Episode 13 Claire

Claire met a guy in college, and one night changed their entire friendship. She moved on and eventually got married, but she started thinking about him again...find out where she is now.
My rambling ends at the 4:14 mark. Thank you for listening!

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Hello, it's Balin. You're listeningto the right person, wrong time podcast.
I have had the most boring weekendever. We in Minnesota. If
you live here, you know thedread. It was like the most beautiful
week ever. I was out therehot girl walking and I always say I
do hot girl walk. I sweptmore than the average human, I'm certain

(00:32):
of that. And I did threemiles three days in a row, and
I really think I worked my hipout a little bit, did a little
hip mobility class on Peloton. Shoutout to the GAO on Instagram. They're
recommended that to me, and yeah. I took my dog to a dog
park and immediately received an inbox fullof messages saying do you check the news.

(00:53):
There's dog influence. And I'm like, guys, I gotta be honest
with you unless it is sent directlyto me in DM like you just sent.
Clearly, I miss it. Sohopefully, hopefully Dolly wasn't out there
spreading it. And you know she'sfine and know it's a serious situation,
but she only does one mile walks. So I was just thriving and then
boom, the weather turned like aslap in the face with cold although I

(01:17):
might. I'm trying to debate rightnow if I'm going to go for a
walk and just do like this fortydegree weather, or if I'm going to
ride out the old peloton I know, edge of your seat content. I've
been talking to my friend Tina,who designed my logo for Right Person,
Wrong Time podcast. I said,Tina, I am wrapping up season one
of this podcast soon, so Ihave a I have today's guest. The

(01:41):
next week, I'll have some emails. I've recorded two additional guests, but
I gotta listen to the audio becausesomething looks whack about it. So hopefully
we have a handful more weeks ofseason one of Right Person, Wrong Time,
And then your girl is thinking abouttransitioning into what I mentioned on the
last week's podcast, a podcast outanything, because it's fun and it's not

(02:02):
a bad thing to do seasons ofthings and try something new. So anyway,
I was talking to her about itwhat I want it called, and
a logo and things like that,and yeah, so anyway, hopefully you'll
like and subscribe to that too.Oh my gosh, but yeah, yesterday
or two days ago, Sunday,whatever it was Sunday, let me tell

(02:24):
you three and a half year oldsnow. It's like too cold to go
play in the snow. Gross weather. Nothing planned. I didn't want to
go to like Maul of America orsomething because I was like, everyone else
is going to be there today.So we were in the house. At
one point I looked at the clock. It was noon. I'm not kidding
when I say I thought it wasfour pm, and I was like,
this will never end. So itdidn't shout out, gave her a bath,

(02:49):
and off to bed she went aftera little episode of Cinderella or some
other movie she's watched seventy five times. But I am ready for this week
ahead. The weather looks like absolutegarbage, so there's so much to look
forward to and actually may look.I was going to see and see what
do we have coming up? Oh, tax day tomorrow or tax day to

(03:13):
day? Wow? Wow yep.As I'm looking at my calendar filled with
nothingness, I have a surprise formy husband. This could be a good
way to test to see if helistens to my podcast. I'm certain he
doesn't, but I have a surprisefor him, and I am dying to
tell him. But if it goesaccording to my plan. I won't tell

(03:34):
him for like three more months.So yeah, I thought i'd share that
with you and not tell you whatthe surprise is to continue to leave you
on the edge of your seat withI don't give a crap Foulan. Can
we get to the podcast? Yeswe can't. Today's episode has Claire on
it. Her situation is definitely differentthan ones we've had in the past.

(03:54):
This is someone she had an encounterwith. She then went on with her
life to all the things you doin life, really, and then this
person kept weighing on her mind.Thank you so much for listening, and
I hope you enjoy today's episode withClaire. Claire, let's kick things off

(04:15):
and tell me about the start ofyour relationship. Yeah, so, I
when I was in college, Imet this guy, and I met him
kind of in a weird way thathas never happened to me before. I
walked into class and it was kindof just like a pull towards this person.

