I am a healthy, attractive, intelligent fortysomething with two beautiful children, a stimulating career and a marriage that has lasted more than 20 years. Envied by my family, friends and colleagues, I have a secret that I can never tell for fear of hurting those who love me and shattering the illusion that is my and my family’s life.

Four years ago I fell deeply in love with a work colleague and for 18 months experienced the most extraordinary switchback ride of an exhilarating affair. He unearthed emotional and intellectual depths and exposed raw physical desires in me that had stagnated during my relationship with my husband. Justin made me feel like a woman again, a beautiful woman, with valid feelings and interesting opinions. I had never felt so alive.

I truly believe we all have one soulmate and very few are fortunate enough to ever make that connection. I met mine ten years too late. He wanted to father his own children and could not deal with taking emotional responsibility for mine. Ultimately, we lacked the courage to upset so many other lives and we parted painfully. Perhaps it was a brave decision rather than a cowardly one. I know most people will think it was the “right” one. But it has left a huge gap in my life which I cannot see my way past.

Heartbroken, I grieved for more than a year. I watched while he met and married someone who was free. Even now, more than two years since he last made contact, I nurse an insane hope that he will renew our relationship. Insane to wish myself back in that impossible situation in which we found ourselves.

Meanwhile, life goes on . . . My affair exposed the sham that is my marriage and it can never be the same again. Matthew and I drifted into marriage because after several years of “courting” there seemed nowhere else to go.

Married life has been full of challenges and each time my underlying unhappiness started to surface, another problem would rear its head to divert my emotional energy in a different direction. We were unable to conceive naturally so embarked on the traumatic journey that is invasive fertility treatment. Sex was no longer an act of affirmation, but one of mechanics, and eventually stopped altogether. I parked my physical needs in a distant part of my brain signed Danger Keep Out. We now keep each other at a respectful distance. After a horrendous labour, the arrival of our first daughter, who was a very unsettled baby, put a huge strain on us.

Matthew has struggled to keep a steady job in a competitive industry and has switched from one employer to another, leaving financial insecurity in his wake. My salary secures our mortgage. Not a situation that I ever expected to find myself in, nor one that Matthew acknowledges or is comfortable with.

I found an inner strength and am no longer the dependent person who married Matthew. He, on the other hand, has never grown up or learned to communicate on an intimate level. When we talk, which is rare, it’s about school, diary dates, practical matters. We veer away from anything that would mean engaging at a deeper level and live in a vacuum of emotional sterility.

I fill every moment with work or activities so that I don’t have to face the crisis in my marriage. I’m starved of personal space at home because he is always there, and dread being awake when he comes to bed, sometimes lying next to him for what seems like hours pretending to be asleep. Every night I cry. Worst of all, I carry a deep anger directed largely at him because my life hasn’t worked out the way I wanted it to. It’s not a nice feeling and doesn’t make me feel good about myself.

I am terrified about what will happen in ten years when the children become independent. I’ll be in my mid-fifties. Who will want me then? Meanwhile, for the sake of the children, I’m too scared and too guilty to do anything to jeopardise the status quo. Matthew is not a bad person. None of this is his fault. Our children are settled and confident little people who adore their father. Who am I to upset their world?

On the other hand, am I selfish to need reassurance that I am more than just a provider, a wife and mother? I don’t think so. My relationship with Justin showed me that a true partnership is when one’s physical and emotional needs are subsumed by love, whatever the circumstances. I miss him.

Do you have a family secret you want to share?

E-mail us at familysecrets@thetimes.co.uk
Or write to us at: Family Secrets, times2, The Times, 2 Pennington Street, London, E98 1TT

Times recommends

• Think yourself slim with our hypnodiet podcast
• How to keep your diet on track
• What took place in 2010...