Falling in love again

They say the first cut is the deepest – and for some the legacy of their first love is impossible to leave behind. But just what is it about these relationships that makes them so important? We ask the experts: four couples who have broken up, made up, and are now living happily ever after

OLD Albert Einstein was no slouch when it came to mathematical conundrums. But, faced with explaining the chemical reaction between two young people in the throes of romance, he was well and truly flummoxed. "No, this trick won't work," he exclaimed. "How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"

How indeed. First love creates such a powerful bond that it becomes the benchmark against which we compare all future relationships, for better or worse, and can even continue beyond the grave.

"The passion of first love is very different from any other type of love," says Sue Maxwell, a sex and relationship psychotherapist with Relate Scotland. "There are high levels of expectation and high levels of excitement. Often they connect with early excitement and fantasies of first love – maybe a movie star or something like that – so first love embraces all the adolescent stuff that you've never quite been able to work through."

Another important aspect that makes this relationship so intoxicating is having the time and opportunity to commit to the other person. You have no other responsibilities, no job, no children – just one another. So it is no surprise that many of us idealise our first loves, often long after we have parted.

Jane Wilson, a 45-year-old accountant from Stirling, has spent most of her adult life getting over her first love, Mark. They started dating in 1980, when they were both 17, though they had been friends for three years. "He was incredibly attractive, but I already knew him quite well, so it was like falling in love with a friend," she says.

"It was as though we could read each other's minds. We shared an incredible closeness that I think is only possible with first loves. There's not been that kind of relationship in your life before and it's always very intense. You're never going into another romantic relationship completely free of preconceptions."

They dated for a year and a half before splitting up because of the pressures of moving away from home, but remained good friends. Five years later, Jane had married someone else and Mark was engaged when he was involved in a fatal car crash. "When I heard the news, I understood what people meant when they said they felt like they'd lost their right arm," she says. "Part of me – all the shared experiences and growing and loving – died with him, and I never got that back."

Despite marrying twice, Jane, who is now single, has no doubt that Mark was the love of her life. "I don't think I'll ever be over him. I'll always love him. Every relationship I've had has been affected in some way by that first relationship, but I wasn't aware of it at the time."

Had he lived, she says, she would have wanted to give the relationship another try. "One of the things I found so difficult when I started to grieve for him was that I couldn't go back and say, 'Now I understand what went on and I'd like to try again.'

"I like to think it would have worked," she adds, "but it would probably have caused absolute havoc in our lives."

Maxwell says: "When somebody comes back to their first love, invariably they have that same kind of powerful attraction to that person. But possibly the main thing they are going to have to address is how they deal with this new relationship – because it's not the first love, it's a new love. One of the things they can get into is that hopefulness of 'It's going to be just like the last time'. And if that's the case, invariably it's a short fling."

She says couples need to go into the new relationship with their eyes wide open and really talk through what they want. "Accept that that was first love," she says. "You had a really good time, but you've both moved on. I really think people need to talk to each other about why they split up."

Annie Bennett, a psychologist and the author of The Love Trap agrees. "Unrealistic expectations are a passageway to rage and anger," she says. "Be realistic about what you're expecting and ask yourself why you are doing it. Be honest with yourself."

She believes that returning to a love from the past may be more about problems in the present. "Sometimes when people begin to get stressed or anxious, even if it is a self-defeating behaviour, they can loop back. It's for reasons of security – as if taking the nostalgic view is safer than living in the here and now.

"If you listen to Steve Wright on his Sunday show, he often has these people reuniting, and there's the Friends Reunited website as well. So we have more avenues to go back to people we once shared special moments with. I think it highlights that, in the here and now, there is a struggle or a problem, and going back feels somehow easier."

She suggests examining your romantic history, going back as far as you can to assess what were the good things, what were the bad, and how it all ended. "You may well find out some things about yourself that you didn't expect."

However, there's good news for those who still carry a torch for an old love. A two-year study by Dr Nancy Kalish, a professor of psychology at California State University, revealed that, if former lovers meet again after a period apart, they have a 60% chance of getting back together – and staying together, as the divorce rate for reunited couples is just 4%.

