Q I’ve got back with my old boyfriend. I finished with him after four years, because there wasn’t enough chemistry. But he is kind, funny and intelligent. When we split up, I hurt him deeply. Since then, I’ve spent three years internet dating and had an affair with a married man. Now I have slipped back into seeing him, but I don’t feel much when we kiss. Sometimes, I’d be happy not to kiss at all. My problem is that I want children. Although I still have a few years, I don’t know whether to finish it or stay with him, work on the sexual side and have a real companion for life. I think sex is important and I am worried about my potential to stray. I could wait another 10 years and still not find the right man, or I could settle down, but worry I have missed out on true love. Does such a thing even exist?
A You started your (longer) letter by asking me what I think. I think that he is in love with you, but you are not in love with him.
I think that you love him and value him hugely, but as a friend for life rather than a lifelong sexual and emotional partner.
You feel no passion for him. Passion is not simply about sex. It is an overwhelming desire to be with somebody, not just in the moment, but for as long as we can imagine breathing. It is the urge to be truly intimate with somebody, body and heart.
If you did make your life with your boyfriend, would you always feel guilty, knowing that you did not match his love? I wonder, too, what would happen if somebody came along for whom you did feel true passion. As you say, sex is important to you; after a few years of lifeless sex, you may find that it is more than important, it is overwhelming. What if, by then, you had two small children?
Could you say to passionate love, “No, go away, I made my choice. The life that I have is not only good enough; it is enough”?
All this makes me sound like an unreconstructed romantic. Actually, I’m not. I think romance, or the myth of the happy-ever-after, has ruined more lives than reality ever did. I am not an advocate of “true love”, in that I don’t believe we should make another person wholly responsible for our happiness. I do believe that we should have the courage (and the kindness) to hold out for the things we truly believe in and emotions that are truly felt.
You say you want children. But do you want this man’s children? Having kids isn’t an end, as your letter seems to imply. It may be where all the true-romance books stop, at the marriage and kids and the happy-ever-after. What then? Life doesn’t dissolve in a haze of pink smoke. In a way, it gets much harder.
Having kids is a big deal. We don’t always get it right, but it seems to me that we should start out with absolutely the best intentions. If we think, in our deepest hearts, that the relationship that is going to make those children is not right, then I think we have to look at it, and ourselves, with lacerating honesty.
Children grow up and leave. It’s our job to teach them how to do that, with happy confidence. That starts much earlier than you would ever believe — in that first moment they go to school, the first moment they turn away from us and towards their friends in the playground. They are their own people, and the imprint they leave makes a child-shaped hole. That’s where our adult relationships are truly important, because that’s when loneliness or need or the other difficult emotions we are prey to really kick in. That’s when we need our partners most.
You say (in your longer letter) that your boyfriend will always be there for you. But will you be there for him? That intuitive sense of doubt you are feeling now may get stronger as life knocks you about a bit. And it knocks all of us about. If you can’t take pleasure in a kiss now, will you take comfort in one in 10 years’ time? Or will you be turning away with barely concealed impatience and a brisk “Not now, darling”?
You haven’t, to be terribly honest, been very kind or brave so far. You’ve been drink-dialling a man you know cannot resist you, and you’ve gone back to him in a spirit of disappointment after a few dreary dating years, rather than out of a true desire to be with him.
I’m not saying you’re a bad, cruel person. I do think, though, that you are confusing need with love. You are also confusing feeling loved with feeling love. You say you have a few years left before kids become an issue. The most extraordinary things can happen in a few years. The most extraordinary things can happen tomorrow.
I think you owe it to this man, whom you love, but are not in love with, to make a good choice, rather than a good enough choice. If you can commit to him with your whole heart and body, then go for it. If you can’t, then allow him to have a life with somebody who truly can.
If you have a relationship question for Sally Brampton, e-mail sally.brampton@sunday-times.co.uk. In case of publication, names will be withheld. We’re sorry but Sally cannot answer every letter personally
