I think you nailed it on the head yourself - that all the things you’re feeling are for a “squandered past, not a realistic future.”

I’ve struggled with this situation as well, and those feelings never last. The other person feels like an “escape” from your current partner because they are a mystery. I love my SO, but I know all the dirty minutiae of living together for 7 years. He tends to fart loudly in the toilet when he thinks I’m asleep still, and sometimes lets his toenails get too long.

The little details like that don’t give your imagination much leeway, where a prospective life with another person is full of possibilities.

Don’t let this new person be an excuse to throw away your current relationship. It throwing such a huge wrench in your system is indicative of something being amiss in your marriage. Maybe there’s some distance, or needs not being met.

Crushes on other people happen in long term relationships, and are normal, but the response in a healthy relationship is being able to recognize that the lovesickness is fleeting. The bond with the new person isn’t fate: it’s just filling a hole at the moment.

Edit: a good test is this - if the other person had never come back into your life, would you still be happier if you left your wife? If the answer is yes, then perhaps you need to rethink your relationship, but do it alone. Don’t jump to a new one right away without sorting out the baggage from the previous one

Stay friends if you want. Good friends are hard to come by but DONT let it become anymore than that. You said you have a good life with your wife who you love dearly. Dont throw it away for what could have been.

The way that you react to your ex seems like they bring you back to an older mindset. Problem is that wasn’t a healthy mindset. The way you talk about her sounds more like a recovering addict being tempted to use again, rather than someone making a rational decision. If you decided to pursue a relationship with your ex, I can’t see it ending particularly well. Maybe the problem is that she personifies a lot of your regrets and insecurities and guilt, and the temptation is there because you think you might be able to to do it “right” this time now that you’re older and more mature, but that’s never a good reason to re-enter a relationship, that’s the devil talking. The fact that it’s bringing up the old emotions and feeling so much like it did back when you were 14 is a huge red flag. If you ever decide to get back into a relationship with an ex, it should be because it doesn’t feel the same as it used to, because you’re both different people now. Only then do you maybe have a chance of avoiding the same issues that drove you apart last time. But even then it’s a huge risk. And that’s not even factoring the fact that you’re married. Even if you’re feeling unsatisfied in your marriage, that’s something you should address first and foremost before even thinking about pursuing another relationship with someone else. Sometimes the grass on the other side only seems greener because we’ve stopped tending our own fields, if you know what I mean.

I think you should be open with your wife about it, tell her that you’re worried about the feelings talking with your ex has been bringing up and you’re not sure if it’s a good idea to get involved with her. And be honest with the friend too, so if you do decide to break things off, then she’ll at least know that it’s not something she did wrong, it was just that there’s too much baggage there and you’re not ready to address it yet.

If you don’t want to cut her out entirely, then you can always just take a rain check for now. Maybe work through your own feelings first, away from your ex, see a therapist about it even, and then you can try to form a friendship with her again when you feel more emotionally stable and see how that goes. Ideally you should feel more like you want to get to know her for who she is now, and less like you’re an addict craving who she used to be and what you used to have with her. But if that goes the same way, then sometimes it’s better to just let yourselves live different, separate lives.

Your wife knows about the contact, instead of coffee for just two of you, invite your old friend over for coffee and to meet your wife. It may help you settle some of the distress you’re feeling to recontextualize this person from your past with your anchors in your present.

You need to talk to a professional (e.g. A therapist familiar with bipolar). This would be complicated even if you didn’t have the added complication of the bipolar mania.

But if you won’t do that, here’s a TL;DR.

You do not know this person. A lifetime has passed since you knew them. You are painting a rosier picture of the past than necessarily existed. Do not throw away what you have for a fantasy.

This exact thing happened to several people in my parents friend group… it didn’t work out a single time. Whatever issues you have with your wife, work on them or break up but don’t get together with the new lady before you figure out why you would ever think these feelings were anything other than infatuation. I know that sounds harsh but I’ve literally seen this again and again and everytime people got hurt very badly.

Maybe process your thoughts and feelings out with a counsellor/ pyschologist? They’ll be unbiased and can help ground you to a healthy frame of mind.

You and being lured by the fantasy. The “good memories” of the time you had, and the not realistic ideas of what could be, the fantasy. Just like anybody and porn, the idea of banging or being with that person seems fucking awesome and appealing. Remind yourself of reality, ground yourself from the fantasy, you have acquired baggage, so has she. You are different people, whether you realize it or not.

