Should I forgive my pervy husband?

DEAR BEL,

I’M 59 and recently discovered my husband had been sending pictures of his erect penis to random women, getting intimate pictures back.

I don’t know how long it’s been going on. A similar thing happened nine years ago when he joined a dating site for married men.

As he deletes all messages, texts, emails etc, he must have either been in a rush or left the evidence on purpose for me to find.

He spends a great deal of time, without me, at the local pub and could quite easily meet a woman and I would be non the wiser.

I am not a jealous or possessive person, but I am hurt by his behaviour.

We don’t have sex very often, perhaps once or twice a year. His sex drive is very low or he just doesn’t want sex with me.

I’ve known him since I was 14. We have been together for 20 years, married for 14 years. My friends think I have lost the plot staying with a man who treats me with such little respect, but I believe in my marriage vows and he is a good man and stepfather.

He says he loves me but I irritate him. He’s so withdrawn — no longer interested in family visits (apart from the grandkids). When I go away, he no longer wants to come with me.

When we are together, things are good. He is my best friend and I love him.

My head is telling me the signs say our marriage is dead, but my heart tells me give it a chance. It’s not that I’m afraid of being on my own — I’m virtually on my own anyway — but he does come home, eventually. Should I forgive his behaviour and carry on? JENNY

Why is it that men believe that sending a snap of their aroused manhood is appealing? It might be to some women, but not to most of us.

I was shown such a picture two years ago by the 39-year- old woman who’d received it and confess to thinking about . . . er, shears. yuk.

In some ways your sad letter is as bizarre as those pictures. your husband has hurt you deeply more than once and you admit he treats you ‘with such little respect’. you suspect he might have left the horrible sex pictures for you to find. Cruel. he goes out alone and has ‘withdrawn’ from your family. yet you describe him as a ‘good man’ and your ‘best friend’ and say that you ‘love him’.

Most readers will, like me, be incredulous. yet ‘love’ itself is so mysterious we must accept anything is possible.

I suspect you developed a crush on him 35 years ago and have never, in your heart, strayed from that first infatuation, turning you (I’m sorry to say this) into his willing, lifelong victim.

he can behave as he wishes, display no love or loyalty, be unfaithful in word and deed, yet you will always be there, waiting for him to come home. What can I say? The truth is, you don’t really mean your final question, do you?

you have already forgiven his ‘ bad behaviour’ and seem locked into carrying on, whatever happens.

honestly, I admire loyalty and really like it when someone believes that marriage vows (‘for better, for worse’) must be taken seriously.

But what about the vows he made? your down-at-heel acceptance of his treatment is surely the sign of a woman trying to hide the depth of her unhappiness by writing brave platitudes (‘. . . he does come home, eventually’) to convince herself that she is right to stay.

In one way you are brave, yet that statement poses the question of whether true courage would mean accepting change and making a new start.

The easiest option is to advise you to leave. But I know how hard that is, when you are 59, looking ahead to your 60s and 70s, and hoping that he changes.

In the past I have encouraged women to stand up for themselves by reminding them that we have just one life and so owe it to ourselves to use it well. But would that fall on deaf ears in this case?

All I can do is wish you the strength to cope with what you have already decided to do, and hope your children and friends are always there for support.