was in the corner of my mind – especially after divorce, though I was delighted to learn that he had remarried his first wife and they were happy, truly happy, until he passed away.
That knowledge confirmed what I sensed so many years before – that they belonged together, and that I was right to insist we move on.
How many of us carry a “one who got away” in our past – real or romanticized? If given the chance at a second chance, how many would leave everything behind to take it? And once there, how well do you deal with the fallout and the reality?
Image of Julie Delpy, 1991, Creative Commons 3.0, Wiki, attribution photographer Fabrice Léveque.
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I also loved the first 2 movies and have yet to see the third. Maybe, this week.
I had several wonderful men in my life who I let go because they could not commit to children. 20, 30 years down the road, they are still childless.
One in particular is still in my dreams and, at times, waking thoughts. We had such a connection and for a few years he strung me along, hinting that someday he would want children. We had a very romantic relationship that simply could not survive reality. We were too similar, too much alike, with he same strengths and the same weaknesses. Both of us ended up marrying a partner that compliments us well. Staying together would have been a disaster, but he is still in my heart. I may still be in his.
I was the one who got away, for several men in my life. Finding out was a surprise, but I would not have changed the decisions I made at the time.
It must be fascinating to find out for whom you are “the one that got away.” And I understand about those decisions once made.
Have you seen the third movie yet, lunaboogie? I’m hoping to soon.
I ended my relationship with the 20 year old I always – for 30 years – thought of as the ‘love of my life’. Husband 2 was a very close 2nd – they looked quite alike. ‘LOML’s didn’t seem to treat me as an equal, though I know they valued me, maybe even loved me. I might even be for them ‘the one that got away’ – never thought of it that way. They treated me as inferior and I wasn’t prepared to accept that. It cost me dearly to end those relationships – years of sad dreams and oceans of tears – but I’ve never regretted having done so. Today the ‘Love of My Life’ is definitely Bill, who is nothing like the first or second one…he may argue with me, but its always on an equal footing. I’d never before experienced a partnership like I have with him and I can’t imagine life without him. One thing previous break-ups have taught me, though, is that I know how to survive. One of us will likely leave this relationship first and if its not me, I will have to draw on previous experience…
Ahhhh – these 3 films were just playing at an independent theater here in Oregon – and I missed my window. They looked so good. Hoping they’ll return. I wondered for years about one who got away – have heard of his life from time to time over the years from old friends when he comes up in conversations – and say with relief now, that it was good he moved on from me – for reasons (at the time) I couldn’t understand because I was so crazy in love with him. Now? He seems a classic jerk. Whew! Sometimes what feels like a dagger to the heart at the time, ends up being a bullet we dodged.
“Sometimes what feels like a dagger to the heart at the time, ends up being a bullet we dodged.” There is so much wisdom in that comment, Barbara! Thanks for putting it so beautifully!!
I will sometimes remember good times I’ve enjoyed with special friends in the past (shouldn’t we all expect that to happen, even hope for that, if the relationship was ever any good?), but “got away” — no, can’t say that I’ve experienced that. More to the contrary, despite having had some good times, I’ve learned how very rare (but not impossible) it is to meet someone who is right to “keep” with for a lifetime. In any case, I don’t go with “keeping” and “getting away.” My grounding is that if you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you, they belong with you, If they don’t, they never belonged with you in the first place. Who would want to live with someone who didn’t love them? Perhaps you wish they had loved you, but they didn’t or else they would do whatever it took to be with you, so get real and get over it.
“Now just because we do so doesn’t mean we want to toss away our lives as they are and run off with the person who provides a fantasy safe haven.”
Sometimes we do. 🙂
While a senior attending an American high school in Germany, I met this guy. He’d just moved to the area because his father, a high ranking Army officer, was transferred.
He was tall, and he had dark hair and blue eyes. *Swoon.* We dated for three weeks before I got restless/felt squashed by his sincere and lovely feelings for me and broke up with him. After several weeks we managed to become friends again, and soon after graduation he moved back to the States. I moved back after about a year.
We lived in different parts of the country, but there was always something about him that stuck. And, the way he tells it, something about me stuck with him, too. Through my first marriage, and through his. Also through my second marriage. He was always the ideal, the one I knew I wanted to be with “someday,” even if someday was when both of our spouses had died and we were 80 years old. He was the one, whenever it could happen.
It happened about 50 years sooner than I dreamed it would. I’d been separated for about two months when we saw each other, and that visit pretty much decided it: we would be together. He left his wife, and we married two years later. We’ve been together for 10 years, now, and married for 8. We weren’t content to let each other be the ones who got away when we could actually enjoy our lives together.
The “Before Sunrise” trilogy bears several similarities to our experience, European wanderings and everything. Where it veers off is in the third installment – fortunately! (If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t read my review, but I wrote about it here if you’re interested.)
What a story, Sylvia. I look forward to reading your review, but after I see the movie. 🙂
In the last month, the references to these 3 movies keep appearing in random places. Maybe it is a sign that I need to invest some time watching this trilogy.
Maybe it is a sign, Rudri! 🙂 They’re definitely indie movies, heavy on the dialog and light on action. But the dialog is fascinating. A window into interesting minds at different stages in life. I think you might enjoy!
I loved the Before trilogy, especially Before Sunset. I realize this post was published several years ago, but part of what my partner and I are struggling with is the one-who-got-away scenario. When we first got back together and then got engaged & married 10 years ago, he told me I was the one who got away.
Now, it’s his ex from 15 years ago, from an early 20s relationship that didn’t weather 2 separate deteriorations. Now she’s headed for divorce, and he and I are in such different places, which he only communicated to me very recently.
It just really hurts and I’m struggling to look to the future, mine and ours. This is the 3rd time in the past 2 years his ex has pushed him to this place and I don’t know how much more I can take. I love him dearly but I’m not sure he’s in love with me, nor can we give each other what we want and need out of life.
Anyways, thank you for this and your other helpful articles. I’m searching desperately for healing and your site has really spoken to me.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this, Kay. I wish I had a magic wand to make it better for you. I do find it a little surprising that his ex is inserting herself into your lives as a couple, but I suppose we all tend to justify our actions when we want something badly enough. I sometimes think that being in love is a kind of madness. That’s hardly an original thought, but there is a great deal of truth to it.
That said, are the two of you able to speak openly about the situation? Do you have someone else you can speak to who can be a good sounding board for you?
And thank you for the kind words about what I have posted here over the years.
We are working on communication. We are in couples counseling and are both doing individual therapy as well. I have an amazing support network.
We’ll get through this, one way or another. We’ve both made mistakes and hurt one another over the years. I’m hopeful for healing and peace for us, him, and me.
Thank you again.