• The Love Trap (Hammersmith Press, £12.99)

LOST AND FOUND: TRUE LOVE STORIES

Karin Telders, 66, a retired psychotherapist, and Michael Hawkins, 65, a research fellow in cosmology at Edinburgh University, live in Edinburgh

Twenty-year-old Karin Telders was studying psychology in Leiden and 19-year-old Michael Hawkins was a young naval officer when they first met at a party thrown by the British Consul in Amsterdam in 1961.

"At the party Michael stood out in the crowd with his broad smile. We started chatting and I felt at ease with him very quickly," says Karin.

She invited him on a boat trip the following day when he impressed her by climbing the mast, and they started dating. But with Michael away at sea, a relationship based on letter-writing and a few days' shore leave began to founder. Phone calls and travel were prohibitively expensive, so Karin took the decision to end the friendship. "Eventually the distance and not having someone there became just too much for me," she says.

This didn't go down well with Michael, who had assumed the pair were heading up the aisle. "I had thought we would get married and wondered how she could throw away something so precious," he says.

After another eight years in the navy he left to study maths and astronomy. He married, divorced then had another relationship that ended. He has one daughter. Meanwhile, Karin became a psychologist and also married and had two daughters and a son, before her husband was killed in a plane crash.

The urge to search for Karin came one stormy night ten years ago when Michael was sleeping on his boat and had a vivid dream in which he saw her. "I don't usually spend a lot of time thinking about dreams but this one made an impression. She was clearly beckoning to me," he says.

He sent a letter to her last known address and then began working his way through the phone directory, eventually finding a number for her daughter. Less than three weeks after his dream they were back in touch. "I was very pleased to hear from him," says Karin. "I was enthusiastic and thought this time it would work. He was a bit more anxious, though, because it had gone wrong first time round. We started writing, then he came to Holland for work and we met."

While Michael was nervous about meeting Karin again after 35 years, she had no worries and was proved right when they married four years later. "He could have been an old man with a pot belly but I never thought of that. He was immediately recognisable as the same person. On the other hand, there was a lot of catching up to do."

At first Michael had trouble with the lack of a shared past. "I wanted to live those 35 years in one year, start from where we left off and fast-forward to create a new history, but that was very difficult because we both had an infrastructure, family and friends that were completely separate. But we have a history together now," he says.

One other advantage of being reunited with a first love is that it can put you back in touch with more than just the object of your affection. As Karin points out, "When you meet up again with someone you knew when you were 20, it's not just falling in love with that other person, it's falling in love with yourself as a young person too. That's why it's so special," she says.

Wilson Reid, 62, and Pamela Gearey, 64, are both retired and live in Aberdeen

Pamela Gearey was a Women's Royal Air Force rookie when she arrived in Gibraltar in March 1966. Dumping her gear, the attractive 20-year-old headed straight for the beach at the end of the parade ground and bumped into 19-year-old Wilson Reid, a blond-haired weightlifter and mechanic from Aberdeen. "He had shoulders to die for – they used to call him the 'triangle on legs'. The next night I saw him at supper and whenever I walked past the squadron building where he was fixing aeroplanes in just a pair of shorts, he would whistle."

A romance between the pair began but, as much as they were in love, after three years of interruptions from postings to other bases, the relationship failed to get off the ground. "The trouble was that the squadrons were always being sent to the other side of the world. One time he got a posting to Madagascar."

Pamela's own life wasn't short on excitement. A talented singer, she left the RAF in 1969 to join a band and enjoyed a taste of fame on television. "I became a session singer in London and went on tour with the Bee Gees and Cliff Richard. I was also in Hair and Tommy. Wilson came to see me in London after I'd left the RAF in 1969. He said a hundred and one things but none of it made sense and when he drove off, I walked away thinking it wasn't to be." Wilson eventually left the RAF too, and returned to his native Aberdeen, where he married.

