I love him more than he loves me

DEAR BEL,

WE HAVE been married for 45 years and I think I have always known that I love my husband more than he loves me.

He recently found a female friend who he talks about all the time both to me and other people. This makes me feel embarrassed and foolish.

He keeps telling everyone he married me because when he came back to the UK after a year abroad all his friends had got married — implying I was all that was left!

I was 16 when he came back and I didn’t start going out with him until I was nearly 19, we got married when I was 20.

I never considered myself on the shelf at 19. I married him because I love him.

I have asked him if he is seeing someone else but he said: how can he as he comes back to me every night? That has done nothing to quell my fears.

I don’t think he will leave

me but believe he stays with me out of pity. I don’t want that.

I feel sure if I instigated a split with him he would go along with it. We have spoken about it and he has never said that’s not what he wants — so I must assume that it is what he wants, but he won’t do anything about it.

Over the past year he has behaved in such a way that even our friends and children think ‘something is going on’.

I think because he has found this friend it has given him the courage to say what he feels about me and our marriage.

I am concerned about being on my own emotionally and financially.

My heart is broken and I think we will not be together much longer.

It would be good to get some advice from someone not close to my problem to help me make that decision. TESSA

SOME people believe in the power of prayer, others in the ability of intense ‘visualisation’ to influence events — and there are those who reckon you can get what you want by simply asking the universe to give it to you.

I offer no opinions there — but I do believe in self-fulfilling prophesies. The term was coined in 1948 by the American sociologist robert Merton to describe ‘a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the originally false conception come true’.

In other words, you get an idea in your head then consistently act in such a way that the notion turns out to be ‘true.’ Obviously it has a huge relevance to the upbringing of children (I once heard an indifferent young mother in a children’s ward describe her baby as ‘naughty.’). But I also believe it to be a factor in many relationships.

Here you are, telling me that you are the also-ran in this marriage. You’ve never believed he loves you, think he stays with you ‘out of pity’, and constantly cross- examine him about a potential split caused by a woman friend you think he wants to be with.

You ‘must assume’(you say) a whole lot of destructive negatives — because you’ve decided to believe they are true. Your suspicions — surely based on nothing much at all — are determined enough to make you ‘ heart-broken’ because ‘ we will not be together much longer.’

What are you doing? To be frank, if your husband has indeed ‘behaved in such a way’ that people think ‘something is going on’ — it could be because you have made life so anxious, so needy, so dreary, that he is relieved to escape to the conversation of a lady who doesn’t make him feel thoroughly depressed.

Honestly, I do feel very sorry for anybody who appears so set on unhappiness. Of course, it could be that your suspicions are correct, and he is fonder of this lady than he should be.

But if I were in your shoes — afraid of being ‘on my own both emotionally and financially’ — I would do something about turning myself into the kind of wife who is a delight to be with.

I know a woman whose husband (working abroad) developed a megacrush on a stunning colleague.

The wife was scared and angry — but very wise, too. So she made sure that what was waiting for him on friday nights was utterly captivating on every level. The marriage flourished.

Please try to change your mind set — now. Investigate Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and try a couple of sessions with a local therapist. Do the exercise of ‘flipping’ all your negative statements to make positive ones. You can throw your marriage a lifeline right now — but not if you are so intent on drowning it in your tears.