Dear Bel,
I’m 35 and met my ex-husband at school. We married at 22, having many things in common: similar backgrounds, sense of humour, common goals in life. We barely rowed. In many ways it was idyllic.
But I felt he was no longer treating me as a person he wanted to make love to. The sex was perfunctory and he wanted the lights off. He had also gradually stopped taking care of himself – he could go for days without a shave or shower.
A man at work made a play for me. We were friends and he took me completely by surprise. It turned out he’d fancied me for many months – and we had an eight-month affair.
Naturally the affair only made the gulf between my husband and I even greater. So I got a new job, ended the affair and concentrated on trying to get our marriage back on track. We had counselling with Relate… but four years after our wedding day, I made the decision that we would separate.
I loved him as I would love a brother. He said he still loved me in exactly the same way as always. I was under no illusions when I left him – I knew men like him are rare and that I would be hard-pushed to find another as decent.
I left him with everything – the house and everything in it – because I felt so guilty about leaving him. I know he was hurting desperately.
Two years later I met someone else and had a beautiful little boy. That relationship – never steady – broke down when my son was a few months old and I’ve brought him up alone. My ex re-married and now has two children, both younger than mine.
I was happy for him. Six months ago I bumped into him – the first time for six years. We chatted about what we were doing work-wise, and then got on to the subject of our kids. It turns out his family still lives in our old house and his friend has told me all the furniture we chose together is still there. So strange.
Six months later, I’m thinking about him constantly and beating myself up for leaving him. I was happily single until I bumped into him again; now I find myself craving the security he offered me.
As I expected, since leaving him I have not found a man who equals him. I feel such a fool. I was so immature I didn’t realise how good it was.
I feel like I am grieving for my marriage, nearly nine years after it ended. I cannot understand why I am now feeling like this, and why the thought of it keeps reducing me to tears. What is going on in this stupid head of mine?
MAGGIE
Bel Mooney replies: It isn’t really very hard to understand what’s ‘going on’ in that sad (not stupid!) head. You are mourning the loss of the man who may well prove to have been the love of your life – that is, unless you, with so many years still before you, meet somebody else one day.
Who knows what will happen? For the present, I completely understand your feelings, and know how common it is hopelessly to hanker after a fantasy of past happiness. It’s a part of the human condition.
You and your ex were teenage sweethearts, and your uncut letter reveals how his very religious parents would never have permitted you to live together. Hence the impetus to marry. It occurs to me that your husband’s problems with sex may well have their origins in that upbringing.
Your longer letter also tells how you tried to remedy the situation and seduce him – to no avail. You ceased to fancy him. In many ways, the office affair was almost inevitable, although I doubt you’d have initiated it. Sadly, even though you tried, your young marriage was doomed.
Now you are ashamed about the affair and bitterly sorry that you ended the marriage after only four years. Oh, I know the regrets that drift around the bed at 4am, when you wonder how life would have been so different if you hadn’t done that and he hadn’t acted like that.
How tortuous it is, especially since it’s impossible to know how you both might have changed in time anyway.
He might have met somebody else; you might have had the baby you dreamed of at the time… But as all of us know, such speculations are as just pointless as they are cruelly tormenting.
Here is a famous quatrain from the great Persian poem Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam: ‘The Moving Finger writes; and having writ, / Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit / Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, / Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
In other words, fate dictates what will happen to us, and no matter how clever, good or regretful we are, nothing can change that script. Had you not bumped into your ex you would have been fine, and believe me, you will be fine again. This will pass. Whatever you do, you must avoid any meeting with the ex you left and do nothing to disturb his family life.
Disillusioned with men, you have found great joy in being a mother to the little boy who is so precious. If that marriage hadn’t ended HE wouldn’t be in your life. Think about it.
Can I correct grandchild’s grammar?
Dear Bel,
I am 77 – the same generation as you! I went to the local infants and junior school, took the 11+ and went to the local grammar school. I did not receive a privileged education, but it was a good one. In the juniors, English lessons consisted of spelling, punctuation, pronunciation, dictation, comprehension and more.