Logically and emotionally walk through the consequences: You both suddenly fall madly in love with each other. You cheat on your spouse, who has shared everything with you for two decades. You hurt your wife terribly, because she trusted you. You betrayed that trust. Now Imagine she did that, put yourself in her shoes, and not for just a quick thought. Really think about how you would feel if you encouraged her to be strong and grow (as you have for 20 years one hopes). And she leaves you for a childhood fantasy from over 20 years ago. Think about how much that would hurt you. Think about the repercussions. Think about what your friends and families would think and how they would react to her leaving you like that. After all that can you really consider doing that to her?

Recognize that it is just a fantasy. Think of all the time you would have wasted by throwing what you have built away.

And if you still want to meet her and catch up and risk trying to create a PLUTONIC friendship with her… Here is my advice: BRING YOUR WIFE. It will make your position clear to the old flame. when you meet, focus yourself on talking about the life you and the wife have had together and about how great she is. And in your head focus on the flames defects, find defects, everyone has them. Remind yourself that the woman your with has compromised and ignored your faults helped you grow, as you have helped her. This old flame has been out of your life for two decades and isn’t in a relationship. That is a giant bright red flag, you may have moved past the issues you had growing up. She may have not grown at all.

Personally I wouldn’t risk it, but if you do focus on how much you love and don’t want to hurt your spouse and destroy everything you have built together. Once you break that trust, you may Never get it back. (How much would you trust her if she banged an old flame, or left you and then tried to come back?)

Is polyamory an option for each of the three of you?

If no, the solution becomes much more complicated.

In your situation, I wouldn’t. I’d leave the past in the past, particularly given the fact that you’ve found love with someone else.

Simply put? Meeting her is a bad idea because you very clearly have feelings for your ex. If you’re having feelings then that’s something you might want to discuss that with your wife too… she’s been incredibly accepting so far, but you realizing you still have feelings (or might) is something you need to be honest about.

What is your intent in meeting your former flame for coffee? What are you hoping will happen? What are you afraid might happen?

Simply put? Meeting her is a bad idea because you very clearly have feelings for your ex. If you’re having feelings then that’s something you might want to discuss that with your wife too… she’s been incredibly accepting so far, but you realizing you still have feelings (or might) is something you need to be honest about.

What is your intent in meeting your former flame for coffee? What are you hoping will happen? What are you afraid might happen?

There was a woman that I was in love with a little over 20 years ago. She was my idea of physically attractive–definitely not most people’s idea of attractive–and was so entirely fundamentally broken that it triggered intense feelings of being protective towards her along with desire. She was smart, sarcastic, liked cats (yeah, that’s pretty important), and was also entirely addicted to opiates and cocaine. She was very open about how fucked up she was. I was fucked too; I was not a mentally or emotionally healthy person in the least.

If I had ended up being in a long-term relationship with her, I would almost certainly have ended up dead by now; I either would have gotten equally addicted to opiates, or I would have killed myself at some point. Thankfully, since I couldn’t supply her with drugs, she wasn’t interested in anything long-term with me.

I look her up every so often on Facebook. She’s still alive, and posts the same kind of angsty cringe shit she would have posted if Facebook had existed 20-odd years ago (and, to be brutally honest, the kind of angsty cringe shit I used to post before I quit doing anything except lurking). If I spoke with her again, I’d probably have to deal with the same unresolved feeling again, because there really isn’t a resolution to them. It would be dangerous to me to get close, and so I don’t.

There have been several women like her in my life; I am not in contact with any of them, and I do not plan on having anything other than–at most–electronic communication with them at any point in the future.

Feelings are not enough to make a functional, coherent relationship. Feelings are necessary, but are not the only thing. You can love someone completely, even recognizing all of their many, deep, and varied flaws, and that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be good or healthy for you. Or for them. Mistakes happen, and you hurt people. You can apologize and be a better person in the future, but you also can’t unwind the past.

I would strongly suggest that you work on your current relationship rather than revisiting something your past. There are some things you’ve said about your own tendency towards avoidance, and about your relationship with your wife, that lead me to think that perhaps you could use some help with communication and intimacy. That’s not a bad thing; relationships can almost always be improved. If you are certain that you want to resume contact with this person, I would, at a bare fucking minimum, set very strong and clear boundaries about what is and is not appropriate to talk about, and I would suggest that you should ensure that your wife be a part of this contact–which is to say, a chaperone–so that the risks of going to an inappropriate place are reduced.

It will never be what it was, and you’re presumably happy with your wife. Consider it a walk down memory lane, but know that you’re wearing rose coloured glasses and should see it only as a nice memory, not an opportunity or path forward.

A good marriage/partnership is worth protecting. People chase self actualization and blow up their lives all the time.

Maybe give your attention to improving your current relationship? Therapy together? Something that will improve your already good life.

Wishing you the best.