I'm Jake, 28, and I work as a marine biologist. I was engaged to Chloe, also 28, who teaches kindergarten.
We'd been together for four years and engaged for one.
The wedding was supposed to be this past March, and everything seemed fine until January, when Chloe started acting strange.
She was staying late at school, always on her phone, and giving short answers when I asked about her day. They were classic signs, but I figured she was stressed about the wedding planning. Then one night, she came home and dropped a bomb on me. "Jake, I need to tell you something. Derek reached out to me."
Derek was her high school boyfriend from about ten years ago, the guy she had dated for two years before college, the person she had first slept with, and the one she always described as her first love. I'd heard stories about him, but I figured it was ancient history. "Okay. What did he want?" I asked.
"He's getting divorced. He asked if we could meet up to talk." Red flags were everywhere, but I tried to stay calm. "What did you tell him?"
"I said yes. We're having coffee tomorrow." Coffee with her ex, two months before our wedding. "Chloe, that seems inappropriate."
"He's going through a hard time. I can't just ignore him when he needs support." "He has friends and family for support. You're getting married."
"Jake, don't be controlling. Derek was a huge part of my life. I care about him as a friend." "Friend. Right."
She went to coffee and came home glowing like she'd won the lottery. She said Derek was doing great, getting his life back together, starting a new business, and kept talking about how mature he'd become. That coffee meeting turned into weekly coffee meetings, then texts throughout the day, then phone calls she would take outside or in another room. Eventually, I confronted her about it. "Chloe, this is getting excessive."
"What's excessive about maintaining friendships?" "When did Derek become such an important friend? You haven't talked to him in years." "People reconnect. It doesn't mean anything romantic."
"Then why are you hiding the phone calls?" "I'm not hiding anything. I just prefer privacy when I'm talking to friends." "Privacy? While we're planning our wedding?"
Things got worse. Chloe started comparing everything to what Derek was doing: Derek's new apartment, Derek's business plans, Derek's workout routine. Everything was Derek this and Derek that. Our wedding planning basically stopped because Chloe said she was too stressed to make decisions, but she had plenty of energy to text Derek all day.
The final conversation happened on a Tuesday night in February. Chloe came home from drinks with the girls at around 11:00 p.m. We usually shared locations for safety, and when I had checked earlier, she was at a restaurant across town, nowhere near where her friends usually went. When she came in, I asked, "How were drinks?"
"Fine. Just the usual drama." "Which restaurant did you go to?" She froze. "Why does it matter?"
"Just curious." "We went to that place downtown, you know, the one with the patio." I pulled out my phone and showed her the location sharing. "This restaurant? The one that's nowhere near downtown?"
Chloe's face went white. "Jake, I can explain." "Were you with Derek?" There was a long pause. "Yes."
"So you lied about girls' night to go on a date with your ex-boyfriend." "It wasn't a date. We just grabbed dinner and talked." "Dinner, alone, while lying to your fiance." "I knew you'd react like this."
"React like what? Like someone whose fiance is sneaking around with her ex?" "Derek and I are just friends." "Friends don't require lying and sneaking around."
That's when she said it. "Jake, you don't understand. Derek was my first love. When he calls, I can't just say no to him."
I stared at her. She couldn't say no to him two months before our wedding. "What does that mean, Chloe?" "It means our history is complicated. What we had was special."
"More special than what we have?" She couldn't answer. She just stood there looking guilty. I asked, "Chloe, are you in love with Derek?"
"I... I don't know. Maybe. It's confusing."
Maybe she was in love with her ex six weeks before marrying me. "Then I think you need to figure that out before we get married." "Jake, please don't make this an ultimatum."
"I'm not making it anything. You just told me you can't say no to your first love and might be in love with him. That's not ultimatum territory. That's reality." "I need time to think."