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Dear Bel,
I would be grateful for any ideas as I hear mixed messages from friends and just don’t know what to do.
My husband and I are in our early 30s and have been together for ten years. I have always been the most sociable and energetic, but over time he has moved away from being an interesting and communicative partner. In short, I have been bored and deeply unhappy for over a year.
I don’t like him and I don’t know if I love him as anything more than a partner. I can’t imagine us raising children together, although I do want a family.
His past gives clues as to why he lacks confidence, which he will admit, but even though I’ve tried, I can’t seem to help him. I’ve changed my expectations, but we seem like two fundamentally different people who can’t meet in the middle. We’ve had open discussions (actually one-sided; it says little) where I’ve been very frank about how I feel. We tried counseling, which unfortunately didn’t seem to solve anything.
I’ve considered a trial separation but it seems like a big step. No matter what I try to do, I still can’t love him like I should.
As an added complication, I have fallen madly in love with a mutual friend, who is also married. I hope to never have an affair but I am increasingly tempted. Another factor is that I am a Christian and believe in the sanctity of marriage, so I feel dismayed that I have stopped loving the person I am supposed to be with forever.
Do you think it is possible to fall in love and lust again? Should I stay or go?
CORINA
Bel Mooney responds: As I read your letter, I kept thinking of ways to consider each issue within your marriage as you raised it.
Here we have two people, with different personalities and who have changed, as people will. There is nothing strange in that; Surely this is the case in most marriages?
Which couples stay “in love and lust” in exactly the same way as the years go by? Human emotions are not rigid and nor should we expect them to be. What we should expect from ourselves is honesty and kindness.
Continuing to read I came to what is probably the crux of the matter. You write: “As an added complication, I have fallen madly in love with a mutual friend, who is also married.”
Aha, really, I thought. Would you have written if you didn’t have these feelings for someone else?
When people fall in love outside of marriage, one of the first things they do is start rewriting their story.
By quenching affection, sexual desire, and justice, they also turn qualities in a spouse that were perfectly acceptable into newfound irritants. They exaggerate and deny in a dishonest but instinctive process, to make excuses for his coldness and justify infidelity.
I would like to know if you went to therapy before or after developing these feelings for your “mutual friend.”
She doesn’t specify the duration, but if she was already in love and had drifted away from her husband as a result, then the counseling was doomed to fail, wasn’t it?
People stop trying once they’ve caught a glimpse of the flash of green in the next field. And they may tell lies within the therapeutic situation because they don’t want it to work.
I respect religious scruples that represent the moral code we wish to live by, but we no longer live in a society where people have to sacrifice their happiness on the altar of religion. You have been taught that marriage is a sacrament that unites a man and a woman as long as they both live.
Fine, but most people would add to that the essential word, “unless.” Circumstances change. The forgiving Jesus I believe in would not condemn people to live in a prison of misery.
When you write, “I still can’t love him like I should” and call him “the person I’m supposed to be with forever,” I reject those moral absolutes. What’s the point of forcing yourself to stay and making this innocent man bitterly unhappy?
What sense would it make (God forbid) to bring a child into the world to live in an unhappy home?
Since counseling failed, I think a trial separation would be a good idea. But don’t see the other man either. Spend time alone to try to sort out his feelings.
I can’t go on without the love of my life.
Dear Bel,
My husband has been in the hospital for several weeks for cancer and Covid.
In fact, he was feeling better and was making plans to return home. Just simple things like enjoying her favorite foods and day trips to the countryside. Then three days ago she called the doctor and said we (my son and I) needed to go urgently.
I couldn’t believe my eyes as I approached his bed. My wonderful husband, barely 60 years old, was curled up unblinking under a blanket, couldn’t speak, couldn’t swallow, and could barely breathe.
However, the day before I took him outside to get some fresh air and we had a normal conversation. She ate the chicken sandwich I brought her with pleasure.
It’s a miracle how much we can endure, even if it seems impossible, writes Bel Mooney.
A day later, I didn’t know who we were. In fact, I barely recognized him despite having seen him less than 24 hours earlier.
Bel, I’m ashamed to say that I feel suicidal.
As we were leaving the hospital, a truck swerved past us and my son took immediate action to avoid a collision. I almost wished he hadn’t. I just can’t stand this pain.