(04:39):
And you know, so over thenext couple of weeks we would kind
of make a point to sit nextto each other in class and talk a
little bit. But I was stillfeeling kind of nervous and I didn't really
know where his head was at.So, you know, we got into

(05:00):
this project that our teacher wanted allof us to work on, and we
got to pick who we were workingwith, and so I just kind of
went for it and asked if hewanted to work with me and a couple
of my friends. And that wasreally the start of us becoming friends,
because we originally just started as friends. And how old were you then?

(05:23):
I was twenty two, Okay,so quite young. But you know you
felt them, I know the feelingyou're talking about, where you feel it's
mutual, but you're also afraid,like what if it's not. I'm in
this class with this person and it'llbe awkward. You know. Yeah,
I'm not very good at reading thosesigns, and so it just I wasn't
really sure. But yeah, soyou know, really, over the next

(05:46):
two years, probably we were reallygood friends. I mean, we hung
out all the time, and wedated other people during this time, but
we were just really good friends.Why do you think during that time if
you kind of had that the feelingsfor each other, nothing else ever happened
in those two years. Well,we talked about it later. Once you

(06:11):
know, something else happens later,we talked about it, and it seemed
like both of us had these feelings, but we were too afraid to say
anything. Okay, we just weren'tsure what the other person was thinking,
and so we neither one of usmade a move. Well then, also,
if you guys are dating other people, it makes it even more confusing
because you're like, oh, okay, then he's not into me, or

(06:33):
oh, yeah, she must notbe into me because she's dating someone else,
okay, exactly. So you know, then comes this summer night where
we had planned to watch a coupleof movies that neither of us had seen
but had been wanting to see.And you know, so we had like
drinks and we were watching these moviesand it got super late, and I

(06:57):
was like, well, you canjust stay because your car's here, and
I don't want you to have tolike take an uber and then come back.
And so it just kind of madesense that he stayed over for that
night, which has happened before,but this night was just different, and
we ended up sleeping together. Okay, And after that, I don't think

(07:21):
we talked for three months. Ohmy gosh, I was going to ask,
how was that next morning, butum, awkward, It was a
little bit awkward. But also thething that threw me off was that he
almost acted like nothing happened. Ohyeah, that's like, hello, this
is a huge, big moment inour either friendship or relationship. And then

(07:45):
and then what did you both justneither of you are reaching out to each
other in that three months? Yeah, I sent a text message that day,
So after he left, I senthim a text and said, are
we good? You know, Idon't know what like that meant, or
like what do you think like didas our friendship ruined? And he assured
me that everything was totally fine,and you know, we were good,

(08:09):
but it just seemed like our friendshipkind of dissipated. We texted less,
we made plans less, like wejust didn't see each other. And I
had just we had both just graduatedactually, so we didn't have school together
anymore. Was that incredibly hard becauseyou know, that's sounded like he's a

(08:30):
pretty good friend, maybe a bestfriend to when people lose best friends,
that hurts almost worse than a relationshipending sometimes. Yeah, yeah, it
was really hard. I definitely havea good group of people around me,
you know, in other parts ofmy life and I have other really close
friends and so it didn't feel liketoo big of an absence. But it

(08:52):
was also someone that I was regularlyseeing and spending time with and knew things
about my life, and so yeah, there was definitely a little bit of
a void, and I was justfeeling awkward because we never had a chance
to really talk about it. Sothat like is kind of I guess part
one, did you let me askyou did you feel were you mad or

(09:16):
did you feel used there anything?Because I end okay, Okay, yeah,
I didn't. I feel like Iwas kind of in a place where
I was just dating around anyways,I was in a relationship, and so
it didn't feel like that. Itruly, like just knowing who he is
as a person and knowing myself,I knew that it wasn't like that.

(09:39):
Like I knew that it maybe didmean more to both of us, and
that's why there was kind of thisdivide. But I was just worried about
I think, opening that up,opening the conversation up. Yeah, and
it sounds like he was as well. Yeah, so it's almost like,
okay, maybe if we just giveit some space. Did you think with

(10:01):
a little space, we'll get backto where we were. And then that
didn't happen. Yeah, that's kindof what I was hoping for. I
figured that, you know, wedidn't we wouldn't talk for a couple of
months, maybe take some space,and then get to a point where we
both felt like we could either befriends again or talk about what happened,
or just completely move on from itand pretend like it never happened. But

(10:22):
it just felt like, you know, three months turned into six months,
turned into a year, and Iwas then I was kind of thinking,
well, is it too far gone? Like now what neither of us are
doing anything? Yeah, at thatpoint I was going to ask, are
you even still thinking about it verymuch? Are you kind of like,
you know, eventually, once someone'snot in your regular rotation, occasionally like

(10:46):
fond memories will come up, likeoh this when we used to do this,
But it becomes less and less ofa sadness and it becomes more distant,
right Yeah, I mean, likeI said, I was, I
was dating other people, so Ikind of had a like during that well,
it ended up turning into about three, I think three and a half
four years of not talking. Yeah, probably about three years of not talking.

