I’ve stopped sleeping with my husband because I’m repulsed by my promiscuous past. Sex is evil – and I want no part of it: BEL MOONEY has the answer

Dear Bel,

How to come to terms with memories of the awful person you once were?

I’ve been married for ten years to my wonderful second husband and we live a very contented life.

To be honest, I’ve gone off sex but it doesn’t affect our relationship at all. He’s not bothered.

My first marriage, which lasted 25 years, was marked by infidelities. Not just him – me too. We were very young and full of progressive ideas (at least, we thought they were) about ‘freedom’.

We’d only been married for a few months when he told me he didn’t believe in being faithful, because nobody can ‘belong’ to another person. It hurt a lot at the time. But I sort of agreed – and so, over the course of our marriage, we both had many affairs.

I fell in love once or twice; for him it was mainly about showing he could get women. We had a child, but that didn’t stop our behaviour.

Now I look back on those years with shame. I was ‘hot to trot’ and felt that having sex was no more significant than a handshake. But a lot more fun!

We had an ‘open marriage’ and thought it just fine. I knew I was very attractive to men and took advantage of it – and, because my husband was behaving the same way, had no guilty conscience at all.

So why do I now feel ashamed? For one thing, our son grew up to discover all this gradually, because we were honest, and now he’s an adult he feels saddened by the history. It’s affected his attitudes, especially as his marriage has just ended.

And I’ve turned into somebody sick of sex. Once I saw it as enjoyable on so many levels; now I think it’s a force for harm in the world. I read so much stuff about sex in magazines. I don’t want to know about somebody’s orgasms! Children now see porn at the age of ten or 11.

Watching the Eurovision Song Contest was torture, because you saw how much pornography has polluted performances. Why do we have to see close-ups of crotches and why do singers and dancers simulate sex? I’m sick of the over-sexualisation of our society.

My generation created this s***show. I look back and feel ashamed of the attitudes I used to hold and the things I did. I wish we’d lived differently. An affair he had finally ended my first marriage and we both deserved it.

Even though I’m happy now, I wish we hadn’t lived that way. What do you do about retrospective shame?

Alison

Bel Mooney replies: Is there anybody who doesn’t wake in the middle of the night and feel the ghosts of the past dancing round the bed? Things you said or did to hurt people, sneaky acts no one else saw, lies you told, a job messed up when you blamed somebody else, extravagance that got you into debt… or a myriad other things.

OK, there’ll be those with clear consciences who don’t experience this, but I reckon they’re a minority.

I used to like that Edith Piaf song Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, but now dislike it intensely. You’d have to be either very arrogant or unbelievably squeaky-clean not to feel sorry for past mistakes.

There’s a lot to unpick in your letter. It’s strange that, as happy as you are in your second marriage, you waste time brooding about the first in this pointless, negative way – almost as if you’re sorry it ended.

You’re haunted by the thought that if you and your ex hadn’t both been ‘hot to trot’ (I can’t help smiling at that!) you might still be married and your son not shocked and saddened to discover that his parents once had the morals of alley-cats.

But, honestly, who knows? Better surely to be grateful that the marriage to Mr Randy collapsed, opening the door for your new – and better – happiness.

I didn’t watch Eurovision but saw many images of exactly the sort of outrageous and disgusting display you mention.

What happened to the jolly song contest? Is it any wonder normal people start to see sexuality as something for freaks?

Your larger point about the rampant sexualisation of this society interests me greatly.

You may or may not know it, but I’ve written much about this subject over the years and share your views. Believe me, I’ve been called a prude and worse – and once got into a live shouting match with a well-known Left-wing (male) radio presenter

who was inexplicably ready to defend the rights of a few men to become stupendously rich by exploiting the bodies of many women.

All in the name of freedom, they claim – when widespread pornification is all about exploitation, power and money.

The justification is that ‘sex sells’, hence the spread (as it were) of the obsession which you refer to. No child should have a smartphone, but what’s to be done? The unharnessed horse left the stable long ago, and all we’re left with is the smell of manure.

But don’t make all this your fault! You’re right to look back and perhaps identify a time when social attitudes changed for the worst, and ‘anything goes’ was the mantra.

But you and your ex were young and irresponsible and youn gpeople will always behave in ways likely to be destructive.

People have always had affairs – and often been punished. Read Anna Karenina by Tolstoy and Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos; adulterers were at it in the 19th century and earlier – and consequences be damned.

Even if good folk rein in the impulses, it doesn’t mean they don’t know what it’s like to feel lust. Maybe they get off on reading about other people’s orgasms!

Please, just stop flagellating yourself. Live for the life and love you have now.

I cut off a friend as I hate her husband

Dear Bel,

I feel very bad. I have told my friend of 35 years I can no longer have a relationship with her.

She’s returned to her husband after five years of attempting to make a new life for herself.

I find the man completely unsavoury and her support of him perplexes me.

He was living back with his mother and he’s now once again in my friend’s home.

She has been financially lucky and has supported him in his conviction he is a talented author. He’s never brought any money to the table and now lives in the lap of luxury, drinking and doing whatever he likes, while my friend works full- time. She says she functions better with him and yet

she shares truths about him being nasty and disrespectful to her on a daily basis.

The final straw for me was him posting a picture of the Palestinian flag with his grinning face beside it on October 8, 2023 (the day after the Hamas attacks in Israel). This is on top of his misogynistic writings online in which he belittles even his own mother and wife (my friend). She says she can’t control him.

I got to the point where my loathing of him outweighed by affection for her. I’ll miss her but they now come as a pair and I feel she’s guilty by association, condoning his views. Have I behaved correctly?

Edina 

Bel Mooney replies: This is indeed a painful dilemma. Something similar happened to me years ago, and yet the woman and I returned to friendship once she was divorced.

I had to tell her I couldn’t stand her husband and she sighed – as if maybe mourning the fact that my affection for her wasn’t strong enough. But she understood socialising with the horrible husband was a problem.

But you have the additional burden of reading his writing online and feeling repulsed by his attitudes.

Obviously your friend would protest they are not her views, so why should she be judged on them? But because she is living with this man, you now regard her as tainted by the company she keeps. And the truth is, people are – no matter how detached and innocent they may feel.

I’m sure many of us have had the experience of avoiding somebody’s company because of their partner’s political views. One way forward is, of course, to take refuge in one-on-one lunchtime catch-ups, avoiding seeing the partner at all. But there seems to be something deeper here.

Your friend left her husband for five years but then went back to him, so there is a real attachment or need there. Why? It is beyond your understanding – and what’s more you judge her for still believing the man is going to write a novel while he lives off her.

You think her a deluded fool – and I suspect you’d find that alienating enough, even if you hadn’t seen his nasty views expressed online.

There is clearly a deep bond between them and, in your heart, you despise her for it. She says she ‘doesn’t control’ him, but it sounds is if he has some control over her. You never know, it could even be (whisper it) love.

What to do? If you don’t want to see her, so be it. Have the courage of your conviction. But if you miss her and continue to feel ‘bad’, then suggest the monthly lunch option and make the best of it. Oh, and I suggest the block option on Facebook. You don’t have to read his rants.