BEL MOONEY: How can I live with my old and wrinkled husband?
Dear Bel,
This is so hard to explain but I don’t know what to do. When I was 25 I married a man 27 years older than me. Yes, we’d had a big 事件／事情／状勢, and he left his wife and two teenage boys to be with me. It was a difficult time, but we （機の）カム through and had the wedding of my dreams.
We loved each other; my husband was a 抱擁する success with his creative 商売／仕事; we lived very 井戸／弁護士席, with 正規の／正選手, wonderful holidays. Although he had on-going problems with his ex and her children, we were happy.
I didn’t 落ちる in love with him because of his good 職業 or his 信用／信任 or even his wide-範囲ing knowledge and sophistication ? but I suppose they were all part of who he was. He was such a handsome man, too.
But now I am in my 50s and he is in his 80s and when we go to bed… 井戸／弁護士席, to my 増加するing horror I dread him even touching me because he is now an old man.
His 肌 is wrinkled and 乾燥した，日照りの and 冷淡な, while it used to be smooth and warm. To be honest, his slightest touch makes me flinch.
He seems to have grown so old so quickly and I can’t stand it. I 恐れる rolling over and even 小衝突ing against him by mistake in 事例／患者 he thinks I am 扇動するing sex. He must know I feel like this.
Women are supposed to be better than this, and I know I should be ashamed, but I can’t stop my disgust. They say that ‘age is just a number’ and that’s what I always thought, but I’m learning that the gap in years seems to become wider as we grow older.< /p>
I wish now I had married someone more my age. I know marriage is supposed to be for sickness 同様に as health ? as I 約束d to him at our big church ‘do’ ? but it is hard.
I’m feeling now like a young woman still with much of my life ahead of me and do not want to live in what ますます feels like hell. How can I find a way to stop feeling like this?
ALICE
Bel Mooney replies:??On first reading I thought, with a wry smile, that your story is the dream シナリオ of ‘the other woman’. Countless men have 約束d their mistresses that one day ? honest! ? they will leave the wife and kids and be with her, but I’m afraid they usually stay. In this 事例／患者 the victory was yours.
It all happened a long time ago, so it’s no surprise that you 小衝突 off the ‘problems with his ex and her children’ (by which you meant, their children…) so casually, but it must have 原因（となる）d him many difficulties.
No 事柄, you got the wedding of your dreams and the good life that followed. And you were proud to be on the arm of this mega-successful silver fox.
But nobody can stop time. You were young, he was in his prime, and you never 想像するd the changes you now see. I 推定する／予想する you look in the mirror and wonder where those wrinkles （機の）カム from, don’t you?
But maybe he does, too ? looking in his mirror and then gazing sadly across at his 冷淡な, middle-老年の wife.
One of the most depressing things I ever heard （機の）カム from an 著名な Harley Street doctor who told me of the powerful men (like your husband) who start bringing their still-young トロフィー wives in for facelifts.
If ‘age is just a number’ it can all-too-soon 量 to a big fat 無 ? signifying the end of love. You see, that’s what’s bothering me about your email.
You rhapsodise about those heady times when ‘we loved each other’, but you don’t について言及する love in the 現在の.
You evoke the glamour of those 早期に days but then conjure up a rather 哀れな image of an old man whose wife is repelled by him, and who 述べるs their life together as ‘hell’. It’s not that he’s done anything wrong to 傷つける her, he just got old.
Just as you will grow old. And let me say, I 心から hope nobody 表明するs disgust about your 外見 when you are.
I applaud the honesty of ‘women are supposed to be better than this’ ? showing that you know 正確に／まさに what your words 明らかにする／漏らす.
You must realise you’ve failed to について言及する any love left in your heart, and understand that it’s a secret shame.
So you need to 診察する your feelings honestly and think very carefully about how you see your 未来.
You について言及する how this man seemed to you when you met him: older, successful, 確信して, 利益／興味ing, rich, handsome ? and married, too, but we’ll forget that one, which might even have made him more 望ましい.
