BEL MOONEY: Once you have kids life is no longer about your own needs

Dear Bel,

I’m crazy and going to cause so much hurt (maybe) but don’t feel able / want to stop.

I don’t feel much for my husband; we very rarely have sex (no longer fancy him).

Our boys, aged eight and six, and two-year-old girl adore their dad who’s a wonderful father and a truly decent man.

I know that he is worth so much more than me.

The thought of him with a loving partner makes me feel happy; the thought of him alone and sad is awful.

But I am having an affair with a single man I adore. He’s well off, successful and sex with him is everything I ever dreamed of.

He wants me to leave my husband and make a life with him and have his baby.

I didn’t think anyone would find me attractive enough to want me again at my age (I’m 36).

My lover makes me feel so young and sexy all over again.

I’ve been a housewife for ten years and adore my children, however I hate my life here with my husband in this house and in this street.

The loneliness of it all nearly drove me mad until I met ‘him’ — but what am I doing?

I have three children, no money, no skills with which to find a job.

So my lover would have to provide me with a house and support me and my children (of course they’d see their father as much as possible).

I’m not sure that I want more children but with ‘him’, perhaps . . .

Recently I ended our relationship but cried in secret. I simply couldn’t function.

He got in touch and I felt saved. I live in a dream world.

When I’m not with my lover, all I can think about is him, but it’s so much better than my previous empty life.

How can a woman lucky enough to have three healthy children say her life is empty?

What is wrong with me? I don’t know what I am going to do. I am so much in the wrong.

Rowena

Mad, destructive sexual passion. I really do understand. My grubby T-shirt is in the closet and I won’t deny it’s there.

But my understanding usually tends to grind to a halt when people choose it at the cost of their children’s happiness.

Please don’t confuse this romantic, sexual thrill with deep love: love is what your husband demonstrates daily in putting up with his unhappy, cold and preoccupied wife and being a great father. If I’m sorry for your turmoil, I feel even sorrier for him.

No words from me could judge you as harshly as you do yourself. You use the word ‘wrong’ and must realise your mooching self-pity will irritate many readers, as it does me. You’re calling yourself worthless to justify your actions, but it doesn’t work.

All I can do is lay out a few possibilities, to help you decide where to go next, even though someone having hot sex is as capable of rational thought as Anna Karenina was when she ran off with Vronsky, with the direst consequences.

You describe your new man in romantic-novel terms: the dream lover, loaded with money, status and offering all that plus orgasms. Pow! What chance has the everyday affection of a mundane spouse? Flattered and aroused by Mr Big, you now deny the love you must have had for your husband.

You had a child just two years ago, so I suspect your coldness only dates from the affair.

Bored, trapped, worried about getting older, you were ripe for the picking. Now you lie in the marital bed burning up in every cell. If I told you that the heat dies down in time, would you believe me?

That phrase ‘wants me to have his baby’ is overlaid with masculine narcissism. But imagining himself as an impregnator is a world away from becoming a caring stepfather-figure. Does your lover genuinely fancy three small children ricocheting around his love nest, cramping his style?

When you portray yourself as the helpless female who needs a home provided for her, I feel frustrated. Here’s a young woman in the 21st century, talking in Jane Austen’s terms. Why? You need your lover’s flattery because your self-esteem is very low.

Assuming he is happy to take on your brood, you’ll generously allow your husband to become a wonderful father part-time.

But what if the good man wants custody and surprises you by fighting back? I’ve no doubt those three little ones need their father and their place is in the home of the man who truly loves them. Why should he relinquish them because you discovered the joys of sex? Where’s the justice? You say you don’t feel much for your husband, yet your letter is full of anguished affection and respect.

You admire his good qualities, know he’s a great dad, and want him to be happy. So which is braver: to flee and destroy, or stay and build?

What would happen if you found the courage to confess, sitting down to talk about how you can change this ordinary life you dislike so much and recreate a future together? He might tell you to leave, but it’s still worth a try.

Once you have kids life is no longer about your own needs, and I don’t care how old-fashioned that makes me sound.

Please don’t confuse this romantic, sexual thrill with deep love: love is what your husband demonstrates daily in putting up with his unhappy, cold and preoccupied wife and being a great father (stock image)

Dear Bel,

I promised my now 30-year-old daughter £40,000 from the sale of a house.

She was in the RAF and moved from camp into our home. She bought a spaniel and when her partner also returned from the Falklands, he brought his spaniel. They lived with us for a year and our bills doubled.

My wife works part time but I’m retired. If I mentioned contributing, my daughter just said it was her home.

