Have you ever taken in someone you've history with?

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That is...given them a place to stay until they find their feet? Especially when you've had INTENSE past history with them. That's pretty much what I've done. My ex. The boy I had one of the most significant relationships of my life, with. He lives in a state that's been particularly hard hit by the economy, and I didn't want him stuck there. Plus, the boy needs a chance at a real life. With the spring comes the food we're growing so that we can afford to feed him while he stays with us, which he's offered to help with the work of our mission to farm this year. There's SOME jobs around here, compared to the NO jobs where he is right now...and being male and two years older than me, so many more opportunities not open to my Mother and I are available to him. If he can find a job, or jobs, then he can start saving for and looking for his own place, and from there he can build his life. Free of his troubles in his own state, free from everything that bothered him. And yeah...around me. We ended on bad terms...but it's both of our hope that someday we'll be on perfectly good terms. We're OK now. I can smile when I talk to him again. Alot of baggage and pain's been unloaded on both of our parts. All I ever wanted for him, was for him to have a good life. A wonderful life even. And even though things went south years ago, and he's working to make sure things are never awful between us again...I can help him get that life...that life he didn't used to be very confident that he could ever have. I can give him hope. Yeah, it reminds me of why I loved him to begin with, yes it reminds me of how that love will never really be gone...as broken as our relationship is, and as undefinable as it is now...we're both aware that it's unlikely we'll be "friends", and that the odds for getting back together again are even more unknowable and uncertain than anything else. I told him not to let himself hope too much between us. I told him to be happy with us just being on good terms and acknowledging that we'll always care about one another. And he knows all this, and I know he won't try anything because he's so afraid of screwing things up again -- he knows that if there's ever any hope for there to be an "us"...it's through accepting things as they are now and focusing on building his life. It's surprisingly uncomplicated! Whenever I think about other people doing this, it's always weird, uncomfortable, and complicated sounding. I'm really surprised. I don't think this is one of my reasons for looking forward to the spring. There's always a tension in my back when I talk to him and it'll be present when he's here. I can't be looking forward to that. Anxious about it, wanting everything to be nice around the house when he gets here, yes. Hoping that things go smoothly and that my family gets used to him, definitely. Hoping nothing happens for us financially between now and then...MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE. Ah, the spring of '09. Likely to be one of the most eventful springs of my life, xD What do you guys think? Will you take in any old flames this year? Do you think you'll take in "strays"...random strangers or acquaintances off the street because of the economy? Have you taken in old flames and friends in the past? And if so, what're your stories?