(11:11):
We were essentially Instagram friends and it. You know, I had been
dating other people and so I waskind of occupied. I didn't really think
too much about it. It waskind of like you said, I more
just thought of moments of our friendship, and I thought maybe this friendship was
kind of just a season. Youknow, I was young, and we

(11:33):
met in college, and you knowa lot of people aren't friends with people
they met in college as you getolder. So that's kind of what I
thought. Maybe it was, yes, And then I got married. Okay,
yeah, So I mean during thistime where I was dating other people,
I you know, I met myhusband and we got married after two

(11:56):
years, and that's kind of whenI started thinking about him again. Oh
wow, okay, so your howlong? How long into your marriage did
you like start randomly like thinking abouthim? Um? Oh gosh, it
was pretty quick. I would saymaybe a couple months into my marriage I
started thinking about him again. Therewas just a lot of comparing, like,

(12:20):
okay, the conversations that we wouldhave versus the conversations me and my
husband were having, and how thingswere handled, and just kind of all
aspects, Like I was really comparingthe two and just really missing the relationship
that I had with him. Whatwere some of the differences that really stood
out to you that like bothered youBecause there are some difference you can differences

(12:43):
you can get over. We're like, oh, he's he was three inches
taller, and then there are somethat are like that way on you more.
Yeah, Um, I mean oneof the biggest things was how open
we were with each other and howgood our communication was. Um. We
had both grown up in homes wheretherapy was really important, and so we
just had really strong communication skills.So if there was ever, you know,

(13:11):
an issue that came up between thetwo of us, we were able
to really work through it in ahealthy way and just kind of move on
from it and find a resolution.And it just felt like a really good
rhythm and also just kind of likehearing each other out in terms of like
emotions, Like if I was havinga hard day and didn't feel like seeing
people, he would understand that.It's like great, you know, reach

(13:33):
out when yeah, you know,you have more of a capacity for this,
whereas things with my husband are notlike that. It's very it's just
really different. We grew up completelydifferent. He grew up in a house
where we don't talk about anything andemotions are not cool. So that is
something that has been a huge strugglewhere we just cannot communicate about anything,

(14:00):
and you know there's something too.It's interesting because people sometimes often will say,
like the first year of marriage isthe hardest, and I think that
that is true or not. Imean, if you're in a pretty healthy
relationship to me, when you getmarried, there's really not a big change
once you get married, because couplesthese days they live together before they get

(14:24):
married. So I mean it's likekind of like, okay, now I
have a certificate in a ring.There's not a big change. But some
people they get really into like andI don't even think it's like you're being
consumed with the idea of having thewedding. I think there's weird internal biological
clock that goes off without you realizing, like I should be getting married.
We've been dating long enough, andthen once it's all done and the excitement

(14:48):
of the wedding is over, it'snot because you were people like position it,
like the girl is so obsessed withwearing the dress and having a party.
No, but like you get tothe point where after the wedding there's
no nothing else and you just haveto sit with the actual person you married.
And then I think there is somerealization that wasn't there before, and

(15:09):
for you it sounds like, oh, maybe this isn't the best communication,
maybe this isn't what I want todo for the rest of my life,
right, And it was exactly that. I mean, we planned our wedding
pretty quickly and so that kept usbusy, and then you know, after
the wedding, we purchased our condo, and then you know, from the
condo, we you know, endedup moving out of state for a little

(15:31):
bit. Like there was always somethingcoming next, and so we were always
planning for something else where. Wedidn't really have a pause to just be
a married couple, boring, havea boring run and that's when you know,
Okay, this is who I canhang out with the boring times,
right, And we did have alot of that in our relationship. But

(15:52):
I still felt like through our youknow, pre marriage life where we're just
stating you're still kind of working towardsmarriage, you know, it's kind of
leading up to something. And Iat that point, I feel like I
was so focused on getting engaged thatI just didn't put a lot of thought
into well, who really is thisperson and who who am I marrying?