My precious five-year-old granddaughter is now in Year 1 and seems to be doing well at school. My worry is that she’s picking up the sloppy speech of today. I cringe when I hear her say could/should/would/might OF, instead of HAVE. Bad English seems to be everywhere.
I don’t drive any more and use the bus. When you’re waiting, you often start chatting with others and I couldn’t believe my ears when a man, in his 50s, told me he ‘catched’ the bus.
I worry that in this world of written communication, there are a huge amount of what used to be called schoolboy howlers, but it seems it’s all becoming normal. It’s fine to have a language you speak with friends and family. But it’s important to know proper speech as well, for when employment looms.
Am I worrying unnecessarily? I don’t want to upset my daughter, who is doing the most wonderful job in bringing up her daughter. Do I correct my granddaughter if she says ‘should of’ and (say) ‘catched’ instead of caught? And all the other horrors we are subjected to nowadays?
JENNY
Bel replies: This is certainly an issue very close to my heart, but I know it must be handled with care. Yes, I’m old school on grammar – yet realise that we walk a tightrope slung between twin pillars of understanding.
By that I mean: we understand that we’re quite right to get mad and sad at the slackening of the standards we still hold dear – but at the same time we must also understand that we cannot allow such feelings to overcome common sense and affection.
Common sense should tell us that times do change and it’s pointless to fight that process. Affection should remind us that it’s not very loving to pick up a five-year-old child continuously on her habits of speech.
So you see, there is no simple answer to your question.
I really do sympathise with your frustration. For a very long time I have been astonished at the poor level of English teaching in schools, as well as the way literature seems to be taught within the universities.
Rules of grammar seemed to be laid aside as if unimportant, and you do wonder if future generations will even be able to write books.
As long ago as the 1980s you were dismissed by ‘progressives’ if you raised such concerns; even luminaries like Melvyn Bragg would shrug and come out with bromides like ‘Languages change all the time.’
What’s done is done; there’s no going back, I’m afraid. Children will inevitably copy the speech of their peers, but in the ideal world they will adapt that speech according to circumstances, thus consciously being more articulate when faced with a boss or older person.
I see no harm in reminding them of that – although not at five! We have two 12- year-old grandchildren who intersperse phrases irrelevantly with the word ‘like’, but while it irritates me I say nothing. It doesn’t seem worth it.
‘Should of’ is a different matter. I would correct them – wondering why the hell their teachers failed.
I’m sure your daughter speaks clearly to her daughter, and this is one thing we can teach by example: clarity of thought expressed in clear words.
Five-year-olds can use endearing words and expressions which we don’t want to correct because they are so sweet.
But if you make a point of using good words as she get older and challenging her by choosing long ones, you may be pleasantly surprised what she copies.
But please don’t become too anxious. Chat, play games, show interest in everything she does – and laugh. That’s the way forward.
And finally… Dress for the day to lighten up your life
One morning, staying with us for four days, my 12-year-old granddaughter asked, ‘Do you wear something different every day?’
‘Yes’, I replied, ‘I try to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I like to make an effort even though I’m not going anywhere. It cheers me up!’
I explained that I always choose bright colours (never, ever beige, and very little black) and jewellery, just to go downstairs and sit at my desk to write this column. That, friends, is how much I value you!
Of course, there’s a serious point here. I’ve never been able to understand why people slob around in pyjamas all day – even silk ones. Did such sloppy habits start during loathsome lockdown, or were they always there?
In my Fifties and early Sixties childhood, I rarely saw my parents in their dressing gowns outside the bedroom and bathroom; it just wasn’t done.
Mind you, those were the times when ‘working people’ wore decent clothes to go out at the weekend. After all, if you wore a boiler suit or overall all week you wanted to dress up. My roots are in that culture, and I’m proud of them.
So… ringing the changes, wearing zingy colours, choosing pleasant clothes (which might be old favourites) to welcome each fresh day: this is the way I get through January – and the rest of the year.
I also wear some make-up, because I like it; a while back one of my lovely readers, who lives alone, told me that she just has to face the day by putting on her lippy.
What’s all this about? Self-esteem, you’d call it – and I admit I do like the L’Oreal advertising slogan, ‘Because you’re worth it.’
Just hold that thought – and try changing that grungy sweater today.
Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.
