Keeping in touch with teenage boyfriend

I did with my first proper boyfriend over the years and was rather amused that each time I met him he had a new wife. I found it mildly flattering about his not very subtle hints that he would drop everything to give it another go until I met my husband. The ex asked me for a meet up again and I said that I'd love to as my husband was looking forward to meeting him. Strangely enough, I never heard from him again.
I do have another boyfriend who is a "friend". I am also friends with his wife and have introduced him to my husband. He was a lovely bloke but was a drinker which didn't work for me. In every other way, I loved his personality. Neither of us would ever look at each other in anything but a platonic manner. Sadly, he is now a functioning alcoholic with health issues so I don't suppose he'll be around much longer.

Yes. I met the love of my life when we were both 16. University eventually meant that we lost touch (no mobiles or emails then). I tried to find him before I got married but couldn’t. He contacted me 20+ years ago and we have been in touch ever since. He is married - mine ended in divorce. I have had a couple of relationships since getting divorced but none compares to him.

I used to have one of my teenage boyfriends living round the corner from me, that I used to see fairly regularly.
Funnily enough, most of my ex boyfriends I still stayed friendly with after we split up, apart from this guy!
20 years later, we'd be civil to each other and sometimes had a general chat but he was always in a relationship, often with friends of mine! He's moved away now.
I must admit there are one or two ex boyfriends I would like to know about, just out of curiosity!

No! Could think of nothing worse tbh and DH would strongly disapprove, he’s the jealous type even after all these years of marriage!! I would feel the same if the boot was on the other foot but if it works for you OP good luck!

I had a long term boyfriend from 15 - 19 and would just like to know how his life and career worked out. He wouldn’t have been right for me and I was right to walk away, but I would like to feel he was happy.

I got a phone call out of the blue from a chap I used to go out with in 1976 .( He didn't turn up one night when we were dating and I later found out that a previous girlfriend had phoned him saying that she'd just given birth to his child . )He'd married her but she died last year and he phoned me wanting to meet up again !
He'd left the message on the ansaphone but I didn't reply .

I am in touch with an old boyfriend. We live hundreds of miles apart so never meet up but send each other a text a couple of times a year just to say hello and catch up. Husband knows and has no problem with it.

Bet you wished you hadn't asked the question now. ??

Nowt wrong with staying friends. A husband should think of them no differently to a female friend. If they do they have a problem.

If you or he are married OP you need to stop. If you are both single rock on.

No. There was a reason for dropping all of them and I can’t imagine that changing.

Polarbear I'm sorry to hear that and it's a warning to others who might think it's a bit of innocent and nostalgic fun.

Lost my husband to a similar situation. She told him she’d loved him since they were 14. He was at that dodgy mid life crisis time. By the time he realised it was all rubbish he’d destroyed our lives. No it’s not innocent and fun.

17 years ago, I was contacted through Friends Reunited by someone I knew at school but had never dated. He is older than me and was friends with the brother of my best friend so we were acquainted with each other in the sixties.

To cut a long story short, and to quote Charlotte Brontë, “Reader, I married him.”

The ‘he says he s always loved me’ from 16 to what 50, 60, 70 is the danger signal Easy words indeed and obviously the author and her chap are living in a little time warp of rainbows and unicorns
I see my first boyfriend in passing very very occasionally we swap Christmas cards and this year out of the blue he rang me on my birthday (it couldn’t of course have anything to do with his wife dying a year or two ago?) and we had a nice chat but.........oh no no no
Last year at a cinema I saw my ex second husband who I hadn’t set eyes on for about 30 years He recognised me and set up a brief conversation afterwards my friend said who was that old man and she was right I told her but he was nothing like I remember him and didn’t give me a slightest flutter
Have you met up with this guy yet ?
Nice to dream in these go tough old times though

The now defunct Friends Reunited was founded on the principle of reuniting people who had once known one another through school, college and work.

A dear friend, dying far too young from cancer, had a yen to get in contact with people she (we) had known from our younger days. FR was very useful in that respect. She enjoyed being in touch with these people again, sharing stories about the past and their lives since.

As this site attests, people enjoy travelling down memory lane. Few would admit to never having wondered what happened to someone they once knew. I suspect too that lockdown has triggered an upsurge in people wanting to known what has happened to others.

I have a web presence with contact email. Occasionally, I receive a message from someone I haven’t heard from in years and wondering how I am. Some have developed into longer and enduring conversations.

I don’t see any harm in sharing memories even if some are tinted by rose-coloured specs.

Out of the blue a letter came from a man that I had been engaged to over 50 years ago, asking me to reply etc.

I ignored it.

i am curious why the OP didn't include her married status in her OP, because whether she is currently in a marriage or partnership, or on her own does vary one's attitude to this 'friendship'.

Molly I think most of us assumed you were married because. otherwise why would you post about a friendship like this?

I am "friends" on Facebook with my childhood sweetheart and one time nextdoor neighbour. We were about 14 I guess when his family moved away. We ended up at the same university town and met up a couple of times . He DJd at my 21st, he had long hair. Now we are both in our mid(ish) 60s and he is bald and I am overweight. We are both happily married and grandparents. I am happy to keep things a key board and computer screen apart!!

If I feel cross with DH for any reason and my mind wanders to what an ex might be like now, I always think 'there was a reason why we never got married!'

If he's always loved you Molly there must be a reason why you ditched him

Wouldn’t it be mortifying to find they were now a silver fox?!

I'm the one who is bald, with a paunch these days.

Don't forget they will have changed too Skydancer, possibly bald with a paunch!

Galaxy, any teenage boyfriend would remember me as slim with long dark hair and miniskirts. Now I'm misshapen with thin hair and old clothes. So I'd say leave the past where it is.

Galaxy

Crikey if someone was playing sweet sixteen to remember me by they are going to get the shock of their lives if they meet me now.

???