Can I ever get over the affair he had 50 years ago?
DEAR BEL,
PETE and I got married at 16 and 17. I was pregnant, we were very much in love and after four years we got a council place and settled into poor-but-happy married life.
By now I had three small boys. One day, I was looking for money to buy bread for tea and found a letter in his jacket from a girl asking when he was going to leave me.
The shock was huge. When he came home I told him to pack his bags. He said it had ended months before and meant nothing. I asked him who she was, what she looked like, how they met. He wouldn’t talk about it ? and said I should get over it.
Now I had four sons and two dogs and life was very busy. So we stayed together, as for me it was important to keep a stable home for our sons. Life was mostly happy in those years. There seemed nothing wrong but it was always there in the back of my mind. Approaching my 70th, I said if he didn’t tell me the whole story, I’d leave. I said, be honest, but when he was, there was pain all over again. It is so hard to come to terms with the deceit and the fact that he could do those intimate things I thought were special.
I can’t forgive him. We’ve both worked hard, made a nice home and have a loving family. He’s a kind man ? always there for me. We get on well, but I can’t get over the fact that he was happy to risk all that we had to be with that girl.
He tells me all the time how much he loves me, but I can’t forget he wanted her. He only saw her seven times in three months, while we’ve been married for 56 years, but it’s a daily struggle to stop myself expressing hurt, anger, jealousy and bitterness. How can I let it go?
ROSE HI BEL,
THIS is Pete. Rose was not my first girlfriend but I felt different about her and wanted to care for her.
In 1973, I had a short affair, just
And King Solomon spoke further unto the Queen of Sheba, saying: ‘What is the use of us, the children of men, if we do not exercise kindness and love upon earth? Are we not all nothingness, mere grass of the field?’ FROM THE KEBRA NAGAST (EPIC ETHIOPIAN BOOK DATING BACK 700 YEARS)
seven secret dates — not a love relationship, a sexual fling. I came to my senses and walked away, asking myself: ‘Why am I messing around with this girl when I have a perfect partner in Rose?’
But Rose found out and all hell broke loose. She told me to go but I wouldn’t leave. How could I? She is the girl I love and still my everything. I’m someone who shuts his mind to bad things, so I told Rose nothing. But three years ago she returned to it and insisted I tell her everything. Now we’re on the verge of splitting up. I can’t imagine life without her.
Please help with some good advice. I can’t bear the thought of 56 years down the pan just for sex a few times with a random girl.
THIS is only the second time in 15 years that a husband and wife have written in together, sharing an email. Can we begin with that union in e-space?
I believe you can still share old age together ? instead of this miserable, misguided plan of splitting up in your 70s, because of a stupid (but very common) lapse 48 years ago.
Right now, you are sharing this heartache. Pete, I bet you wish you had learned how to talk things through years ago. And that you could have your time all over again. (Don’t we all?) Rose says you tell her you love her ? and I believe you. But how can you make her believe it and help her exorcise that old demon?
People often say ‘sorry is not enough’, but it can be ? as long as you don’t tell Rose to ‘get over it’ or ‘move on’. The demon is living with you. It may be a stupid little thing, but it’s real and needs facing together. Rose can’t forget, and that’s how it goes. Yet forgiveness is always possible.
Are you listening, Rose? You were a naïve girl who married her first love, and was then shocked and disillusioned to find that (like so many men) Pete had allowed himself to be led by his libido for a while.
You are the mother of four sons; surely by now you have gleaned that men may misbehave and hurt women? It happens vice versa, too. If we were to abandon all those we care for because of one wrong (one sin, if you like), no humans could live together. Honestly, when you are able to say, ‘I can forgive you now,’ a dead weight drops from your heart. Pete remains your first love. You two can still tiptoe into old age, holding each other up.
So why not try the burning ritual together?
Rose writes a letter full of old hurt and ongoing anger and pain and blame. Pete writes one saying how stupid he was and how sorry he’s always been, but how full of love he feels. Then you go out together and set fire to the letters and disperse the ashes, look at each other and say aloud: ‘It’s gone now.’ Then hold each other’s hand. Remember you are still the 16 and 17 year olds who fell in love. Within your souls is all you shared, the bad times and the good, the joy of children, the anxiety of watching them grow ? together.
Think of those boys; how you feel about them still. To choose loneliness would be to negate a lifetime. That love must be allowed to outweigh pain, or there’s no hope for any of us. No, Rose, please don’t throw away a lifetime together.
and parliamentarian named Frank Goldsmith, who was born in Frankfurt).
Morgan’s father was a German Jewish émigré from Dresden who escaped to England in the 1930s, and Anglicised Morgenthau to Morgan.
