Like others, I never look back and have no regrets about it. I had a girlfriend from college track me down via the intertoobs some 40 years after we parted. She was a wackjob then, and still is. I didn’t respond to the email.
My first wife’s parents got divorced, then remarried. She and her brother are actually from two different marriages. Her father was also married to another woman somewhere in the mix, but I’ve lost track of the sequence. Anyway, the parents’ remarriage lasted until death, so it is possible.
A bit ago a friend and her husband celebrated their 8th/14th anniversary- they got married 14 years back when they were both 20ish, because she was pregnant. They were both pretty immature and decided they’d rushed into it all, so they split amicably about two years later.
They’d stayed friends for the sake of the son, while they’d both dated other people and did what they’d wanted to do, then gradually realised they’d actually picked a pretty good partner the first time, they’d just been too young and had different ideas about life, which had converged in the intervening years. They re-married on their original anniversary and had been happily together 8 years since.
It’s not common, but I think it works out sometimes; people change, especially if they were pretty young to begin with.
Hello folks I’ve just joined the forum. Hoping for some input as feeling, well, gutted. Reconnected recently online with a former lover. Both of us free now. Been 20 yrs since we were together but the feelings were still strong on both sides. Within 4 days of reconnecting, he’s asking to visit (I’m on another continent) and checking airfares. Phone chats - learned he’d be searching for me when he was in my city,in 1999, spent 6 hours in a cafe borrowing their White Pages and phoning people Telling me I’ve been on his mind and in his heart all this time, knew from time we’d met I was everything he ever wanted in a woman and envied my husband because husband had me whereas he did not. Wanting a fresh start and hoping I could be that, tickets booked for visit to see if we could make it together. Informed me of reschedule due to eldest child (now 40) needing life open heart surgery, congenital condition. Surgery reschedule, trip postponed for another month. Today I learn that due to he and ex spending time together because of this surgery (and I would imagine bringing them closer and reminding them of earlier days, not knowing if she would live, trauma, emotion etc etc you get the picture and I’m sure you know what’s coming). Well I had expected there would be some interaction of course and closeness and support but not the email I got tonight telling me there was a spark and they were shortly going to give it another go. This is less than 24 hours after this traumatic surgery and emotions all over the place I would imagine. Not to mention mine. But he wants to stay in touch. I know, cake and eat it. But truly this person was the biggest love of my life, has told me we were meant to be together, he was ready to commit. :smack: What a great smiley just what I needed here - tells me I was the one and what a fool he was to let me go and so on, the thought of reuniting with me was all consuming … and now this. Is he just emotionally off balance and in a vulnerable moment, because his dearest daughter (who knows about me, wants to meet me and has supported him thru this all these years) was possibly about to die but thankfully now going to be ok? The head says walk away, the loving heart is full of understanding and compassion. The gut is full of lead and churning. Reunites after long periods have about 85% success rate, remarriages a higher failure rate than 1st marriages apparently. So I’m clutching at stats. However distance is against me and I’m not “family” in this situation. Sorry folks but I’m in shock and need to air this, I haven’t any family here. Thanks for reading and hopefully sending me some hugs at least.
By the way we aren’t spring chickens, he’s 67, retired/no ties, I’m 60 no ties. You see passion doesn’t die just because you age. However I’m aware some people just want the comfort of familiarity. (Which also breeds contempt and he had said he’d “stuck it” for as long as he could) He asked me “what was he thinking” when he didn’t take his chance with me back then, now I’m wondering what he’s thinking now. No wonder I’m confused 
No divorce, since there was no such thing back then, but at one point my great-grandmother left her husband, left her youngest child with the child’s godparents (who were childless) and went back to the farm taking the two elder children.
She was received with “there’s the darning, did you bring your own needles?” After a couple of months she went back to the big city, told the husband “here’s how it’s going to be: I’ll feed you and keep the house clean, you sign any paper I tell you to sign*.” He agreed. Things must have gotten warmer than that, given that there was a fourth child, but since I never got to meet great-grandpa and great-grandma died when I was a toddler, my references on how warm are all second-hand from my grandmother and mother. I understand great-grandma was always in love with his bohemian ass, but he certainly wasn’t an easy man to live with.
- Under then-current law, a woman was not able to enter contracts other than retail shopping, buy or sell real estate… so she needed her husband’s signature for everyday stuff.
Both one of my uncles and my married-last-year cousin (not from that uncle) had a breakup-and-back-on during the courtship, but I think that’s different.
Hmm, I don’t know. Hey Loach, are you a big, fat, lazy jerk whose apparent allergic reaction to keeping his word about anything ever has rendered his words completely useless?
In my area the court orders all parents getting a divorce to attend a 4 hour “parenting during/after a divorce” class.
A friend who attended the same class told me that he was told, “sixty percent of you will re-marry your soon-to-be-ex-spouse, and eighty percent of those marriages will fail.”
I didn’t believe that statistic then or now, and suspected he heard it wrong.
Some years after my divorce my ex-wife asked me out, and while a big part of me wanted to jump at the chance, the biggest part of me knew it was a Very Bad Idea.
No way.
((Laurencia)) Sounds like you may have dodged a bullet.
Thank you Dung Beetle for reading and giving feedback. You may be right. Would be far more painful if we had reunited and then the split came later. I am still reeling and picking up pieces of me off the floor and gradually putting them back in place. Some talks with others of similar experience have helped. Maybe this was the closure I needed and the shove he needed to realise what he really did want. Phew, it’s been tough though. You don’t just stop loving overnight no matter what they’ve done. Because I love him I do want him to be happy and have his best outcome and understand that mine is yet to come. 
I still occasionally have nightmares about finding myself back together with my ex. I usually wake up rather… unsettled.
I know of two such: a relative by marriage divorced his wife then they later remarried. The other one was more “out there”; they broke up right before their wedding, later reconciled, then separated a few days after they married… then later remarried and I gather are quite happy now.
By “unsettled” do you mean screaming? 
I have also had nightmares about being back together with my ex. It takes a minute after I wake up to reassure myself that I didn’t do such a foolish thing.
There’s a friend of my family who has gotten back together with her ex. They were living together, she got pregnant, they got married. They were married for a few years, then he moved out and they divorced. He moved back in with her and their daughter about six months later. I don’t know if they ever re-married, but they seem happy now.