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BEL MOONEY: I feel guilty about my affair but I'm hooked on secrecy

/li> DEAR BELI am a 41-year-old mother of four, working from home as a child-minder. For a long time I have been having an affair with a married man 20 years older.

Our lives are so different, he lives in a nice house in the country, runs his own business, has several properties and drives a sports car.

I live with my husband and family in a small house on a ‘well-known’ estate.

'For a long time, I have been having an affair with a married man 20 years older'

It is not easy for me and him to get together — because I have had official complaints from parents for leaving their kids with an assistant when I escape to meet this man for a few hours, or sometimes an afternoon or whole day.

The dirty sex is very exciting, but some of the things he gets me to do when he has taken Viagra leave me feeling used, abused and grubby.

I really like having a secret ‘adult’ life. He is easily flattered and the power I have over him is very exciting — he is like a dog on a lead.

Sometimes I am sickened when I realise he is not only old enough to be my dad, but is recently a granddad.

However, I also think that perhaps this man might offer me and my kids a better future now he is nearing retirement. My friend thinks I am either broody or I am being dramatic. She says it is bad karma.

What is wrong with me? I know I should I put a stop to this, but I keep going back for more. What should I do? I cannot think of anything else. KAY

Sometimes I answer a letter with less empathy than some readers expect. But others love it when, exasperated by the chaos caused by lack of thought and self-control, I speak frankly.

Nowadays being ‘judgmental’ is a cardinal sin — and yet how can an ordinary mortal such as me (by which I mean, not a qualified therapist who must remain neutral) avoid having a view about the way people act?

    More from Bel Mooney...   BEL MOONEY: Even when I beg, my husband refuses to have sex with me 01/06/13   BEL MOONEY: Should I let my drunken, vicious ex-lover be a father to our baby? 24/05/13   BEL MOONEY: Should I boycott my mother's wedding to this ghastly gold-digger? 17/05/13   BEL MOONEY: Can I cure loneliness by selling up to be near my new love? 11/05/13   BEL MOONEY: I'm crying out for love but can't escape this black hole of despair 03/05/13   BEL MOONEY: We haven't had sex for 19 years but I can't escape my cheating husband... 26/04/13   BEL MOONEY: I've nursed my husband through cancer but now I want to leave 19/04/13   BEL MOONEY: I'm in love for the first time but not with my husband... 12/04/13   BEL MOONEY: I feel guilty my son is in nursery all week so I can work 05/04/13   VIEW FULL ARCHIVE  

For example, I just had a letter from Anna, who tells a hugely convoluted saga of lurching between her partner of eight years, who is the father of her child, and her lover of two years.

Unable to make up her mind, she left one, then the other, finally going back to the partner, but missing the lover, then discovering on social networking that the lover is now in another relationship.

So Anna is afraid she ‘will never be able to be happy again’. Somewhere in the middle of it all her child has existed, but to be honest, she seems to give little thought to that.

She wants help for her broken heart, but adds, ‘I ask you politely not to reply if you just want to criticise me, as I know I have made mistakes myself.’

Yet I have no idea how she can heal a messy situation entirely of her own making.

Frankly, I wish she could stop feeling sorry for herself long enough to reflect on the effect of her passionate flakiness on a child who did not ask to come into the world.

How can I help, but suggest that becoming an adult at long last and concentrating on that child’s stable future might, in the end, be the best cure for her sad ‘cheating heart’ (to quote the old country song)?

Is that criticising? Well — sorry.

Anna knows she has ‘made mistakes’ and it’s clear you do too, Kay, or else why would you write?

Yet neither of you seems willing to transform that sneaky, guilty awareness into the genuine remorse that prompts a real change.

I hope that viewing your letter here will help you judge it yourself — and realise what others will think of a registered child-minder neglecting her duty to her charges and their parents in order to sneak off to meet her older married lover for ‘dirty sex’.

If that weren’t bad enough, you say you ‘can’t think of anything else’ — which presumably must mean you are fantasising about your slavering, Viagra-popping pedigree chum while making supper for your four children.

Thank goodness they’re not mind-readers, eh?

I’m bemused as to what exactly you want from me. You feel ‘abused and grubby’, yet call your secret life ‘adult’. You say you have ‘power’ over your lover, yet pathetically imagine he will one day leave his wife in order to import his bit on the side plus her brood into his smart, country life. As if!

Something isn’t clear. Is your friend calling you ‘broody’ because you’d like to have this man’s child, in order to have something to hold over him apart from hot sex?

If so, I beg you not to be so stupid and irresponsible. It will end in tears — shed by you, your husband and your children.

Either his wife will find out or your rich man will tire of sex games on the back seat of his Jag and leave you feeling worse about yourself than you already do. ‘Bad karma’ says your friend — but do you understand that?

To say, ‘what goes round comes round’, will do or, equally, ‘you reap what you sow’.

Your friend is judging you more succinctly than I can — asking you to see that this situation is dishonest, bad, immoral and even abusive, and therefore no good can come of it.

I suggest that your task now is to do all you can to make it less bad, for your own sake.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ you ask. You and my other reader, Anna, are both addicted to the drama and deceit of sexual obsession, the excitement of which transforms the mundane present. It’s the only way you can value yourself, and yet you don’t, do you?

You’re not the first woman to become thus entrapped and to face long-term hurt as a result — but that’s no excuse right now.

