Dear Bel
I am 35 years old and have been married to my wife for seven years. She is 33 and is a real wonder.
I work abroad half the year with an excellent salary and an annual bonus, and I spend weeks in unknown cities living out of a suitcase in a hotel room, while she works part-time in a company with many friends. We decided from the beginning not to have children, so I had a vasectomy.
When we are together we get along very well and have a fantastic sex life. The problem for me is that sex with my wife is still fantastic when I am not there.
At first I didn’t know about her numerous affairs, but she’s becoming less and less discreet. Every week or so I receive a WhatsApp message from a friend with a photo of my wife kissing a guy in our local bar.
At first she denied everything, but over time she started to be honest. Much to the chagrin of all my male friends, I began to accept that this was a feature of our marriage that, if I loved her and wanted to continue with her, I would have to accept. I don’t have affairs. The only person I want to have sex with is my wife.
She doesn’t have affairs when I’m home. How do I get my friends, family, and all the nosy people in my life to stop bothering me and belittling me because I’m willing to accept a different kind of marriage?
Jaime
Bel Mooney responds: Jamie, I know that what I write risks being considered “intrusive,” but you are asking how to prevent your family and friends from expressing genuine affection and concern for you.
Can you understand how difficult it is for them to witness what is happening, when every word in your email is enough to make a stranger like me anxious about a man who is surely headed for heartbreak?
I’m sorry, but it doesn’t seem to me that the wife whose beauty you are proud of is a “beauty” at heart. You are paying a high price for her sexy looks, and if you were my son, I would be worried about your future.
It’s okay that you decided not to have children, but you had the operation when you were barely 20. Was it your pleasure-loving wife who made that decision? What if that marriage failed and you ended up falling in love with a lovely, loyal woman who longed to be a mother? What if, by then, you longed for stability, for normality?
Vasectomy reversal can be attempted even if several years have passed since the original procedure, but the longer it has been, the less likely it is to work.
In the meantime, I hope your wife doesn’t get pregnant by another man. It can happen. What if she goes crazy over one of her affairs? That can happen too, especially if you work away for so long.
What if he falls in love and then decides he wants to have a child with his newfound passion after all? Where would you be left, other than heartbroken and angry? I may be pessimistic, but this marriage feels like an accident waiting to happen.
Openly kissing other men in the bar you go to? That’s inconsiderate, bordering on cruel. Does the bartender smile with compassion and amusement when you show up, after a long stint abroad, earning money to pamper her? (And I bet you do.)
Obviously, your male friends hate the thought of you being humiliated in public, and I agree with them. Honestly, they are not the ones who are “degrading” you.
“Marriage in a different way” may seem liberating, but the freedom is one-sided. Some might say you’re being ripped off, though some women applaud your wife’s easy-going style.
You are not being treated fairly or with respect, and I fear that one day soon (perhaps in a lonely hotel?) you will find your remaining self-esteem on the floor.
At this point, someone will call me “judgmental” or, as you would say, “nosy.”
What else can I be, even if, as an adult, you say that you have made a free decision?
It would be neither kind nor honest of me to tell you to live your own truth (or something similar) and that since you don’t care about being publicly deceived, your friends should mind their own business and shut up. I simply can’t do that.
I also can’t help but wonder how long this sad state of affairs can continue (literally) before I realize that it’s very unlikely to make me happy in the long run.
My son is incompetent and my mother is fragile.
Dear Bel
I don’t know where to go. I’m being squeezed by both ends of my family – a 37-year-old son and an 88-year-old mother – to the point where my own life no longer matters.
There is no answer to your problems, but I need help to keep my sanity.
I am 66 years old, happily married, we own our own home and our family is all: three children and five beloved grandchildren.
Our youngest son had a son at 19, whom we raised for years until the mother reconciled. By then, we had him more than half the time.
My son met someone else, had two more children, but the relationship failed three years ago. He stayed with the children until that woman also decided she wanted to be a part of their lives and has them three days a week.
With our help, he was able to keep the house, for the sake of the children. We receive a pension and are doing well, but we have to think about our future.
Meanwhile, my husband wants to retire and leave the business and the machinery to our son, who works with him and learns. The problem is that he comes home at 11, takes a break for lunch and then goes to pick up the children.
We’ve tried everything (picking them up three days a week and caring for them during the holidays), but he still won’t work a full day.