His mother is a Polish Catholic who fled the Russians and arrived in Britain in 1947. He grew up in Wimbledon, South-West London, going to prep school and then a Catholic boarding school. Morgan was raised speaking German at home and was known as ‘Fritz’ at school as a result, and always regarded himself as an outsider. ‘I see myself as a complicated mongrel,’ he said. ‘English people spend much of their time laughing at Germans. At most foreigners, in fact. The English are astonishingly intolerant, contrary to their delusional self-image,’ he added. ‘Being the son of refugees gives you a special perspective on everything.’ After school, Morgan went to Leeds University to read English and wrote for the Edinburgh fringe. Drama producer Andy Harries — who developed The Crown for Netflix — has been a close friend for decades and brokered the deal for Morgan to write The Queen, the hit film with Helen Mirren which really cemented his superstar status and earned him a Golden Globe.
In the 1990s he made some small films, including comedies, and wrote Longford about Myra Hindley and Lord Longford for Channel 4. He enjoyed considerable success as screenwriter for Frost/Nixon, The Deal and Rush.
Interestingly, Morgan said that Niki Lauda, one of the subjects of Rush, had propositioned his wife after the two of them met many years before when she was a gorgeous 20-year-old, commenting: ‘You can’t blame him.’ Yet theirs was not an easy marriage. Morgan had previously said that he and Lila were ‘wildly chalk and cheese’, noting that she was far more sociable than he.
He went on to hint that there was plenty of bickering between them during dinner parties. ‘People come to our house . . . and they leave so happy not to be us.’
Ms Schwarzenberg, a journalist, wrote a series of columns for an Austrian magazine which revealed a union peppered by tantrums.
She recalled that her ‘macho’ spouse went into a fury when asked to travel by Smart car which he called a ‘hairdryer’. He declined to go in it, and caught a Mercedes taxi home from the airport instead.
Another flashpoint came over her culinary habits: She wrote in 2013: ‘Peter always says you can gauge the state of our marriage on the number of fishfingers he gets served up in a week.
‘It appears I went too far once again with my culinary neglect towards Peter as I served him the leftovers of the kids’ meal (guess what it was), he took one look and said: “I am neither five years old nor a f ****** penguin.” He left the table and left the house in the search of a decent dinner, as he puts it.’
She also described how Morgan gave her a copy of Fifty Shades Of Grey, by E.L. James, during a holiday to Ibiza. She recorded her surprise that her ‘intellectually orientated husband who usually supplies me with premium literature . . . had bought me this “housewife porn” book’. Adding: ‘When I questioned him about this, he said bluntly that as a woman I should at least be able to form an opinion about the book that had sold 50 million copies worldwide.
‘I should have just been happy but after a few chapters I began to think that maybe this wasn’t just a selfless purchase. According to a book critic: “E.L. James’s words bring women into a wave of lust and desire.” Perhaps that was my husband’s hope, too... Peter still carries the fantasy that the combination of sun, sand and sea leads to countless sex sessions.
‘Unfortunately I have to admit that Shade of Grey [sic] didn’t really change much in the course of our holiday, but that isn’t necessarily a criticism.’
The marriage ended in 2016.
HE THEN started to date Gillian Anderson. It’s not known how the two met, but they were supportive of each other’s careers. Morgan was often seen at Anderson’s first nights, and they would frequently be spotted together on the awards season circuit in Los Angeles and London.
One pal described Anderson and Morgan as: ‘Both equally high maintenance, both have been through tons of therapy.’
Anderson, twice divorced, recently said that she has been in therapy since she was 14 years old and adds that she writes a gratitude list every night.
Her first husband was a Canadian art director she met on the set of The X-Files. They had daughter Piper when she was 26, and the marriage was over two years later. She married for a second time in 2004, to Julian Ozanne, and that lasted for two years. She then had sons Oscar and Felix with British businessman, Mark Griffiths, and they split in 2012.
For four years, she and Morgan appeared very happy. In January 2020 she gave an interview saying that they couldn’t live together: ‘If we did, that would be the end of us. It works so well as it is, it feels so special when we do come together. It’s exciting.
‘We choose when to be together. There is nothing locking us in, nothing that brings up that fear of: “Oh gosh, I can’t leave because what will happen to the house, how will we separate?” I start to miss the person I want to be with, which is a lovely feeling.’
Many were surprised when news of their split emerged, although perhaps the hints that all was not well were there for some time — Ms Anderson said little about him when promoting The Crown late last year.
Ms Goldsmith and Morgan, as well as having known each other for years, have numerous professional contacts in common. Goldsmith’s rom-com is being made by the same team that made Morgan’s Frost/Nixon and Rush films.
It seems they may be the biggest power couple in British film — if, of course, their romance manages to go the distance.