Dear Bel,
After acute heartbreak and time in the wilderness, I was lucky. Several years ago, while we were working together, I met Andrew, a retired military man, widowed some time before.
We couldn’t be less alike: he loves classical music, history, biography and gardening; I’m into rock music, jazz, literary novels, fashion and red wine. He’s a straight-looking ‘silver fox’ type – the type of old-fashioned gent my dad would have loved. I’m somewhat bohemian, with dyed hair, a tattoo, unusual clothes.
Somehow it works: we share similar values and outlooks, and interests such as travel and food and wine.
Even though we live apart, we are so happy together and haven’t looked back. My life has been transformed since I met him and things couldn’t be better. Andrew agrees: it is a new exciting chapter for both of us, encompassing companionship and romance.
But I now face a real dilemma – one that I could never have foreseen. One of the reasons we get on so well is that we are both strong minded, independent and adventurous spirits. And we still fancy each other. But maybe my sense of adventure only goes so far…
For several years now, Andrew and I have been great friends with another couple: we have been on trips with them, meet for dinner, argue and drink into the night. They are lovely: kindred spirits, tolerant and good fun.
But just a few weeks ago, Andrew dropped a bombshell. He suggested to me we try a threesome with them, and has clearly been pondering this a while. He hasn’t approached them yet, as he wanted my agreement first. I know he loves me, and I him. I know he’ll be disappointed if I don’t give it a try.
I really don’t want to. Of course I want to make him happy, as he has given me my life back. He assures me that things won’t change between us if I say no, and that he is still committed to our relationship, but I really don’t know if he means that. He is a considered and thoughtful man, so I don’t think his request has been made in haste.
What do I do, Bel? I surely risk losing him if I don’t give it a go, but we may also lose them as friends if he presses ahead with this alarming proposal. What if they are as surprised as I am? I simply cannot countenance a threesome. And anyway, Andrew is more than enough for me. Or am I being a narrow-minded, prissy stick-in-the-mud? I feel paralysed with indecision – please give me your views.
JANE
Bel Mooney replies: There are so many responses to your letter, but my first thought is this: two and two make four, so what’s with this ‘threesome’? How would that work?
Would you draw lots, so that one of you has to sit alone outside the bedroom, listening to the sweet sounds of energetic coitus emanating from behind the door?
It doesn’t seem fair somehow. Except, of course, the one left out might breathe a sigh of relief and go and curl up in a nice bed with a jolly good book. Phew!
Seriously, what on earth has possessed this lovely, intelligent, upright man to suggest something so sleazy? I’m with you – and can’t think of anything more embarrassing than rolling round in a sweaty bed with anybody other than my own true love.
Does that make you and me uptight and straitlaced? If so, then thank goodness for that. Let others go in for dogging and threesomes and leather bondage gear. Normal, sensible women like you and me don’t have to get down with the weirdos.
I’d love to have been present when Andrew dropped this bombshell on you. Did you look horrified? What did you say? For me, it would have been a straightforward snort of disbelief and: ‘Yuk – are you crazy?’ I’d have been very uneasy about what the suggestion revealed about the man I had spent so much happy time with. A dark side you had no idea about?
Honestly, I would be very worried if you allowed him to persuade you into behaviour you explicitly state you do not want.
So I can tell you in no uncertain terms you should say no. Of course you’re not ‘a narrow-minded, prissy stick-in-the-mud’. This has nothing to do with being ‘adventurous’ or not. It is having due regard for your own wishes and dignity. Frankly, that should be the thing that’s always at the front of Andrew’s mind.
What’s really odd about this whole thing is that there’s no suggestion that the other couple would be willing.
Never mind morality or even good taste, making the suggestion is more than likely to ruin a wonderful friendship. If Andrew has had no inkling from them that they also fancy sex games, then what is he thinking?
You called your email, ‘An unexpected dilemma’ – but of course it is no ‘dilemma’ at all. If Andrew is ‘disappointed’, then that’s tough. No argument.
You write: ‘Of course I want to make him happy.’ But come on! That shouldn’t involve feeling coerced into behaviour which is anathema to you.
This relationship means so much and brought happiness you didn’t dream of. But you need to sit down with Andrew and lay it on the line. This is no time for some sort of beyond-mid-life-crisis. You don’t want to lose those lovely friends – so friends they will stay.
Tell him you love him – but that doesn’t involve unwilling indulging of fantasies.
I can’t cope with horrid modern dating
Dear Bel,
I’m a widower who feels increasingly at odds with modern relationships.