You 持続する (not 完全に convincingly) that it wasn’t the success which 誘惑するd you, but it was ‘a part of who he was’. So my question is: has it all disappeared ? or is that man still inside him, beneath the wrinkles?
If you tell me you still care 深く，強烈に, love talking to him, going out together, choosing what to have for supper, what to watch on TV, valuing all his inner 質s, then I’d 示唆する you tell him you still love him but because you don’t sleep (the menopause?) you want separate bedrooms.
He might be 傷つける for a while, but plenty of couples make separate rooms a happy way 今後.
But if you really believe your life with the man you married is ‘hell’, then you mustn’t continue to live in such 厳しい bad 約束.
If you leave him, people will 裁判官 you, but at least you’ll be honest.
Dear Bel,
Our dearly beloved daughter died this morning, 老年の 48.
At first the hospital thought she had 肺炎 so she was put in the 批判的な Care 部隊 with an oxygen mask on to help with her breathing. My husband and I went in with our son-in-法律 to see her. It was their 12th wedding 周年記念日.
They got married in Barbados and a year later their daughter Rose was born. She is a beautiful girl who does very 井戸／弁護士席 at school.
This morning our son-in-法律 （機の）カム to see us to tell us she had died.
They operated on her as her intestines weren’t working and she died on the operating （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. We are 絶対 荒廃させるd and now we and our son-in-法律 and his parents 直面する having to arrange her funeral.
How can we be strong? How do we go on without her? She was so 井戸／弁護士席 liked by everyone who knew her.
He and Rose have stayed with his brother but have to go home to get ready for Rose’s school day on Monday.
He will have to learn to plait her hair の中で other things. How do we help our son-in-法律 to get on with his life with Rose, without the Mummy we all adored?
CAROLE??
Bel Mooney replies: Two weeks have passed since this short, heartbreaking email arrived, and I feel 確かな that after the 初期の, 破滅的な shock which 誘発するd you to 令状, your agony will only have 増加するd.
There are no words of 慰安 possible, and I would not dream of trying to find any.
井戸／弁護士席-meant phrases often 試みる／企てる to 課す some sense on the 大混乱 of grief. Impossible. There is but one truth: the universe has 抑えるのをやめるd a truly terrible thunderbolt upon your little family and the 影響s will be felt for ever.
When I reached the point when you say your son-in-法律 will have to learn to plait Rose’s hair, it was almost impossible not to weep. Such a small 詳細（に述べる） encapsulates the 広大な, dark, reverberating reality of loss.
It isn’t hard to learn to plait a child’s hair, yet the mundane 仕事 symbolises everything else that has been snatched away, doe sn’t it?
I just hope that father and daughter can turn the 仕事 into a small ritual of care ? invoking the spirit of the precious one who should be there.
No parent ever imagines the death of a child at any age, so I hope you 伸び（る） support from friends and perhaps 延長するd family to 補助装置 you through this time. Your first thought is that you must find ways to help your son-in-法律 and granddaughter, but you too will need help even long after the first 段階 of 嘆く／悼むing is over. But, of course, it is never ‘over’.
Please don’t 推定する／予想する too much of yourselves, nor be surprised when grief 突然に knocks you sideways. You don’t have to be ‘strong’… not all of the time.
You will ‘go on without’ your beloved daughter by becoming 不可欠の to those she loved most.
Rose will need her grandmother to be 確固たる as she navigates the 転換s ahead in her young life, changes physical (such as her first period) 同様に as emotional.
I 示唆する you look at the website of the charity Winston’s Wish, for （死が）奪い去るd children. Go to the ‘shop’ section and let her choose a Memory Box for her mum.
In it she can put photos, a letter written to 表明する her sadness, her mum’s favourite scent on a hankie and so on.
Play games with her, take her shopping, listen to her favourite songs and maybe 示唆する sleepovers at your home. Such things as these you can do, and they will be 仕事s of grace, mercy and love.
I am so, so sorry.
