DEAR CAROLINE: My husband and I will soon have been married for 40 years, but I still can’t forgive this one thing he did…

Dear Caroline,

My husband and I will have been married for 40 years next spring and he has suggested a big party with family and friends. 

We had been married only two years when I suspected he was being unfaithful. Our first son had just been born when he started a better-paid job and spent six weeks away on a training course. He admitted that a young female colleague had ‘pestered’ him for sex and he said he’d been tempted but insisted nothing happened. That has eaten away at me ever since. 

He likes to present himself as a devoted family man, but I only stayed with him for security. I feel nothing but contempt for what he did. I don’t love him. How can I get out of this party?

Caroline West-Meads replies: If the question you are ostensibly asking was really, ‘How do I get out of this party?’, the answer would be simple. Tell him you would rather have a quiet holiday together or spend the money on something else. 

Sadly, the real question is much bigger: ‘How do I come to terms with 40 years spent in a marriage with a man I no longer love? What do I do now? Do I really want to stay?’ It is incredibly sad that you have spent so many years with these doubts eating away at you while bringing up children and now grandchildren, who probably have little idea how unhappy you have been. 

I wonder whether your contempt comes solely from your suspicions about his fidelity or whether the problems run much deeper. His claim that a colleague ‘pestered’ him for sex seems unlikely and suggests he was unwilling to take responsibility for his behaviour. You clearly believe he was lying and, painfully, you might be right. 

Had this been an isolated mistake, followed by genuine remorse, you may have eventually worked through it. Instead, it was never properly discussed, communication gradually broke down and your love for him died. 

I am so sorry you have carried this distress for so many years. You deserve a happier future, but that may involve difficult decisions. Ending a marriage after 40 years would, of course, be frightening and may not be the answer. Equally, though, spending the rest of your life with someone you no longer love, if that love is beyond being rekindled, may be even harder. 

I strongly recommend counselling to help you decide what you want to do, either alone or, if your husband is willing to address your unhappiness and talk honestly about what happened, together. If he isn’t, that may be part of your answer. Please contact relate.org.uk or the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (bacp.co.uk). I hope the next chapter of your life will be happier.

Did my brother and I fail our father? 

Dear Caroline, 

My father died two months ago. He was an angry, authoritarian man, and both my brother and I had periods of distance from him, though we grew close again in his later years. However, our stepmother is very controlling and especially resented me as his only daughter. 

As the three executors of his will, we had to arrange his funeral, which became deeply fraught. He left no instructions. My brother and I wanted him cremated, but our stepmother refused to back down and he was buried instead. 

I am slowly coming to terms with it, but my brother is distraught, convinced we failed our father. How can I help him?

Caroline West-Meads replies: I’m so sorry for both you and your brother over the loss of your father. It can be so difficult to grieve for a complicated parent and I think that a large part of what your brother is feeling is still deep grief — for a father he loved but also for the years in which your father’s anger made closeness hard to achieve.

This must be very upsetting for you both. Please ask your brother to seek bereavement support (see Cruse, Marie Curie or Sue Ryder for details) and remember that this is very early days. 

Reassure him, too, that neither of you failed your father — you persisted in finding a way to love him despite the difficulties of earlier times. He was fortunate to have the love of both of his children in his later life and this is ultimately what matters most.