By 2003 the marriage had crumbled and Wilson had also been made redundant from his job of 25 years. While clearing out his locker, he came across a photograph of himself and Pamela at a party in Gibraltar that triggered a lot of memories.

After a spell as an air stewardess travelling the world, Pamela had settled down with Don, 13 years her senior. She was widowed nine years later when he died of cancer and she spent the next 12 years raising her three children and enjoying her work in restaurant management.

"In October 2003 I got an e-mail from my family to say they had just heard about me on Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs. They said this bloke called Wilson Reid was looking for me, so I went online and got a message back within hours."

Phone calls began to fly between Eastbourne and Aberdeen, and after a few weeks the couple decided to meet in London. "I was hoping he wouldn't be bald and fat, as nearly 40 years had passed," says Pamela. "When he appeared I knew him straight away – the triangle on legs was still there, and he hadn't put on a single pound."

Finding it hard to say goodbye after their weekend, the couple spent the next six months conducting what Pamela calls a "real Land's End to John O'Groats relationship" which ultimately led to Gretna Green in November 2006.

"Who knows why he contacted me?" says Pamela. "Perhaps I was a lifeline to start with because he had a dose of the downs, but who cares about the ifs and maybes? I'm ecstatic that he did, really chuffed. We are extremely content."

Charles, 37, and Stephanie Wright, 36, a butcher and former hairdresser, live in Glasgow

It was a Love Heart sweet bearing the plea 'Be Mine' that Charles Wright used to woo Stephanie Harris when they were in Primary 7 at St Denis's in Dennistoun, Glasgow. The second time round, nearly 20 years later, he let her choose her own engagement ring: "When I gave her the run of the Argyle Arcade she just couldn't resist," Charles jokes.

Childhood sweethearts for five years, the pair broke up when they were 16 and had no contact until a chance meeting one lunchtime in a Glasgow bar in 2001. Charles didn't hang around and asked for Stephanie's number. "I thought she might give me a false one, especially since I'd introduced the friend I was with as my girlfriend because I didn't want to sound single," he says.

The couple first met as seven-year-olds in Primary 3 and Charles always thought Stephanie "the prettiest girl in the school", but his habit of constantly referring to her as "Snobby Harris" somewhat spoiled his chances until the Christmas school disco in Primary 7.

"I wasn't snobby at all," she says, "but because my dad had his own bus company they called me that. I always thought Charles was cute, then he gave me the Love Heart at the Christmas party and we went out on and off until we were 16."

But Stephanie wasn't the only girl in the school with whom Charles was willing to share his play time. "He was a bit of a rogue and always snogging girls behind my back. Eventually I'd had enough and ended it," says Stephanie.

The pair went their separate ways, Stephanie becoming a hairdresser, marrying then divorcing, and Charles training as a butcher and living with his girlfriend for seven years before that too ended. By the time they met again in 2001 they were both turning 30 and single once more.

"It was perfect timing. When I met her again I grabbed on to her so tightly because I thought it was fate. Out of the whole of Glasgow, to bump into her in a bar I never go to, at lunchtime which I never do…"

Charles had matured and now he was the one looking for a more serious relationship. "He was much more sincere and honest and I could see he wasn't going to mess me about," says Stephanie.

Charles was so keen to resume the relationship that he popped the question within a week. Stephanie was a little more cautious. "I thought it was all a bit soon and wanted to wait. Then in December he took me back to St Denis's, went down on one knee and proposed."

The pair were married in October 2002 and now have a three-year-old daughter, Charlie. Neither regrets the time they spent apart.

"If we had stayed together back then it wouldn't have lasted," says Stephanie. "Now he's been around the block, got the blondes out of his system and ended up with the brunette."

Charles agrees that the hiatus in the relationship proved a good thing: "Even when I met her again seven years ago I was childish, but being with her, I finally grew up. She gave me the direction to have a family and share a life with someone. It's definitely better second time round."