My husband is/was my best (and only) friend. I never needed anyone else; Because I am profoundly deaf, I didn’t do well in social situations, so I never sought out friends.
I have hobbies and ran a company for 30 years, so I’m resourceful and intelligent. But everything seems meaningless without him.
Our son is fantastic and that’s what’s stopping me from taking the suicidal thoughts any further.
But I don’t know how to bear this agony.
PINK
Bel Mooney responds: Rose, since your email arrived a couple of weeks ago, I can’t know what the situation is now. I pray it will be better but unfortunately it can be worse.
I’m very sorry, but I think it’s worth printing your letter to remind everyone of the realities we must face when a loved one is very ill.
She described a sudden change in her husband’s condition. There are many people who have visited someone in the hospital and been frightened by a deterioration or encouraged by a temporary improvement.
What I want to talk about is the overwhelming sadness and helplessness that you say you cannot “stand” and that has led you to talk about suicide.
At the time you wrote to me, your husband was still in the hospital and you were in a paroxysm of unhappiness after a worrying visit. I repeat, everything may have changed. But no matter what, your suicidality is extremely disturbing and it is those feelings of despair that I wish to address.
During World War II there was a famous poster that proclaimed: “Careless conversations cost lives.” He was referring to the ever-present danger from German spies or sympathizers. But it occurs to me that it is strangely appropriate for this era in which “sloppy talk” often concerns acute emotional problems displayed as badges of honor and (at worst) leading to an acceptance of suicide as a cure. for unhappiness. The Internet is full of it and I fear desperation can be contagious.
When something terrible happens in a family (and it could be a marriage breakup, a layoff, or a terrifying diagnosis, as well as grief), it’s common (and understandable) to feel like you want to close your eyes forever to escape the pain. That longing for oblivion is as understandable as dreaming of a warm room when we get lost in a snowstorm.
However, the miracle is how much we can endure, even if it seems impossible. It is as if the shoulders could be broadened and strengthened to support an even heavier load.
A few years ago, a man completely heartbroken by the end of his marriage and the death of his new love (in a short space of time) told me how he had thought he wanted to end his own life, until he fell into a river for accident and found himself swimming and fighting to safety. The urge to live was much more powerful than the “need” to escape pain by dying.
That’s what I wish for you. The will to move forward. When you wished the truck had hit the car, you felt devastated at the thought of losing your beloved husband. What’s more, you were driven by the son who loves you and (I have no doubt) wants to take care of you. Don’t hurt him by giving up.
Your husband is/was your “best friend” and you thought you didn’t need anyone else. I understand that, but I ask you to consider that the great love you both shared resulted in a treasure of memories, as well as the fine, caring human being you created together. Surely that is a powerful definition of “meaning”?
You have my deepest condolences. And I would like all those who feel overwhelmed by despair to remember that they can call the Samaritans day or night on 116 123. There is always someone there for suffering souls.
And finally: it’s better to try a little tenderness.
Nowadays I don’t think much about sex, although every week the letters to this column remind me of all the problems it can cause.
Oh yes, I remember it well. Once upon a time, when all of us young journalists used manual typewriters, shouted into phones, partied hard, smoked and drank ourselves to death, sex was on my mind far too often. But oh, they were fun days, for all the reasons stated in the last sentence.
Wordsworth believed that artistic creation, especially poetic creation, was “emotion remembered in tranquility.”
Now in my prime (well, a little later!), remembering the confusion of emotions, I feel relieved to finally be calm. I am glad to have been rid of the demon of flirtation and passion that clung to me when Edward Heath, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan played musical chairs in Downing Street.
But here is my linguistic question. Times change, but emotions don’t, so can someone explain why “having sex” is the only phrase now used for what was once called “the act of loving”?
Back then, girls were worried (or not) about “giving in” and “going all the way,” and couples were “having sex” or “sleeping” with each other. Youth used a variety of phrases, typically containing aggression in toolbox words. Romantic lovers would “make love,” while dedicated sinners would “fornicate” or “copulate.”
I’m sorry that “having sex” is used nowadays for a random one-night stand and lovemaking within a long-term relationship. The simple phrase contains none of the tenderness that novelist DH Lawrence believed was essential to the act of loving. In my time I have ‘had sex’ and ‘made love’, and there is no comparison.
