BEL MOONEY

DEAR BEL, MY EX-BOYFRIEND and I started dating back in 2012 — he was loving and the sex was great, but honestly not the best I’ve ever had.

Six months on, I had a gut feeling he was being unfaithful, because of how he was acting.

I went through his emails and found messages between him and a woman planning a holiday together. When I confronted him, he swore he was only joking with her and wasn’t going to do anything.

Fast forward to March 2013, and I saw half-naked pictures of another woman on his computer. I threatened to leave, but he swore they hadn’t had sex — it was all just flirting. Stupidly, I believed him.

We continued dating and the relationship went from strength to strength — we did have fights like all couples, but nothing major.

However, there were times when I felt more single than in a relationship, as if I was always chasing him.

In 2015, he and I were on holiday and he was in the bathroom when his phone rang. It was the same woman he’d had the pictures of two years earlier. I confronted him again and he said that they were simply friends and nothing more.

Now jump to April 2016 and I get pregnant — totally unplanned. Nine weeks later, he decided to end our relationship, saying that no matter how much he loved me, he wasn’t attracted to me and he’d rather we co-parent as single people than stay together for the sake of a baby.

If I’m honest, I don’t think he ever loved me, and at nearly 25 I wasn’t ready to be a single mother — just not mentally stable enough — so I decided to terminate the pregnancy to give myself a chance to move on.

During that time he was horrible to me, mean and rude, and hurt me more than I ever thought possible. Somehow, I managed to keep going and one day I realised I didn’t miss him any more.

Earlier this year, he contacted me, saying he missed me and wanted me back. He’d call me about 50 times a day. Now he says he knows he wants to spend his life with me, but is still not certain he is attracted to me!

I still love him, but I’ve grown so much as a person since the break-up — not to mention the exhilarating sex I’ve had with others. Much as he was my dream man, I don’t see how we can ever go back and date again — or can we?

I’m an accountant with a good job; the women he cheats with are not what you’d expect from a man of his calibre. Yet I’m scared of a life without him. Am I being foolish? Can attraction return? Can a couple move on from a termination? Can I ever trust him again? CHERYL

DEAR BEL, I’VE discovered that my 20-year-old cousin (and best friend) has been in a secret relationship with a 58-year-old man for more than a year.

She has moved in with him and has very little contact with her friends and family. This is a shock, as I used to consider us very close. We even went on holiday together last year, just the two of us, and she never gave me a clue as to what was going on.

I was the last in our family to find out and heard it from my mum, not her.

It’s incredibly hurtful, as I thought I could trust her to be honest with me. I hate the fact that she has lied to me for a year.

I’m not just devastated, but also concerned for her welfare, as she’s never been in a relationship before and is naive about men. That makes her more vulnerable than a lot of girls her age.

I worry she could be being manipulated or abused in some way, as it’s so out of character to keep such a massive secret and distance herself from all of us.

How can I ever trust her again after being lied to and how can I protect her from what is clearly an unhealthy relationship? SALLY