I am half-mad with forbidden lust

DEAR BEL

I AM in my late 50s, married for 27 years. My wife is a great lady but I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. Why did I marry? It seemed right at the time.

We haven’t had sex for about five years, although I think she’d be willing if I was. Two years ago, I became involved with a woman at work who’d found out her husband was having an affair.

Our closeness meant snogs and cuddles (and a little more), but I said I couldn’t leave my wife, so she took her husband back.

I was devastated. Because of my moods, my wife suspected something was wrong. So I admitted I fancied this other woman.

My wife asked me if she hadn’t returned to her husband, would I have left for her? I couldn’t answer truthfully so stayed noncommittal.

But the question looms, even though my wife is trying to make our marriage work.

I still see the other woman at work and occasionally out in my car. We haven’t had intercourse, but are aroused in each other’s company.

What do I do? I love my wife, but am not in love with her and cannot bring myself to make love with her. The other woman is waiting for me to leave my wife so she can leave her husband and we can be together. But I am frightened in case it doesn’t work and I’m left alone.

When we are apart I am unhappy, I feel guilty and cannot sleep, thinking this can’t go on. But then I just want to have more of her. I would appreciate your thoughts? ROBERT

MY fIrsT response is that being so sexually obsessed is exactly what the doomed opera diva Violetta sings of, in Verdi’s La traviata: ‘A cross and a delight.’ Or (if you like), an agony and an ecstasy.

You think about making love with the forbidden person 98 per cent of the time, brood painfully in the wee small hours of the morning, fantasise about a love nest with him/her in which you can have hot sex most of the time, and turn your back on the poor person who is your spouse. You lie, feel guilty, and then lie some more.

People reading this who have never experienced that madness can count themselves lucky. It is an ancient lunacy, and always will be.

All I can tell you is that I know exactly what it’s like and that in time, if you stay married, the madness dies down and you get on with the life you have.

And yes, as the days turn into months, then years, the life you imagined in the heat of passion becomes hazier and hazier until it fades completely.

But make no mistake, right now you’re cruelly punishing your blameless wife. If you love the other woman, the honest thing is to take the gamble and move in with her.

OK, so you are ‘frightened’, but to cling to that fear and allow it to dominate your actions is feeble.

You enjoy your teenage-like fumbles in the car, but can’t face up to your lover or your wife with the honesty of a mature man.

You’re being monstrously unfair on both women, so I suggest you make a decision.