Anna’s affair is over and I hope she starts life anew with her partner and child.

As for you, Kay, you know what you have to do, but ‘keep going back for more’.

Well, don’t. End it before things become much worse.

Check out your face in the mirror and tell me if you like what you see.

  I am so shocked that my daughter's gay

DEAR BEL My daughter, who is 38, and her husband are divorcing after ten years of marriage.

They have a seven-year-old son whom my husband and I love very much. We have been involved with his care since he was seven months old, to enable his parents to work.

The separation (just after Christmas) has been dealt with in a civilised manner, so why am I writing?

A few weeks ago my daughter announced she’s now in a relationship with a woman.

We were both totally surprised and mystified. There were never any indications of lesbian leanings — rather the reverse as she’s already had a brief fling with another man.

However, my husband and I accepted the situation and told her we loved her and wanted her to be happy.

The problem is — her ex knows nothing of this. We still see a lot of him and are very fond of him.

We’ve had several heated disagreements with our daughter because she wants my involvement with her new relationship and I’m resisting.

I feel it’s too soon, and I hate all the deceit. Also, although I have accepted the situation, I’m uneasy about it and need a little time to fully come to terms.

I’ve tried explaining, but she’s become very hostile and will only speak to me on her terms.

We’ve also seen a marked decrease in the quality time spent with her son — she is so bound up with her new love.

I’m distraught. My husband says I must do what my heart tells me — but what if my heart is wrong? JODI

'Although I have accepted the situation, I'm uneasy about it and need a little time to fully come to terms with it'. Posed by models

The pseudonym I chose for you invokes the best-selling novelist Jodi Picoult, because I think you might like to read one of her novels, Sing You Home.

There’s an interesting video on her website (jodipicoult.com/sing-you-home.html) where she describes how, while she was writing this book, her own teenage son ‘came out’ to his parents.

The novel’s heroine falls in love with a woman after her marriage has ended. Picoult is passionate about gay rights, and I think that the video and book might help with your ‘unease’.

Not that I think you are wrong to be upset. Leaving your daughter’s sexuality out of the equation for a moment, she is at fault to expect you to be an accessory in deceiving the son-in-law you like and respect.

That would be the case were she in a relationship with a man. And any devoted grandparent would be right to worry about a tendency to neglect a child because of the new passion, whatever the gender of the lover. 

Since she was also unfaithful to her husband with a man, she sounds as if she’s on a rocky road to self-discovery. So your all-important goal must be to protect your grandson from the swirling adult emotions which could make him very insecure and unhappy. Hold that aim fast in heart and mind.

I hope that by now your volatile daughter has told her ex about the new relationship. It’s vital, as she needs him on side in order to help explain the situation to her son. I repeat, if everyone places the child at the centre of all decisions, things will become clearer.

For that same reason I think you should agree to meet your daughter’s new love for tea or a drink at once. Think of her as friend, not lover, if that makes it easier. Agreeing to this will relax your daughter, which will be better for the little boy.

If this new relationship works out he will have some adjusting to do — like any child of separated parents and additionally because of suddenly having two ‘mummies’.

But I have friends for whom this situation has worked out brilliantly, and if you all pull together there’s no reason why your family shouldn’t settle down.

Picoult asks, ‘What does it mean to be a family?’ You might think about that.

I think you have to take deep breaths and do serious soul-searching about the new situation. Being ‘distraught’ won’t help anybody. Your daughter needs your support, but not in bad behaviour.

If you make this clear and stay calm and resolutely refuse to take part in ‘heated disagreements’, you will get through this.

  And finally... Timeless lessons of great art

In 1963, I left England for the first time to travel all the way to Paris, where all I wanted to do was visit art galleries. Yes, the shops were exciting, but I knew that art could help me understand the world.

Fifty years later, I haven’t changed — which is either a cause for celebration or worry, depending on how much you value the need for progress!

So here I am, still having marvellous encounters with great art, which go on teaching me about the human spirit — and that includes (for better, for worse) most of the things that appear on these pages, week after week.

Love, power, restlessness, fear, envy, aspiration, dreams... all such emotions are timeless. No wonder my latest illumination came within the great portals of the British Museum, where I caught up with the exhibition Ice Age Art (on until May 26 if you’re interested).

It was intensely moving to gaze at small works of art created as long ago as 40,000 years and feel such an intense rush of affection and respect for our ancestors.

TROUBLED? WRITE TO BEL

Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week.

Write to: Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or e-mail bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk.

A pseudonym will be used if you wish.

Bel reads all letters, but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.

Because all human life was there.

In unbelievably tough conditions they sat around fires in their caves, telling stories, painting animals and people on the walls, playing flute-like instruments and carving chunks of stone or the tusks of mammoths to represent what mattered most to them in that long-ago world.

Why would you do that — putting in so much effort to carve a man with the head of a lion, or a sweetly elegant horse, or a pretty girl with waving hair, or a bird in flight?

Why would you scratch away to make beads or to decorate a baton which just helped throw spears? Above all, why create so many little, plump, pregnant women?

Because making art shouts to the darkest sky that there is more to humankind than simply staying alive.

The objects in this enthralling exhibition connect the men and women who made them to you and me.

They possessed little, but had a sense of purpose and an imagination which could transform the everyday. And we do, too.


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