The business he just got is failing and he’s now asking for more money. This has been going on for 18 years. He’s very charming.
The other extreme… my father died three years ago and since then I have done everything for my mother. She is not interested in anything and never cooks. You might think she is depressed, but I think it is just apathy. She has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but she is still doing very well.
My problem is how she treats me, she tells everyone I’m horrible and that I never visit her, but my brother (who does very little) is “wonderful”. I need advice on how to deal with all the stress.
BARBARA
Talk openly to a good friend about your anxiety. Venting can be a big help, writes Bel Mooney (file image)
Bel Mooney responds: One of these problems seems easier to deal with than the other, although I can easily understand why both of them cause you immense stress. Both must be very frustrating, although I assume the situation with your mother is the least distressing.
She is nearing the end of her life, while her son has the rest of his ahead of him, and it doesn’t seem like a very stable or happy prospect.
As a daughter, you are exhausted and often irritated; as a mother, you probably wonder what went wrong for this son to be so charming but so incompetent. Did he get away with too much?
You relate it to the first child you had, 19 or 18 years ago. Because both the mother and the father were irresponsible, you and your husband intervened. I wonder if you had a history of making concessions and bailing that child out in the years before and after.
He seems very arrogant. In his longer letter he says that he believes he has undiagnosed ADHD, which could be an excuse for his lack of concentration, but not entirely.
What puzzles me is why, knowing her character flaws, her husband decided to hand over his business to a son who almost certainly showed no signs of committing to anything.
Has this happened in a full-blown way? I hope not, because what I’m suggesting is tough love. How can a 37-year-old father of three “not want to work a full day”?
It’s outrageous! You’ve helped him keep a roof over his head and money in his pocket, and you’ve taken care of his children. Is it too late for your husband to postpone his retirement and take up his business again? I hope not, because that’s what should happen.
Surely it is not too late for this son to be given a short, hard blow. Since he needs money for the children, the salary should be a lever. I think your husband should get very tough (even to the point of a big fight) and leave you alone to take care of your mother.
I suggest that her behavior, though painful, is actually the result of depression and Alzheimer’s. Having recently experienced some of the difficulties and occasional pain of caring for a very elderly mother, I can only recommend stoicism. It will pass; you have no choice but to tell yourself that.
Make sure you set aside time for self-care: deep breathing, massages, beauty treatments, or anything else that helps you relax and think about yourself. Some people scoff at so-called “pampering,” but these moments can really help put stress into perspective.
And talk openly with a good friend about your anxiety. Venting can be a big help, because many people can relate to these kinds of family issues.
And finally: dig deep, Just like our Olympic stars
I’ve been trying to watch some of the Olympics and it was during one of the women’s cycling pursuit events that the comment caught my attention.
Mentioning the determination required, the commentator said: “You ask: How much harm can you do to yourself? Do you have anything else to find?”
There was an important life lesson waiting for me as the cyclists sped through the velodrome.
Athletes and sportsmen have no choice but to push themselves to the limit, to the point of agony. Then, once they have reached that point of “pain”, they have to “find” even more strength to stretch their muscles and burn their breath somewhere. They have to push themselves harder and harder.
You could see it in the expression on Team GB’s Keely Hodgkinson’s face as she came into the final stretch of the 800 metres, every sinew stretched, her face contorted, her mind pushing, pushing, pushing, until euphoria lit up her features as beautifully as a gold medal gleams in the light.
Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson ran the women’s 800m final at Paris 2024, where she won Olympic gold.
But let us not forget the shining eyes of those who fail, of those who fall, of those who swallow hard and tell themselves that maybe next time they will stand on that podium. We can learn from them too.
Children are not taught enough about failure and the effort it takes to be good at something. The weakness of the “everyone should have prizes” brigade has done great harm to our young people, as has marginalising them from competitive sport.
The lessons of hardship should never stop, in all our lives. Tired in mind, body and spirit, even broken-hearted, we have to “dig deep” and then dig some more, determined to survive.
And when you realize you have “more to find” – yes, despite the pain – the euphoria at your own toughness is both the goal and the gold.
Bel responds to readers Questions about emotions and Relationship problems every week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY, or Email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.United Kingdom. Names have been changed to protect privacy. identities. Bel reads all the letters but regrets not being able to enter personal correspondence
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