(16:17):
Yeah? And yeah, I meanit just it was really hard. So
you get and you're married. Prettyquickly into the marriage, you start just
thinking about him lat the previous guy. What do you do from there?
Did it start weighing on you?And you start looking him up on social
media? Seeing where he's at inlife? Are you reaching out? What's
happening? Yeah? So it Idid start reaching out, and I felt

(16:42):
guilty about it, but I alsofelt I kind of justified it because we
were just friends. You know,there was really just this one incident,
and other than that, we werefriends, and so I didn't feel guilty
about it. But I did feelguilty about it, but I justified it.

(17:03):
When you were reaching out, whatwere you saying? First of all,
where was he at in life?Was he in a serious relationship also
or not? And when you're reachingout, where you doing very casual like
hey, what's been going on?Or when did you get to I guess
maybe more serious conversations? Yeah,it started out very casual, like you
know, sending a reply to anInstagram story and then kind of you know,

(17:26):
sending a text here and there whereit was more just checking in.
And we actually did get together onetime and just got lunch, and it
was really uncomfortable either, as knew, like we just hadn't talked about anything,
and it had been you know,three years at that point, and
so we just felt like we werein really different places and we were totally

(17:49):
different people. And so then afterthat I kind of went home thinking we
cannot be friends like we were.Just it doesn't work anymore. We're not
the same people grew up until thenext year when I randomly got a text
message from him, which is nowa year ago to like now, So

(18:10):
beginning of twenty twenty two, Igot a long text message from him that
said, you know, I missyou in my life and I really want
our friendship back, but I alsoI have feelings for you, and you
know you're married, and we needto talk about that night that happened.
But I don't feel like I cancomfortably hang out with you because I have

(18:33):
feelings for you and you're not available. Wow, And you're like, finally,
yeah, finally we can. Finallywe're addressing this because man, talk
about an elephant in the room foryears of your life. And also it
sucks because this night that shifted things, made it a reality then became also

(18:56):
the exact reason you stopped having anyform of communication and you weren't in each
other's lives at all. So Ihave to imagine that felt very good to
receive a message like that from himbecause you felt the same way. Yeah,
so it did. I actually likewoke up to the message and you
know, read through it and kindof tried to process it for a little

(19:18):
bit, and I was feeling thoseexact same things. I was like,
finally this is happening. It's beenway too long. He actually asked me
if I remembered that night, whichis funny, and like, of course
I do. And so I senthim, you know, a long message
back, and I was like,I get it. I get that you
know there are feelings there, thereare feelings are on my part too,

(19:41):
but we also haven't spent any timetogether in person, so how do we
really know that, like there aretrue feelings there or is it just kind
of an idea of feelings? Andfrom my point of view, I felt
like I could continue the friendship.It didn't feel like I was pushing boundaries.
I guess I felt like we couldstill stay friends, and so I

(20:03):
kind of put that into a longtext message and it was radio silence,
and I think he didn't text meback for months. Well, I was
going to say he put his heron the line. But also, you
know, deep down, if youtake a step the other direction, now
you can't justify things in your headin your marriage. Now you know that

(20:27):
a line is truly being crossed.And there had already been I mean obviously
a lot of you know, withor without this other guy, there had
been a lot of issues in mymarriage. So they're kind they really are
two different things. I wouldn't leavemy marriage for somebody else. I could

(20:48):
already been planning on splitting, okaywith my current husband, gotcha. Okay,
So that was kind of that process. You know, we had started
kind of talking about, like,this isn't working anymore, and so we
kind of started the split, whichalso made me, I guess, feel
a little bit less guilty. Butalso there really hadn't been any movement on

(21:12):
a divorce, gotcha. Yeah,So it's that weird in between where the
outside world doesn't know, but youguys know, yes, okay, yeah,
and so and I texted him.So I texted him back that long
message, didn't hear anything, decidedto, you know, give him a
week, and then I reached backout. And this kind of pattern continued

