My lover is torn between her kids and me

The end of any love affair is acutely painful, this one is a tad more complex, perhaps.

I say that because if we remove the fact that you’ve been in a same- sex relationship, then the problems with your girlfriend’s teenage children are not very different than any experienced when a marriage ends because of an affair.

had she left her husband for another man, he would have been furious (perhaps even more so) and the teenagers would have set their faces against the unwelcome intruder. In that sense, their behaviour is normal. I find it hard to apportion any blame to a 17 and 13-year-old who have just seen their home life break up.

It’s admirable that you can write: ‘But life isn’t just about us, is it?’ I had to cut your long letter down by more than two thirds, yet that simple statement remains a pure distillation of the truth.

You and she were brave to try to give everything up for the sake of the love your discovered, but you have found that nothing in this life can be that easy — not when there are other

beloved people involved. I suspect your own daughters found it difficult when you came out, yet they are older, with their own lives — and clearly a have greater, more generous understanding of sexuality than many people. You’ve been lucky with your own family and friends.

Yet I feel so sorry for your girlfriend, caught as she is between two different sorts of love. She will not be the first individual to discover that the thrill of sexual passion and shared intimacy fades in comparison with the searingly painful demands of family.

And she will not be the last woman or man who weighs up the opposing loves and chooses the role of a parent over the intoxication of being a lover.

relatively speaking, your relationship isn’t that old. You have been living in the same town for only ten months.

It could well be that if you remain strong, work hard, make your flat pleasant and show patience, in time your girlfriend will conclude that she can make this work after all — especially as her children become older.

It won’t ever be easy, but in your place I think I might cling to that hope. But if you can’t, then in your position you might consider moving back to be near your own loving family right away, and start again.