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Equally important, an old love can spark a passion that renews the couple's memories of their youth. "It's almost like we're 17 again, and we can explore things together--except that we're 53," explains Mike Hagen of Midland, Mich., who reconnected five years ago with Vivian Menko through Classmates.
The two originally met when Menko was a high school exchange student from Brazil in Hagen's hometown of Caro, Mich. "When Vivian went back to her country, it was a relationship interrupted," Hagen says. "Now we have a chance to pick up where we left off. It's exciting." They lost contact after Menko left the States, mostly because in the 1970s communication between the two countries was challenging. A letter could take a month to arrive, and telephone calls were costly. In the interim, they married others and had children. In 2001, divorced and living with her son in Sao Paulo, Menko posted a message on the website seeking information about Hagen. "I always remembered Mike because he was the kindest, gentlest man I ever met," she says. Shortly afterward, Hagen signed up too. Recently separated, he was surprised and delighted when he read Menko's notice. "I couldn't believe she wanted to hear from me after 30 years," he says. They got in touch immediately. The next year they met in Las Vegas, then went to Hagen's home in Michigan. Within two years, Menko made the wrenching decision to emigrate from Brazil and the happy one to marry Hagen. In March the couple, now both 54, celebrated their third anniversary.
Neither cultural nor geographical barriers separated former sweethearts Pat Condon and Dave Duranti, who dated briefly in 1967. In fact, most of the time since high school, they had resided in the same town--New London, Conn., where they ran in different social circles. They each married others, and Duranti and his first wife had a son. Eventually, though, both Condon and Duranti divorced their spouses. Then, about five years ago, Condon ran into Duranti and invited him to a Christmas party at her house. The romance rekindled. At their wedding reception in 2004, a table centerpiece displayed two pictures--one of them together in 1967 and another in 2003--accompanied by the message "Then and now, written in the stars." Says Duranti, 63, about getting back together with Condon, 58: "It was comfortable, it was warm, it was nice. I wanted to stay."
Not every reconnected couple enjoys a happy ending, of course. The divorce rate in second marriages is about 15% higher than in first ones, and matches between old lovers and friends aren't immune. A lonely man in Taos, N.M., in his late 40s jumped into a relationship with a former classmate he saw at a high school reunion in Dallas. After a whirlwind courtship, they married, and she moved in with him in Taos. But they quickly encountered difficulties, primarily over money. Within six months, the marriage was kaput. "People change," says Schwartz. "Experiences change them, and they wind up with emotional baggage and history. In the glow of a renewed love and its feelings of comfort and familiarity, the couple may ignore this."