(21:37):
of me trying to reach out throughoutthe next ten months probably oh wow,
okay where I guess, maybe notten months, somewhere between around there.
Yeah, for a long time,I would try to reach out and was
getting nothing. I wasn't getting atext back, I wasn't getting like Instagram

(22:00):
messages back, nothing. It wasjust complete silence from him. So,
I are you at that point givingup? You know, I wasn't.
I did hit a point in thesummer where I unfollowed him on all social
media because I'm like, I justcan't. I couldn't continue looking at everything

(22:26):
that he was doing in his life, feeling the way that I was feeling,
and just feeling really rejected by him. So and then randomly, you
know, after this very long silence, he decides to text me back.
And there wasn't really a lot ofI guess explanation from him at that time.

(22:48):
He just kind of reached back outand said, hey, what's up.
How are you doing? Yeah,and so you know, we did
end up talking about it, andthe reason that he said he wasn't tech
seeing me back was because he didhave feelings for me, but he was
in a relationship with somebody else duringthat time, and so he didn't feel
good about texting me, and heobviously didn't know anything about what was going

(23:14):
on in my marriage, so itjust felt really sticky to him. Okay,
that's that's respectable. I get that, right exactly. So I definitely
understood, you know, where hewas coming from. But yeah, I
mean, it didn't make it anyeasier. Um. Yeah, Well,
we ended up deciding to hang out. I kind of explained what was going
on with my marriage and that wewere separated, and so you know,

(23:37):
I went over to his house andwe were just kind of kind of like
talk everything through, and that didn'tnecessarily happen. We ended up sleeping together
again, okay, the first timewe hung out, and so the so
the chemistry and feelings were still therein person, Yeah, definitely, and
so that kind of I guess wasthe time when it's restarted, like where

(24:03):
we're at now, where I'm youknow, in the process of a divorce
and I'm also kind of in arelationship with him, And is he seeing
anyone still or no, No,it's just you. Yeah, And how
long has this been like a thing? Now, let's see, probably like

(24:27):
like four or five months. You'veaddressed that night and how you both felt
you had feelings for each other thatwhole two years in school and everything,
but you both were just afraid.And I mean it's it's still early,
you know, a few months in, but how are you feeling? I
mean, it's it's almost like surrealbecause I feel like I've been in love

(24:53):
with this person for a decade andI just could never admit to myself and
then you know, through different relationshipsand through marriage, just I was like,
no, I don't feel that way. You know, I love my
husband, I love you know,whoever I'm with, and you know,
then this happened with him where wekind of like reconnected and it was like

(25:18):
night and day from any relationship I'veever had before. It was it just
is like very natural, and Ikind of woke up thinking like, oh,
this is how it's supposed to be. Do you think it would have
if if you know, after thatnight, you both woke up the original
night and you both were finally youknow, I've been waiting to do this

(25:42):
forever and you have you actually talkedabout it then and you were you got
together. Then do you think youwould still be together? I know it's
hot, You'll never know, ordo you think you needed to go because
this is like, this is amurky way to have to go through it.
This is not the way that youdreamt of being together, so that's

(26:03):
not ideal. But also sometimes youdo know that you needed to go through
that stuff to get there. Doyou think, what do you think?
I have thought about this so manytimes, and I feel like we wouldn't
have made it because we were soyoung and I really needed to go through

(26:26):
the relationships that I've had to appreciatethe things that like I need in a
spouse, and you know, hemeets a lot of those things and nobody's
perfect. But I wouldn't have knownreally what, you know, what I
needed and what was going to makea good partner for me, and I

(26:48):
would have always been thinking like,well, what if there's somebody else out
there? You know, because Ifeel like when you have that period of
being able to kind of date aroundand figure yourself out. That's kind of
where you learn a lot of thosethings. And if I would have gotten
into that relationship, then I justI think that I might have regretted it

(27:10):
a little bit. Do you guysstill have mutual friends from when you were
friends together in college? Honestly?Not really? Okay, we didn't ask
what you're doing? Okay, Iwas gonna ask what do your friends think
about this? But if they weren'tthere, then then they may not have
like that feeling of like, duh, we saw this all along. Yeah.