My friends have encouraged me to ‘get back out there’ – as if the lovely companionship I’d like could be found like lost property or something. Or as if relationships are a game or hobby.
I was married for a long time – three decades, during which (of course) society changed a lot. When I was young, dating was careful and intentional. Back then, fidelity mattered as did courtesy, privacy and discretion. What I see now feels bewildering.
Online dating, casual encounters and emotional detachment leave me uncomfortable.
I read about people being ‘ghosted’ and dread such meanness happening to me. The other day a friend told me my values are out-dated. Maybe they are. But something important feels lost.
I am not prudish or nostalgic, I just find it hard to reconcile intimacy with disposability – if that does not sound too pretentious.
The idea of ‘trying people out’ (as my friend said) unsettles me. What are women? Shoes?
Am I unrealistic in hoping for companionship grounded in commitment? Or should I accept the world has changed, and these reservations suggest I’m better alone?
Loneliness is one thing, compromising my values is another.
Do you think I’m wrong to feel a moral dilemma about this?
ROY
Bel Mooney replies: Most certainly I do not think you are ‘wrong’ – but I do fear for your prospects if you really do long to find another partner.
I visualise you as a man standing in a hall with the front door wide open. Outside, there are shrubs and flowers, the sweet sound of bees and birds, and a path leading forward under a sky dotted with clouds. It looks lovely and calls for you to step outside.
Yet still you stand there frowning, eyes squinting against the light, telling yourself that everything outside is mean and ugly, the flowers will die, and anyway those birds poo on your car and how can you be sure those bees aren’t wasps, ready to sting?
Is it worth the risk, you ask? Why not close the door and stay inside alone with a primer on ethics?
I’m not making fun of you in any way. There is plenty to fear in this world of ours. I just wonder whether you are using your high moral scruples and judgments to hide a deeper truth.
Which is that after a long marriage, a bereavement and slow recovery, you are absolutely terrified of meeting women who won’t turn out to be as good as your late wife, and could also hurt you badly.
Actually, I do feel in sympathy with your doubts about the modern dating scene. I read articles about all that stuff and just feel grateful I’m not ‘out there’. It sounds like a minefield.
The behaviour known as ‘ghosting’ (where you simply go quiet and ignore somebody who thought there was some sort of relationship) seems so cowardly. What happened to the politely regretful ‘Dear John’ letter where you tell them straight that it’s just not working out?
How can your values be ‘out-dated’ when you simply long for the slow unfolding of kind, thoughtful and mutually
supportive companionship? I’d say those values are timeless – and as needed by many young people as they are by you.
But we have to accommodate ourselves to the world as it is and not become incapacitated by dreams of what it was 30 years ago. That means being careful, of course, but not giving up before you have even started.
You have no way of knowing that the ladies you might or might not meet may be kind to you and the only way to find out is to give them a chance. There are far more women of a certain age looking for pleasant men to date than the other way round – so why not give it a go?
If I were you, I would stop living my life according to ill-defined moral scruples and think about cups of tea and conversation. Just for starters.
And finally… Why it can be cruel to be too kind
Some years ago, I gave someone a T-shirt she liked. It bore the message: ‘If you can be anything – be kind.’
At the time, I considered it uplifting. Now I reject the simplistic message and want to bin it along with popular slogans such as ‘You can be anything you want to be’ and ‘You are enough’.
Because it’s a downright lie to tell kids they can be anything they want to be. In real life, they can’t. And what if somebody wants to be more than ‘enough’ and aspires to work hard to be better?
As for that ‘kind’ nonsense… I tell you, it contradicts what is often the spirit of this column.
A short, sharp shock of thoughtful tough love can be exactly what people need, not a soothing stroke and ‘Oh, you poor thing, never mind’.
Thoughtless ‘kindness’ does no service.
I love to read prayers from different cultures and meditate on their meaning.
The other day I came across this one: ‘Help me to give in a way that is right and balanced, that I should not lose myself out of kindness…and be precise in my giving.’
Just think about that.
One of my betes noires is the imprecise, virtue-signalling placard you see on protests saying: ‘Refugees Welcome.’
Does it mean ‘I welcome anybody, even if they aren’t a real refugee, even if they’re bent on exploitation and worse?’ Being non-discriminatory, it does.
However, just ask a person who is fleeing war if they think it right to shower equal help on the economic migrant and they will certainly say ‘no’ because that detracts from genuine need.
You can’t be ‘kind’ to the whole world. Deceiving children with wishy-washy clichés isn’t kind. They need to know life is complicated.
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.
