By: Ryan Matthews
April 21, 2025

I’ve been married for a while now, and there’s a lot of things I’m grateful for. I have a beautiful, strong wife who makes my heart soar even on the hardest days. We’ve gone through so much together, and yet… lately, there’s something I can’t shake.

It’s the ghost of a love I thought I had left behind.

It’s been years since I last saw her. My ex. The one I thought I would marry when I was young, the one who made everything seem possible. She was my first love—the kind of love that feels like a fairytale, the kind that you think will last forever, but only when it fades, do you realize how fragile it all was.

I remember those days in high school, everything so vivid in my mind. The way she laughed, the way she looked at me like I was the only one who understood her. It felt like we were invincible. We shared secrets, dreams, hopes… and I thought we’d grow up together. But, life is never so simple. We broke up. Slowly, we drifted apart, and after that, she rarely reached out to me.

I always wondered if she thought about me the way I thought about her. Was I just another chapter in her story? I can’t help but feel like she’s the one that got away. And no matter how much I try to convince myself that I’m happy with my wife—that I’m where I’m supposed to be—I can’t seem to stop thinking about my ex.

It’s almost like a curse. I have everything I’ve ever wanted now—my wife, our home, our future, and yet… I wake up in the middle of the night with her face in my mind, more real than ever before. And it’s not like she was my first, or even the one I thought would be the one forever. But it was that first taste of love that makes you think it’s all you’ll ever need.

Recently, after everything we’ve been through—losing our baby at six weeks—it’s felt like life has come crashing down on us. My wife, the love of my life, is hurting. And when I see her cry, when I see her heart breaking, my own heart cracks in a way that I can’t explain. I would do anything to take away her pain, to make her feel better, but somehow… my thoughts are always elsewhere. My mind keeps drifting back to her—my ex.

I know it’s wrong. I know it’s unfair. But, in the midst of this new pain, this grief that’s so fresh, I can’t seem to stop the memories from flooding back. They’re not loud or intrusive, but they’re always there, quietly waiting for the quiet moments when I’m alone with my thoughts.

She’s in my dreams now, too. Lately, I see her more clearly than I ever have before. Her smile, her eyes… it’s as if she’s here with me again, and I’m back in those moments of innocence, when love was so pure and new. And then I wake up, and it’s just the quiet of my bedroom, my wife beside me, lost in her own thoughts, and all I’m left with is the bittersweet taste of what could have been.

I’m not mad about what happened. I’ve made peace with it. But why does she keep showing up? Why does this part of my past keep clawing its way back into my life when I’ve worked so hard to build a future with my wife? I wish I could let go, but some things never leave you, no matter how hard you try to forget.

I just want peace. I want to be present for my wife and to give her everything she deserves. But some days, it feels like that first love, that fairytale, will always linger in the corners of my mind, just out of reach. And all I can do is wonder why the past keeps finding its way back into my present.