(27:30):
I mean one of my really reallyclose friends that I've known my whole
life knows about it, and she'svery much like, yeah, I could
have told you that ten years ago. But I mean, other than that,
yeah, there wasn't a whole lotof crossover in friendships at that time.
You know how people you hear aboutstories all the time. If people

(27:53):
are reaching out to like their highschool sweetheart when they're and they're like fifties
or something, they've been married forfifteen or twenty year and they were always
the one that got away or whateverit may be, it's there is something
to our society that judges so hard. If you get divorced after a short
amount of time. Oh I haveyou could have done the thing where you

(28:14):
stick it out for a very longtime, and there is something, there
is something admirable about that, butalso that would have been awful for you.
You would have been doing that foreveryone else around. And I know
you didn't leave him for this person, but I mean, I guess it
doesn't work since you didn't leave Youweren't leaving him for this person, but

(28:37):
that person was weighing on your mind. Let's be honest. Even if you
didn't leave him for him, youknew what was another option out there,
and that is something and that wasthat person. So are you thankful you
didn't stick around longer to see andyou cut ties quicker to get into this
quicker um part of me in away, yes, But I also I

(29:03):
also know how I feel, andyou know, I have a really strong
intuition for kind of like what youknow, if I meet people, I
know, oh I like this person, I want them to be my friend,
or this is the right job forme. Like I kind of just
know these things about myself. Andthat's how I felt about leaving my marriage.

(29:23):
I just felt like I know thatthis is not right, and I
don't think that sticking around is goingto help me, even though everyone in
my life was telling me to dojust that. Do those people support where
you are now or are they?Are you kind of like keeping them at

(29:45):
a little bit of a distance untilthe death settles. Yeah, I'm kind
of keeping people at a little bitof a distance relationship wise. I get
that. And where have you guystalked about your future? I mean,
I'm sure you have. It's it'sbeen enough time apart that I think.
Do you feel like this time it'sa little bit more in a fast forward

(30:07):
motion because you don't want to wasteany more time. The thing that's funny
is that we have had this conversation, but we're both unsure of if we
should fully commit to being in acommitted relationship because we're so scared of what

(30:30):
happened before. So we're worried thatdeciding to be in a relationship might be
at some point the end of ourfriendship if we were to if things were
to not work out. So we'rekind of treading lightly okay this, I
mean, we're definitely back to likeseeing each other really regularly and not seeing

(30:56):
other people, so it feels veryrelationshippy. But you know, we also
have really open communication with each other, and if it gets to a point
where you know, we feel uncomfortable, we're able to talk about it,
or if it feels too overwhelming orwhatever, we can talk about it.
And our friendship is kind of stillnumber one right now, even though we're

(31:21):
trying to navigate this like new partof our relationship as well. That makes
sense. Well, I feel likeit's it's a tricky situation to be in,
and it's like who knows, becauseit's all you've done this before.
You just have to kind of navigateyour own path and figure it out together
as you both go. But Iand you said, you know, you

(31:45):
said that that's the kind of personyou are. You know when something's not
right, you know when something isWhat do you know about this relationship with
him? I mean, I knowthat I am definitely in love with him,
and I'm not sure if he feelsthe same way or not, because

(32:07):
clearly we apparently can talk about everythingexcept for this. And I also know
that I don't ever want him tobe out of my life again, So
you know, do I risk itand hope for the best in our relationship,
or do I, you know,decide to do more of like a
friends with benefits and be okay withmaybe seeing him with somebody else eventually.

(32:31):
I won't answer that for you,because I, of course just immediately know
if you love him, then there'sno way at this point, after everything,
you're going to feel comfortable going togame night with him and his new
girlfriend. Know. Yeah, butI'm not an expert, and I don't
know you well enough to know whichyou can handle or not. But you

(32:52):
know what, you're both adults andyou've been through a lot together, So
I hope you can have those seriousconversations because the year of the what ifs
has seemed to hold you guys backin the past. So I think I
think you're going to do it.You know in your stomach either way you
do. So I really appreciate yousharing your story and I wish you both

(33:16):
all the best, hopefully together.But also you know, who knows,
but you never know, you neverknow. Well, thank you so much,
and I just really appreciate you takingthe time today. Yeah, of
course you are so welcome.