At 31, I have been married for several years and have a young daughter. My life is fairly predictable: my husband and I both hold stable jobs, share parenting duties, and visit our parents on weekends. Yet my first love left an indelible mark, even though circumstances ultimately kept us apart.
We were together for nearly three years. He was a few years older, quiet, deeply affectionate, and endlessly patient. Back then, I was young, fickle, and loved being pampered, convinced that if he truly cared for me, he should always be the one to back down. I would pick fights out of nowhere, repeatedly threaten to leave, and then wait for him to patch things up. Even when the fault was unmistakably mine, he would shoulder the blame. Looking back, I was blessed with someone who loved me wholeheartedly, but I took him entirely for granted.
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When he first broached the subject of marriage, panic set in because I simply was not ready for that commitment. I came up with every excuse to stall, claiming I needed to focus on work or arguing that we needed more time. He waited for nearly a year.
Then, following an argument over something completely trivial, I pulled the plug. When he asked if I was certain, I coldly insisted that I was. He let me go without pleading. Soon after, I relocated to Ho Chi Minh City for work, and we drifted out of touch.
A few months later, a mutual friend told me he had gotten married. Sitting alone in a cafe as the news sank in, a hollow ache settled over me. I had assumed that being the one to walk away would bring relief, but it felt like anything but.
Not long after, I got married myself. My husband is a good man—caring, attentive, and devoted to our family. I am genuinely content with the life we have built together. Even so, uninvited memories still slip through in quiet moments.
Walking down a street lined with food stalls serving a dish he loved brings back an instant wave of nostalgia. On other nights, hearing an old song leaves me wondering whether things might have unfolded differently had I been less headstrong. I harbor no desire to get back together, we both have families now, yet I cannot bring myself to see him as a total stranger.
His birthday is next week, and I find myself wanting to buy him a leather wallet, much like the one he used to carry. In fact, every year since our breakup, I have sent a gift to his office without leaving any name or note. I suspect he knows who it comes from, though he has never once reached out.
The more I reflect on it, the more selfish I feel. Why am I doing this when I have a husband and a child, and he has a family of his own? What would our spouses think if they ever found out? Deep down, feelings of love and longing still linger, which is why I keep wanting to mark his birthday. I am sharing my story in the hope that your perspectives will give me the resolve to finally put an end to this. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.