Dear Bel,
I am in my fifties, living with a partner of similar age. We are both
divorced and have been living together for 12 years. She has two grown-up
children; I have none. Although I still love her, it is obvious she no
longer loves me. Looking back, I wonder if she ever did — the warning signs
were there even before we moved in together, but I chose to ignore them.
Although I try my hardest to please her she treats me mostly with contempt
and I don’ t know how much more I can take.
About five years ago we both joined a tennis club and have made some
good friends there. Among our circle is a woman who arrives by herself and
we have grown very fond of her. Over the years I have found myself falling
in love with her. I know she is married with grown-up children, but have
never met her husband. So far I have never attempted to tell her how I feel
about her. Our friendship is in a state of pleasant equilibrium and I don’t
want to disturb it. However, I have recently found out that her home
situation is very difficult but she, like me, stays out of duty and loyalty.
I know without question that she is the woman I have been looking for
all my life. She fills my thoughts and dreams day and night. Every day I
don’t see her is a day wasted. I know we could be happy together.
Unfortunately, I also know I have little to offer her. I’m nothing to look
at and have few social skills. I have no money — my partner and ex-wife have
taken all I had. I am unsure how she feels about me although she always
seems pleased to see me and she is happy to partner me on the tennis court
when my partner is away. I want to tell her I love her but my record isn’t
good and I am frightened it would end in unhappiness all round. I keep
hoping that if I am patient it will all come out right in the end, but I
don’t know what else to do and it is breaking my heart.
Terry
Walk down any city street, watch the young stride by in their smooth
gorgeousness, stopping to snog, not caring a fingersnap for the oblique
looks of elderly passers-by. Do you envy them? Wish you could whirl back
through the loop, be 20 again, and have the chance of perfect love? Regret
getting it wrong? Such, as Eliot would say, “are the gifts reserved for age”
and especially middle age, when we stand looking two ways at once, conscious
of the all-too-youthful heart and its urging, as well as the limitations of
time. This is where expressions like “no fool like an old fool” come from.
This is why some people around 60 destroy all they have built, in pursuit of
a chimerical passion.The young know nothing about all that. They truly
believe romance to be their prerogative, all the love songs in their world
their property — while the notion that over-40s have lustful yearnings
merits but one response: “Yeuch!” But I would have them read your letter, so
that a little understanding might dawn.
For the condition you describe is lovesickness. If one were to pass you in the
street, no sign would be seen of the disease, but that doesn’t stop it from
being real. Perhaps more agonising than any lovelorn teenage crush, it’s not
to be dismissed — even though surely you cannot know at this stage that this
tennis lady would make you as happy as you believe. She is a friend of your
partner as well, which could certainly be an unsurmountable barrier, even if
her home circumstances changed so that she wanted to leave. Too many
hypotheticals.
So let’s not talk about the unattainable at this point. We should move from
what might be to what is — so that, even if your dreams are full of longing,
your thoughts can occupy themselves with some questions and answers. You are
a middle-aged man who, believing his second long-term relationship to be a
failure, has lost all confidence. You maintain that you still love a woman
who, you say, treats you with contempt — a feeling which, as we all know, is
the death knell for real happiness in a partnership. Your present misery is
causing you even to question the love she surely must have expressed 12
years ago. Moving in with somebody isn’t done lightly — so are you rewriting
history to fit the plot you’re constructing now?
I want to know if you have sat down with her to talk, not about the tennis
lady, but about the pair of you: how you feel now, and what you want for the
future. It could be that she is very unhappy too, and a serious conversation
about your life together could result in a decision to part. Which might be
a good thing. But don’t you owe it to the past you have shared to break the
silence? If you “can’t take any more”, surely you have to level with her
that she is making you extremely unhappy?
Yet maybe she isn’t. She could be the almost blameless and certainly unwitting
witness to your private life-crisis. The true cause of your pain could be
the terrible certainty of your own weakness. This isn’t meant to be harsh,
because I do feel for you — but suggest you scrutinise the language in which
you couch your sentiments, beginning with the last sentence. Remember that
song about “wishing and hoping”?
It says that they never get the girl or boy, that speech is necessary. Nothing
“comes right in the end” unless we make it do so. But what I suggest is not
that you declare your feelings to the tennis lady — at least not yet — but
take a good look at yourself. As you summon the courage to talk seriously to
your partner, you must try to shake up this lorn creature who is walking
about, lost in futile longing, and answering to your name. That is, if he
can hear anything at all.
Listen. Your partner’s alleged contempt for you is as nothing compared with
your own — although there is certainly likely to be a connection. You
describe yourself in such negative terms I want to weep. Not everybody draws
Pierce Brosnan good looks, but all of us can learn “social skills”, or (as I
prefer to put it) charm. How? By people-watching, reading, keeping up with
events and culture, paying attention to personal hygiene, getting new tennis
shorts that fit, closing your mouth when you eat, smiling with scaled teeth,
and so on. Also, by becoming so interested in others you forget to be
awkwardly self-conscious — asking questions rather than babbling or being
silent. All this stuff can be learnt, you know — like which knife to use for
cheese, or that white wine goes in the fridge. It’s not rocket science! I
suggest you make a list of all your worst aspects (which you obviously dwell
on) then screw the paper up and chuck it in the bin, determining to change.
You don’t say if you have a job, or why your partner is so free with your
money (doesn’t she have any of her own?) but wealth ought not to play any
part in this equation, unless you believe the tennis lady is drawn to it, in
which case you probably wouldn’t love her anyway. It seems to me that what
is “frightening” you is not the prospect of causing unhappiness (plenty of
it already, by the sound of it) but the prospect of change — especially as
what is required is a transformation from an enfeebled person to a strong
one. Let’s say you can do this. Set yourself the task of gaining
self-respect, and treat it as seriously as a Wimbledon final. Then your
partner may rekindle her old feelings for you. Or not. The tennis lady may
fall for you. Or not. But before you know it, you’ll find you’ve applied
superglue to that heart — as we all must, since it’s precious, and our own.
DO YOU NEED ADVICE?
E-mail your problems to: bel.mooney@thetimes.co.uk or write to her at: times2,
1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT. Detail such as your age is helpful.
Please include your real name, but we will use your chosen pseudonym if you
wish.
Bel Mooney reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal
correspondence.