Laura, 50, is an accounts assistant and Graeme Ferguson, 49, is a gardener from Dunbar

Laura Douglas was 19 and Graeme Ferguson 17 back in 1976 when she challenged him to a game of badminton in a church hall on Edinburgh's south side.

"He had a cheeky face, a nice smile – which he still has – and a good sense of humour," says Laura.

After the badminton match, six months of hanging out listening to records followed, but the course of true love was interrupted when Laura decided to probe the true nature of Graeme's feelings for her.

"I really liked him, so one night I said to him, 'What do you think of me?' Being a teenager he said, 'You're all right.' That really hurt my feelings and I took the huff and wouldn't speak to him any more."

Shortly afterwards, on what was to be one of their last dates, the couple went to see American rock band Bread. "We didn't speak all night until he said: 'What do you think of them?' I was tempted to say, 'They're all right', but since I wasn't talking to him…"

After this, the couple parted and their only contact was an occasional sighting on the bus to work. "He just wasn't the type to show his feelings. It was sad, but you have to move on," says Laura.

She married someone else in 1982, and Graeme also married and had two boys. Although they lived close to each other, the pair weren't to meet again until 1994 when Laura was out with her husband in a club. "Graeme and his friend came in and I got up to speak to him. He didn't recognise me but he knew the voice. My husband wasn't very happy, but we chatted away and Graeme mentioned he was single."

Two years later, she glimpsed him watching the BUPA 10k run in which she was taking part, but it was another ten years before their paths would cross again, by which point Laura had divorced.

Throughout their time apart, Graeme and Laura had kept snapshots of their teenage sweetheart tucked away in a drawer. "I was pleased to find it when I was busy cutting up wedding photos during my divorce," says Laura.

"Then, one Friday night two years ago I was heading home from work when I saw Graeme running towards me. I rolled down the car window and he thought I was asking for directions because he didn't recognise me. There was traffic coming, so he jumped in and I gave him a lift home."

What Graeme didn't know that evening was that Laura was driving home intending to take her own life. "I thought, 'I don't want to be here any more,' and had planned to take tablets when I got back. I didn't mention it to Graeme, obviously, till much later, but I had tried to commit suicide a couple of times during my divorce and had decided that's what I was going to do that night. So Graeme was a saviour. It was meant to be."

A lunch invitation followed and after a few weeks of dating he moved in. The couple married last month. "It was like picking up where we left off," says Laura. "It was amazing. Second time round it's definitely better because we were too young last time."

And how does she think Graeme would describe her now? "He'd still say I'm 'all right'," she laughs. "But nowadays I'd take that as a compliment!"

Enduring love, celebrity-style

• Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee

The former Baywatch babe married the heavily tattooed rocker in 1995 but a year later filed for a divorce. The pair reunited, but in 1998, as Lee was imprisoned for a second time for attacking his wife, Pammy again filed for divorce, which was finalised soon after. Despite all this (and several other marriages), she recently said he remained the love of her life.

• Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

Despite both being already married when they met in 1963 while filming Cleopatra, they embarked on a passionate but volatile relationship. They married in 1964 and divorced a decade later. Within a year they had remarried, at which time Taylor said, "There will be no more marriages or divorces. We're stuck like chicken feathers to tar – for always." The second union lasted just ten months.

• Camilla Parker-Bowles and Prince Charles

The heir to the throne met his true love at a polo match in 1970. Two marriages (to different people), four children, an affair, the Camilla-gate tapes and the death of Princess Diana later, the pair married in 2005.

• Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson

Soon after meeting on the set of The Harrad Experiment, when Johnson was 22 and Griffith was just 14, the pair moved in together. They married when Griffith turned 18, but divorced a year later. They remarried in 1989 and had a daughter, but filed for a second divorce in 1996.

• Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal

The one-time Charlie's Angel dumped Six Million Dollar Man Lee Majors for O'Neal in 1979 and the pair were an item for 18 years, before eventually splitting up in 1997. After O'Neal was diagnosed in 2001 with leukaemia, she appeared on his doorstep and their romance was rekindled. She is now battling cancer too, and they are still together.