Dear Bel,
I have been married for 28 years and, until four years ago, believed that fidelity was an essential part of our marriage. We were no longer passionately in love, but loved each other and were totally supportive. With our three children, we were seen by many as being an ideal, happy family.
But four years ago I discovered that the ‘innocent’ relationship my husband had with a family friend was, in fact, a full‑blown affair.
I desperately tried to be dignified, civilised and grown-up about it, keeping it a secret from everyone and, believe it or not, continuing social contact with the woman and her family. Only the youngest of our children still lives at home and I made up my mind to keep total secrecy until his A-levels were over.
My husband maintained he still ‘cared’ for me and wanted our marriage to continue. A year after the first discovery, however, I realised (from reading his phone texts) that the affair was continuing. After a row, he promised to end the sexual relationship but wanted to keep in touch with her. He said they ‘need’ each other as ‘confidantes’.
Reluctantly, I agreed – and even succumbed to emotional blackmail and invited her to his 55th birthday do. He hopes that I will be friendly with the woman again. I do my best to avoid her, but there are social occasions when we meet and I have to be civil.
There are positive results to this bitter situation. We have learned not to take each other for granted. I am still youthful, slim and fairly fashion-conscious – but I am naturally neglectful of my appearance at home. I am now trying to make more of an effort just for him, and not only when we go out! He is, in turn, less critical of me and is very sensitive to my moods, which are still black at times.
We agree we should go forward and find ways of enjoying being together. But even on holiday – when he promises they are not in touch – he does occasionally ‘cheat’, and I find her continuous influence on him oppressive. He swears their contact is now innocent, even though he knows I resent this.
Am I being unreasonable? I have protected both of them and our families from a major scandal, but he still can’t – or won’t – promise to break off completely, despite the pain it causes me. He knows I can’t face living on my own.
We still have potential but, as Princess Diana bitterly remarked, marriage is a bit crowded with the presence of a third.
Lena
Bel Mooney: ‘Yes, it is possible to love two people at once, but rarely does that situation lead to a contented outcome’
Couples will often tolerate a situation which would be anathema to a majority of others; life has taught me that the relationships of others remain mysterious even to those who feel close to them.
The poet Robert Graves famously put the question, ‘Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girls / Married impossible men?’ but failed to answer it, except to wonder whether he over-valued the female sex.
The logical next question ought to have been why those women actually stay with their ‘impossible men’ – although I suppose it’s easier to jump into the frying pan than out of it.
In your uncut letter you are honest enough to use the significant phrase ‘the status quo’.
Long experience has convinced me that not wishing to rock the boat can itself be sufficient reason to stay in a marriage.
That anxious need for stability can outweigh many human faults and frailties, and even straightforwardly bad behaviour. It can even make a wife feel humiliated to herself by allowing ‘the other woman’ to rock up to her husband’s birthday bash.
The wish to stay married, to maintain the status quo and (above all) not to end up alone … all that is the driving engine behind your letter. And I don’t blame you one bit.
‘Breaking up is hard to do’ as Neil Sedaka sang in the 1970s, and once children are born it becomes (quite rightly) harder than ever.
It’s quite possible (as you know all too well) to put up with your partner having a lover because the alternative to that – ending the marriage, with all the misery involved – is just too hard. Even loving your captor is a well‑known syndrome.
It’s hard to know what you mean by the question: ‘Am I being unreasonable?’
Surely it’s obviously reasonable to dislike and fear the influence another woman has over your husband. Whether or not they have actual sex is immaterial; that he feels love for her is quite obvious, otherwise he wouldn’t cling to her at the expense of your wishes. Yet he loves you as well – a situation I understand, but most people don’t.
Yes, it is possible to love two people at once, but rarely does that situation lead to a contented outcome. On the contrary – it leads to exactly the place you find yourself in today.
The other woman is also married, but she and your husband seem to be locked into a deep friendship akin to an addiction.
You don’t ask me what you should do because you already know that you will hang in there, accepting the major shortfall in happiness because you want to stay married.
Does that render you undignified, as many readers might be thinking?
Not in my opinion. But I’ll say this: ‘make more of an effort’ for your own sake, I beg you.
Yes, be hopeful and see that ‘potential’ ahead – but why not make it all about you, not him?
She’s turned on by ‘rough sex’ – I’m not
Dear Bel,
I am deeply in love with my girlfriend and (at 44) we have both recently parted from our spouses of 20 years.
We have been together for months but it seems like years, we’re so in love. We both feel we have truly found the right person.
We are in the same profession and my lady is accomplished, intelligent and loving.
However, she has asked me to slap her face during sex as she wants to be, in her words, ‘used and abused’.
I love her dearly but I hate the idea of abusing, dominating or humiliating another person. I have read about BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism) and have tried to intellectualise the act. But I can’t. I cannot divorce her request from the person I thought I knew. It’s as if I no longer feel what we have is special.
She has had a lot of previous partners and I now feel as if I’m another in a long line who will just satisfy her needs.
I’m not naive enough to have expected a virgin, and I accept her previous affairs. She trusts me enough to share her most private wishes.
However, it comes down to two things. I feel I am naive and hypocritical as I thought we had something unique. We don’t. Second, I wanted an equal, not someone who needs to be humiliated. Shall I tell her this?
Joseph
I‘ve often wondered just how much we ‘know’ other people.
Once upon a time I was friends with an unbelievably successful, professional man who travelled the world, went to the grandest restaurants and concert halls – and had a sexual fetish which involved something called ‘golden showers’. (If you know, you know.)
Nothing surprises me where sex is concerned, but I am still capable of being shocked by the subterranean urges which (frankly) darken the human soul.
Your lady would probably retort to me that in consensual sex anything goes. Yet, of course, we all know that the word ‘consensual’ can be selfishly and wickedly misused, often as a defence in rape trials.
If one half of a sexual partnership wants to be slapped about and the other half is revolted by the idea, then how can their sexual activity be mutually satisfying? Surely, it can’t.
In the past I’ve heard from partners embarrassed and repelled by the request ‘Please talk dirty to me’, and wondering whether to comply.
I answered ‘No’ – because I don’t see why anybody should shove their finer feelings to one side just to please a partner who wants to get down and dirty. In the end, surely, those two are going to be incompatible. The trouble with your situation is it’s already showing you the limits of being ‘in love’.
For the sake of passion you ditched your long-term spouses, even though your relationship is so new. By any standards that was unwise, as well as rather cruel.
There’s nothing ‘unique’ about the fact that your lady was consistently unfaithful to her husband – so you must now be wondering if as soon as she meets somebody happy to give her a slap during sex, she’ll ditch you. That must be very disillusioning.
But does it amount to ‘buyer’s remorse’? If, indeed, you are ‘naive and hypocritical’, that can only be because you followed blind sexual passion without thought, but now don’t like where it has led you.
It must be clear that you have no choice but to be honest with her about your reservations. Cajoling (or should that be coercing) you into hitting her when you don’t want to would be an abuse of your true feelings and wishes. Therefore, it’s just not on.
If she wants truly to ‘know’ you as a long-term partner she will have to respect your wishes.
