DILEMMA OVER LEAVING MUCH OLDER HUBBY

Dear Coleen

I’M in a quandary, as I no longer love my husband after 15 years of marriage. We have one 12-year-old daughter together.

The trouble is, I was only 31 and he was 55 when we married. I’m now 46, while he’s an old man of 70. I still need sex and want to go out and have a good time, especially at weekends but my husband likes to stay at home with a can of beer and watch TV.

We also sleep in separate beds now. My dilemma is, I don’t want to leave an old man alone, even though my daughter and me don’t talk to him much any more.

I don’t know what to do to be happy again – can you help?

Coleen says

SO you want to leave him, but you feel guilty. It’s never easy to end a relationship, even if it’s for the best for both partners.

And I think that’s something you have to accept if you decide to go down that road.

It’s going to be tough because, even if things aren’t good now, they obviously were at one point and you’ve built a life together and had a child.

Your letter highlights the problem with age-gap relationships. They can work well for years but, as time goes on and one partner becomes elderly while the other is still young, you can find yourselves poles apart and wanting very different things.

I think you need to talk to your husband about it – explain how you feel and give him the chance to tell you how he feels, too.

Communication has clearly broken down over the years, but don’t leave with no explanation. If you’re in separate beds and don’t talk to each other much, I’m sure he’s well aware things aren’t great.

Don’t ignore the problem, face it – and keep your daughter at the front of your minds when planning the next step.