Should I leave my dying husband?

DEAR BEL, HOW can I go on? I’ve been with my husband for 22 years. He left his wife and two kids for me — although I did not want this. We subsequently had a son, now 19. Without going into details, I put the child up for adoption at the time, but couldn’t go through with it. Now my son and his father haven’t uttered a word to each other for at least a year. My husband has two older children and indeed two grandchildren. My problem is that I have been in love — for the past 40 years — with a man who is 23 years older than me and lost his wife two years ago, so is now available. My husband has been at death’s door for 11 years and I don’t know how long I can go on living with a man just because he’s dying — but whom I loathe. Do I leave in order to find happiness with the man I love for the rest of his life? Or stay with my husband waiting for him to die? I am hurting and feel so unhappy. ELLEN

READING your message, it sounds to me as if you react passively to events, never taking control. This tendency has an unfortunate habit of turning people into victims, but they in turn create other victims by being incapable of acting with honesty and strength.

You were having an affair with an older married man and simultaneously started another relationship with a different married man.

That one left his wife and children for you — although you ‘didn’t want this’. So why did you let him inflict pain on his family? And then marry him in such bad faith?

Shockingly, you put your own child — his son — up for adoption, but didn’t ‘go through with it’. Why? Was it because you had already decided you didn’t love ‘the child’s’ father? To be absolutely honest, having read to that point, I started to find this loveless story of deception pretty horrible.

To be clear — it’s not your admission of the 23-year- old love affair, but the dismissive way you speak of your husband and son.

You don’t say why you ‘loathe’ the man who loved you enough to leave his family and is now very ill (‘at death’s door’ — a very flippant, even callous, way to describe his condition).

Nor why he and your son are not speaking. I’d have liked some inkling as to why this family is so miserable. Or, should I say, so dysfunctional?

What to do? Yes, the choice is hard — and you don’t say whether the widower is willing to take you on.

Perhaps you should start by trying to make things right between your son and his father. This wouldn’t be about you, but about their relationship. If you are going to leave the man, he will need family. To that end, you should also make sure he’s in close touch with his older children and, if not, try to make that right, too.

It may well be beyond you, yet just thinking about how to make his life better, even though you ‘loathe’ him, will be good for you. Kindness is good therapy. No matter how he has treated you (and there may well be reason for your dislike, other than loving somebody else), illness is hardly his fault.

To cut to the chase — surely it would be despicable to stay with a hated husband, ‘waiting for him to die’? Haven’t enough lies have been told, enough damage done?

If I were you, I would do as I suggest, find out if your other man wants you, make sure everything is in place for your husband’s welfare, then leave.