Is it awful to leave a marriage that’s so empty?

If you remain generous, Time will come good/ And you will find your feet/Again on fresh pastures of promise JOHN O’DONOHUE (IRISH POET, PRIEST AND PHILOSOPHER, 1956 - 2008)

DEAL BEL,

I READ with great interest your letters and answers on relationships a woman who wondered if her relationship was good enough and another poor woman devastated by the loss of her partner. And so on. So many problems.

I suspect there are other women out there like me, in an empty relationship, wondering what to do. I feel I’m living with a flatmate I don’t know very well.

I married after not dating for very long. We didn’t even have sex on our wedding night and I felt quickly I had made a mistake.

I was determined to make it work though, as we had married, and we went on and had three wonderful children. My husband seemed to look on me as a mother figure and, after the birth of my last child, completely went off sex.

I felt very down about it and tried to broach the subject, hugged him in the morning, tried being really nice and not critical, suggested he see a doctor, worked super hard on my figure and appearance and signed us up for a marriage course, but nothing changed.

I just put up with it and did more and more for everyone. Throwing myself into being a great mum and nurse.

However, as my children started leaving home and then my best friend died I just felt I couldn’t go on putting on this pretend, happy face. We sleep in separate rooms at home and it just feels weird. I don’t want to organise everything for him and don’t enjoy being with him much.

I spoke to him; he was shocked and we tried couples counselling but nothing changed and, after 20 years of nothing, I realise I don’t want to be intimate with him now.

I feel so guilty about leaving so I just stay, but this is impacting on my physical health as well as my mental health.

I know you probably think sex shouldn’t be important but it’s the one thing you can’t really do with someone else if you are married!

I’d like to move on but feel stuck. I’ve been to counselling on my own and my counsellor has suggested working on other areas of my life, such as friends and hobbies, which I’ve done. But really I want to try dancing with a partner and going on holiday with someone I can share a bed with. I had to stay when my children were little, I didn’t want them to suffer. Would it be so awful to go now? ANTONIA

HERE is a woman yearning for romance: walking hand-in-hand on the beach under a silvery moon, tenderly undressing each other and making love in the hotel, meeting each other’s eyes over breakfast and confiding loving thoughts, laughing at the same things, enthralled by each new day together.

And what is wrong with that delicious fantasy? How many of my female readers, even those in reasonably good marriages, will recognise it? Quite a lot, I think. You tell me ‘I know you probably think sex shouldn’t be important ...’ but my views are rather more complicated.

I do reject the common assertion (made in many articles) that sex is vital in a marriage. When people have been together for more than 30 years, they can remember with delight their wonderful lovemaking in years past yet accept the fact that they have settled into a comfortable companionship as they grow older. That sort of love keeps people together, for example, when one is very sick or injured, and lovemaking is no longer possible. Their marriage is not dependent on sex, it is fuelled by the deepest love, ‘til death do us part’.

A couple like that might detest the thought of separate rooms. Their need just to be together transcends desire.

But that evolution in a relationship, if it happens, has to be shared and accepted by both partners.

In your case, you don’t even have the memories of wonderful times to console you. He managed to give you three children, yet who can blame you now if you long to be touched? Long to be held, as a woman? When you admit that now you ‘don’t enjoy being with him much’ that sounds like a death knell to me.

To be blunt, you are longing for a romantic encounter which may not happen. It’s tough ‘out there’. Single women abound, and it’s not a given that any of them will find a partner.

Indeed, once they’ve broken free many enjoy their liberty to do just what they want.

They create an independent new life, full of adventures, rather than moping because the dream of unfulfilled romance hasn’t been fulfilled.

Having given you that sensible warning, my instinct is saying you should take the plunge. After all, you’ve wanted to for years. Of course he will be devastated, and that is just one of the hurdles before you.

If you think you can really stand alone then do so. Life is very short, after all.