Dear Eric: My sister was engaged to a guy, “Peter.” I’ve known Peter for a long time. Not long before the wedding, she broke the engagement because she met someone else, “Rick.”
She married Rick and they moved away. Peter and I have never really spoken about my sister or what happened, but I know he was deeply hurt. I’ve not heard of him dating anyone since then.
Peter knows she married Rick but she’s not on social media so he may not even know that, in the last three years, they have had two children and just found out she’s pregnant with twins. My sister and Rick are moving back to the area. It’s a small enough place that it’s only a matter of time before they cross paths.
I’d like to say something to Peter. My husband says to keep well out of it, they’re all adults and will have to work it out for themselves. I know I’d like to be prepared if I were in Peter’s shoes. What do you think?
— Bad News Bearer
Dear Bearer: Stay out of it and let Peter take his chances with kismet, coincidence, and all the other cosmic forces that bring exes together at the best/worst possible moments in rom-coms and nighttime soap opera cliffhangers.
While you’ve known Peter for a while, you write that you haven’t heard about him dating other people. If you were close, he’d tell you himself.
So, he may not be at a point, emotionally, where your sister’s happy home life will devastate him anymore. Or, if he is still tender, hearing the news from you might feel just as bad as stumbling upon it himself. Leave him be and let the plot mechanics of small-town life do what they will.
(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)
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