He Had Never Cheated On His Wife But Did He Ever Love His Wife?

Reflections After Watching Movie Called “45 years”

This article was inspired by a movie called “45 Years”. I wrote it during my flight from Sydney to Vancouver in my (first from this trip) letter to John. I can’t sleep on an aircraft, so I had over 14 hours to watch movies, think and write.

The second movie I watched, called “45 years”, I really enjoyed it. It was about a seemingly perfect, comfortably-off, childless couple preparing to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. One morning the husband — Geoff — receives a letter informing him that the body of his former girlfriend, Katya, who died during their climbing trip almost fifty years ago, has been found well preserved in the Swiss Alps.

Throughout the movie, it turns out that the dead woman meant more to Geoff than just a “former girlfriend”. One day while talking to his wife, Kate, about Katya, Geoff says in a fond and wistful voice:

“I am not sure if I told you about this before, but everybody in the group believed that we were married. We told we were husband and wife, just to make things easier for us”.

“But you weren’t married?” asks his wife, obviously disquiet.

“No, no, we weren’t married”, — Geoff answers, smiling, trying to suppress his feelings for Katya, and pretending what had happened between him and Katya, wasn’t a big deal.

Kate knew about Katya from the beginning of her relationship with Geoff, but not in a sense she is discovering in the days just before the wedding anniversary. As the movie progresses, it becomes very obvious that after all these years, her husband still has very strong feelings for Katya. Most probably, Katya was even carrying his child when she died, and he never got over her death and the loss he had experienced.

At some point, Kate asks her husband: “If she didn’t die, would you marry her?” And without any hesitation, he answers, “Yes, I would”.

It is when Kate’s world kind of collapses. It could seem silly and unreasonable to worry about something that had happened 50 years ago and about a woman who has been dead for so long.

However, in reality, it is not going about something that had happened half a century ago and not about a dead person. It is going about what has been happening in the last 45 years and about a woman whose body has been dead but who most probably has been well alive in the heart of Kate’s husband. Kate has to face the truth that she has always been Geoff’s second choice; she has never been the love of his life as she believed she was.

Geoff hasn’t physically cheated on his wife, but was he faithful to her in his heart? Where was his heart during their entire marriage?

The painful questions I would ask myself if I found myself in such a situation:

I think this brings to light a series of questions for Kate; at least, these would be the questions I would ask myself if I was put in her position:

All these years, was my husband living with me or in his heart was he living with his lover?

When we danced, was he dancing with me or was he dancing with her?

When we made love to each other, was he making love to me or, in his mind, he was with Katya?

When we went to sleep, and he held me tight, was he really holding me, or in his heart, he was with her, the true love of his life?

What was real, genuine and honest in my marriage, and what was just my wish and my imagination?…

I believe that if I found myself in Kate’s situation, it would be much worse for me than if the man I love, you, John, told me that during our relationship, you had a sexual affair with another woman.

My thoughts on love and healthy relationship

In my opinion, we all make mistakes; our minds and senses can lead us somewhere where… in the end, we don’t want to be. Mistakes happen. Nevertheless, the heart doesn’t make a mistake; what comes from the heart is sincere and honest. People often confuse lust with love, but only love comes from the heart…

Sex affair often is just a mistake (it is enough to look at all the statistics to see how many people regret betraying their partner and having a relationship based on a (mainly) sexual attraction), but deep, devoted, caring love is not a mistake. It is a genuine, truthful, open feeling. And the person who carries the feelings cannot be blamed for having them. We cannot force our heart to feel the way “it should feel”.

We can suppress our feelings and try to hide them, but we cannot destroy them. And it looks like Geoff tried to do exactly that. He had no choice; he had to move on with his life because the love of his life was dead. He tried to find new love, but… We cannot just “get over” deep, intense love.

The only way to leave the past behind us is by facing and resolving it. The best is to find somebody in front of whom we can open our hearts and talk about all our issues, sorrows and pain. Find somebody who understands and supports us, somebody who feels compassionate towards us and who cares for us, somebody who truly understands and loves us. Then we have the best chance to close the door to the past and free ourselves of a load of our experiences and be able to love again truly.

I believe that Geoff and Kate should have had all the conversations about Katya before they decided to share their lives and get married. Most probably, they still would be together, and 45 years later, they would have something to celebrate — over four decades of fulfilling love and shared life. Nonetheless, they didn’t, and now… maybe he knows the truth, but Kate isn’t sure about anything; she doesn’t know how much of her married life was real and what was just her hopes and imagination, maybe she didn’t see the reality?

I know, easy to say, not so easy to do. But… I might not be married to the love of my life, but I know very well how it feels to love somebody deeply and how difficult it is to forget about the unfulfilled love. As I know how it feels to talk to the man I deeply love about his love experiences and the woman he loved so much. Yes, there is pain, but the feeling of trust you, John, put in me and to see how you are becoming free of your past reduces the pain to none. And also, the open talks I can have with you, telling you about my past, helped me get over Andy and close the doors to my past.

I still stand by all that I have said before. A relationship based on attraction, deception and any form of lies will never succeed. The only way for a relationship to grow and succeed is to be built on trust and honesty.

This story is from my unpublished book called “Letters to John — From Canada”. One day I hope to publish the full series of “Letters to John”, but till then I decided to share snippets of my books on various social media and on writers platforms.

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