I became friends with a woman I knew was in a long-term relationship. I had no thought of pursuing her, but was overjoyed when she left her partner. After three months of cultivating the friendship, I invited her to bed. She had not had sex for two years; I for three. The sex was, in her words, “amazing”, and I’ve never felt so physically close to a woman. I didn’t tell her I was falling in love for fear of losing her and tried to suppress my emotions. Unexpectedly, she broke off the relationship, but then we got together again. The passion was even stronger, to my joy and relief. Then she ended it, saying there was “someone else”: a married man she had secretly loved for 10 years, who now returned her feelings. She said she was very fond of me, but didn’t feel as I did. My questions are: why do people do these things to each other? Why all the deceit and secrets? What are the chances of success of her “new” relationship, and the consequences and complications? I do not want her back, but answers will put my mind at rest and bring peace.

Let’s cut to the chase. You ask about deceit and secrets, yet you kept it secret from this woman that you were falling in love and deceived her about the strength of your feelings, “expressing them sexually”, as you put it in your full letter. I am not saying you were wrong – sometimes circumstances, or instincts, make the truth so painful, we do everything to avoid it. All I am pointing out is that we do not always act honestly, even when we convince ourselves that we do.

As to why we don’t, my own feeling is that it’s to do with fear. We are frightened of hearing the truth. We are frightened of being left. We are frightened of not being loved if people know the truth about us. We are frightened of being alone. We are frightened, in short, that we are not good enough.

Sometimes the fear is so great that we cannot tell the truth, even to ourselves. I’m guessing you instinctively understood that, for her, this was not a great romance. That’s why you repressed your feelings. If you had made too many demands, she might have told you the truth about the way she felt – as she eventually did. I’m guessing, too, that you convinced yourself that passionate sex meant passionate emotion. It’s a common self-deception, and, contrary to popular belief, women don’t have a monopoly on it.

When it comes to wishful thinking, the heart is a willing accomplice.We believe what we want to believe, and are shocked when reality bites. I’m also guessing that, deep down, you knew she’d leave one day, and you’re hurt and jealous that she chose somebody else. But you don’t like to admit that you’ve been duped, and by your very own self. She made no promises, as far as I can tell, so all the fantasies about happy-ever-after were unlikely to become reality. When it comes to secrets and deceit, I suspect that the person most culpable is you – but that would be too painful to admit, so you project the blame onto her.

And, of course, it hurts. It hurts like hell. So, just as I don’t buy your line about deceit, I don’t buy the one about not wanting her back. If that were really true, there would be no need for your question: “What are the chances of her new relationship?” It seems disingenuous to me. Really, you’re asking if it will fail, leaving the field open to you. Who knows? I certainly don’t. What I feel, though, is that if she has harboured emotion for a married man for 10 long years, and if her relationship were to fail, that failure would eclipse any feeling she has for anybody else, including you. A grand passion cannot be matched by a man she is merely “very fond of”. So I should hold no torch, lest it burn you more badly than it already has.

To help yourself to get over this, I think you need to become honest enough to accept the truth, however much it hurts. You were a charming interlude in her life. You discovered great sex after years without it. You opened yourself up to the possibility of intimacy and got badly hurt in the process. That’s tough, but life and love are tough. It doesn’t mean we should give up. It means that both are better done with our eyes wide open. If you had faced the relationship with greater emotional honesty, you might have recognised that she was bouncing out of a long-term situation and the trajectory meant she might eventually land elsewhere. By her lack of emotional commitment, you might even have intuited that she was incapable of giving her heart to you because it was engaged elsewhere.

Why do people do these things to each other? For many reasons – fear, cowardice, lack of emotional honesty. There is, though, a way to stop it. It starts with you. It starts with all of us. I doubt my answer brings you peace right now, but I hope that one day it may.

If you have a relationship question for Sally Brampton, e-mail sally.brampton@sundaytimes.co.uk.

In case of publication, names will be withheld. We’re sorry, but Sally cannot answer letters personally

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