My new boyfriend has moved back in with his ex during lockdown

I met a lovely man about a month before lockdown. We were taking it slowly and our relationship was going really well. We are in our late 40s and both divorced with children. However, while my teenagers of 15 and 17 are living with me (and video-calling their dad), my boyfriend has moved back in with his ex to be with his children. While I completely understand, I can’t help worrying. He says they’re friends but that there are no romantic feelings and haven’t been for a while. But what if they are rekindled? I know that extreme situations can bring people closer. What if being back together and looking after their children during such difficult times makes them fall in love again? He says he is sleeping in the spare room but I’m worried that they’re missing sex and can’t resist temptation. Or perhaps his ex isn’t over him and will try to win him back? He has been video-calling me a couple of times a day but my thoughts keep spiralling. I haven’t said anything because I don’t want to seem needy or jealous.

QIt’s a very delicate situation because your relationship is so new. It needs sensitivity to know how to play it. You say in your longer letter that you hadn’t yet discussed any deep feelings for each other or had sex yet. However, you also say that on your last

Ameeting when you knew lockdown might happen, he told you that he would really miss you and that he hoped you could continue to get to know each other while you are apart. He’s been equally warm and considerate by video link. He sounds like a really nice guy and I think you probably have to trust what he says – that he and his ex are just as he describes: co-parents and good friends but no longer romantically interested in each other. Yes, people in extreme situations can bond together, but also people thrown into enforced closeness 24 hours a day could really get on each other’s nerves. It could just as easily remind them of all the reasons why they split as well as the reasons they were once together. And remember that you and he are also coping with difficult times. Keep it light and I don’t think it will sound needy if you mention to him that you can’t help worrying he and his ex might fall in love again (though if that happens you must accept it). It could even be an opportunity to open up deeper discussions between you. Everyone’s emotions and anxieties are at extremes at the moment so, as long as you have light-hearted times too, talking about your fears, people you love, how your children are coping, work and money worries is very normal and can only strengthen your relationship.

He’s sleeping in the spare room, but I worry they will miss sex

I keep refreshing my inbox. Refresh, refresh, refresh.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing from the Hunk, responding to the email I wrote last week, in which I asked after him and said I would love to meet up once lockdown is over and we can fly again. Oh, and that I happen to be in love with him. I almost forgot that bit. I think I must have had one glass of I Heart Champagne too many!

That was quite the most forward missive to a man I’ve ever written. But I don’t think being forward as a woman, even in this MeToo age, ever really works. I’ve tried it before, either been convoluted and devious, or come straight out with it, to disastrous results, viz…

★ In the summer of 1983, I hosted a party just so I could invite David, who lived next door. I made Pimm’s and had croissants and fruit salad on offer for the early hours. I bought the new Malcolm McLaren 12-inch. David turned up all right, but swiftly left with my friend Wilma. She was wearing a vintage tea dress and no make-up.

★ I joined a gym in Highbury Fields, at great expense, as I fancied the personal trainer: he looked like a young Stan Collymore (I did chat to the real Stan Collymore in a bar once when I was the editor of Marie Claire; another story). The personal trainer soon left, and I was unable to cancel my membership for a year.

★ I fancied the man in the health food store on Old Street roundabout. I accumulated a crunchy peanut butter mountain before eventually plucking up the courage to call the shop and ask him to the cinema. His first response was promising, as he said, ‘When?’ I gave him my number, but he never called me.

If this lockdown goes on much longer my Botox will go to waste

★ I took a shine to a chef at a restaurant, which meant I dragged my friend Robina to his establishment most lunch hours. I managed to invite him to a party in Shoreditch. He came along but didn’t speak to me.

★ I hired a man I’d met at a record launch party as the music critic on my magazine. This ruse worked, and we actually went on a date to the cinema to see The Blair Witch Project. As I was then already deaf and blind – I’ve since had laser eye surgery and bought high-tech hearing aids – I had no clue what was happening in the frankly blurry, whispered narrative, so wasn’t scared at all. We went for dinner in the Organic Pub afterwards, I gave him a lift home, and he didn’t invite me in. When I later asked why not, he said, ‘You must be made of steel if that didn’t frighten the life out of you.’ We didgoontohavesexonour second date but, unfortunately, I was forced to sack him as music critic for being too highbrow, which put the dampeners on our relationship slightly.

★ While features editor of a daily tabloid, I hired my future husband to be ‘technology writer’, even though he couldn’t change a plug and indeed did not even own a screwdriver. Later, when we were married and I found out he was cheating, I made him do a feature whereby he had to fly from various airports across Europe to see how many times he was thrown in a cell because he’s Asian and had a beard. You see, I can give, but I can also takeaway.

★ Now I have just sent that totally out-there email. And I have to confess here that, having been assigned Him, the Hunk, as my photographer for a story in Bali, I then totally requested Him for another story in Bolivia. An assignment he accepted, even though it was a huge distance from Sydney, the airline lost his camera equipment, and then he was placed in isolation with suspected yellow fever! This must mean something, surely? I’m feeling a bit annoyed, to be honest, as I had Botox and filler back in February, and if this lockdown goes on much longer it will all go to waste and my forehead will start to concertina. Botox only lasts a few months. I will have gone off, again.

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