We then sold the house, she bought her own with the £40,000 deposit and at Christmas 2022 we helped her move.

Understandably we didn’t see much of them, but sensed a change. Never once were we invited to their home, but when we offered a gas barbecue they were at our house the next day to pick it up! Last Christmas, due to go to her partner’s family, they dropped off presents days before.

On December 23 I had day surgery to remove a cancer on my lip and nose. Next day my daughter took her cat to a cattery close to our house, yet didn’t visit.

On Christmas Day I unwrapped a cheap pair of Crocs and my wife four Body Shop products. It was obvious these were ‘recycled’ gifts.

We think she knew we were upset, especially my wife who’s been a brilliant stepmum. Then she blocked us on all social media and won’t answer calls or texts.

We’re angry and upset. I’ve even felt suicidal due to poor health and feeling brokenhearted over her treatment. How do we move on?

Nicholas

I promised my now 30-year-old daughter £40,000 from the sale of a house (file image)

All truth is in Shakespeare. Ill-treated by his elder daughter Goneril, King Lear curses her and hopes one day she, too, will know, ‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a thankless child!’

The cruelty Lear experiences at the hands of his two daughters quickly drives him mad and this is the only one of Shakespeare’s four tragedies I can’t bear to see again. The agony is too much.

I think you know why. As parents we invest so much in our children (or most of us do), that evidence of their indifference is very hard to bear. Inevitably it makes us question, in one of those dark nights of the soul, whether it might be our own fault: were we too tolerant/indulgent? What did we do wrong? Sadly every other week I could print a letter from the hurt, disappointed or angry parents of adult children.

You mention the insultingly cheap Christmas presents, which sound a poor ‘return’ for a generous deposit on a home. Why shouldn’t you both be hurt and annoyed? The gifts are symbolic and the message they convey is one of carelessness and lack of affection.

But of course, what hurts you much more is your daughter’s failure to check in on you after the hospital procedure.

She was ready to live off you with her partner, to use gas, electricity, water and impose two dogs who must have added to the household burden. She and her bloke didn’t contribute a penny yet took £40,000, and a free gas barbecue on top of that. If you and your wife feel exploited, you surely have every right.

But what to do? She knows you thought the Christmas presents paltry (were you supposed to gush over them?) so perhaps her silence is due to guilt.

I’m afraid there’s little you can do except perhaps contact her partner, man to man, and ask for his help. Ask after the spaniels (that sounds silly, but it’s a friendly way in) then tell him how upset you both are, because of your daughter’s silence. Ask him if he knows what exactly it is you’re supposed to have done, because you’d like to put it right.

Apart from that, I advise you to comfort your wife and look after your own health as best you can.

Is your daughter’s selfishness really worth this current despair when you have your own life to live?

I suggest it isn’t, because this self-centred 30-year-old will get in touch when she wants something. Do I sound cynical? Maybe. But as a parent I do understand, and want you to toughen up a little.

But of course, what hurts you much more is your daughter’s failure to check in on you after the hospital procedure (stock image of family)

And finally…

Have you imagined something for years only to let your fantasy fizzle out at the last minute? This was the story of Barbara Hepworth’s famous garden — and me.

Back in 1970, one of my first pieces of journalism was a long book review of a new pictorial autobiography by one of my idols, the great sculptor Barbara Hepworth.

I admired Hepworth for her genius, but also because she was a powerful woman in a world dominated by men, and raised four children while producing some of the most iconic works of the 20th century.

Her studio and garden in St Ives became famous, and a place of pilgrimage after her death in 1979. But although I saw her work in other museums, I never carved out time for St Ives — until this week.

Two artist friends moved last year from Gloucestershire to near Penzance, so we drove 206 miles for one night to see them in their new home.

The added joy would be seeing the current Hepworth exhibition at Tate St Ives and her wonderful studio. I longed to sit peacefully in that lovely garden at long last, contemplate her work among the leaves and commune with the great lady’s spirit . . .

Could there have been worse weather? We struggled to park, walked through rain and wind to the Tate, queued for lunch after the long drive, then enjoyed the exhibition — before finally setting off uphill to find the studio. By now a gale was driving horizontal rain.

My brolly blew inside out; my coat was wet through, water ran down inside my jumper; I was exhausted. At last I sank into a chair in the studio. But the garden? The promised dream after 53 years?

Soaked, I couldn’t face stepping outside, but peered disconsolately through a misty window at sculptures looming in the downpour, as the wind howled. How feeble Dame Barbara would have thought me —but most of us have to accept our limitations in the end.