I am 38 and have been seeing a wonderful man for a year. I met him on a trek in Nepal. We’ve had one adventure after another since then; we both love travel, trying new things, food; our sex life is great, my friends love him. Although I never wanted children, he has two boys aged 8 and 11 and they are polite, bright and loveable versions of him. He’s been in a loveless marriage for years and is thriving on our very loving, warm, close relationship.

At the moment he works in London (as I do), stays with me there and goes down to his house in the country once a fortnight for a weekend, and the boys stay with him. But the rented house is empty most of the time. We want to buy a house together and get married — but because the boys are too young to travel alone (and need to be near football clubs, etc) they need to stay down there for the weekends with their dad. My choice would always be to stay in London near my job/friends/lifestyle. He has hinted that he can’t see a future re where to live — and to stop wasting two household costs. In desperation I said that if the only way is for me to move down there I will do it.

But I will not easily find work there, and could end up commuting into London every day, something I’ve never planned on. Or work in another career (I earn good money doing what I do but need to be in London really) which means I will not be able to contribute as much as him into the house, again, something I have planned my life around not doing. I am very independent and have never been supported by anybody. It seems that to save him or his kids a journey once a fortnight I shall have to leave London and my gorgeous flat, have more travel/less income and a less appealing home/lifestyle. I love him and feel that I would follow him anywhere — but I can’t see that anyone is compromising but me. I used to say something will work out/in another five years it will be different, etc, but he seems to want a solution now and could break it off we don’t commit to each other.

I know that love/the relationship is most important but I’m an independent divorcée who knows a bit about life and how resentment can poison the best couples. Is it reasonable for me to refuse to move and risk the relationship, or must his children come first, him second and me last? I am getting so fed up. Only my childless friends can understand what I feel — and all my friends say they can’t see me by the seaside.

Lesley

You’ve always planned, been self-sufficient and — wham — love comes along and causes problems. There’s a real danger that you will forget all the wonderful things you and he have done together and get bogged down in the detail of this; that you’ll start to glower at each other from opposite sides of a fence — and all for the sake of an hour and a half’s road journey or a return from Liverpool Street station. You will say that there is more to it than that, and of course I understand: you each want the other to prove love by making sacrifices. I’m just warning you not to get embedded. If your love isn’t strong enough to find an adult compromise you might as well pack your rucksacks and go back to Nepal. Separately.

I can sympathise with both positions, although sitting on the fence is uncomfortable — so I’m coming down on your side. He wants to be the best dad possible, given that he sees his boys only two days out of 14. It’s not much for a loving father and must cause him pain and guilt. That’s why he’s tried to set up a “home” in that rented house; he wants them to feel they have somewhere to belong with him, and perhaps keep some stuff. Nevertheless it’s not too clear to me why he couldn’t seek out a lovely, friendly B&B which he books for the two weekends a month — which would surely be cheaper. The boys would be sure of a slap-up cooked breakfast — and in three years’ time they can get the train to London, go to see things and have their own room(s) in a new house which will open fresh windows for them. Your boyfriend is putting too much pressure on you, after just a year together, if he really thinks it feasible for you to give up the life you lead and to don an anorak to hang out in sea breezes. Would you still be the person he fell in love with? I doubt it.

People can change — ease into each other’s ways of living, learn from each other, tolerate foibles and imperfections and (most important) make some sacrifices. Every couple has to try the exercise of seeing the world through the partner’s eyes. So you — who have never wanted children — must try hard to understand how much those delightful boys mean to him, and how he is torn between love for a woman and love for the children he fathered. You’re torn between your comfortable life and a man with baggage. His tearing is more painful.

Commuting for three hours a day is not an option here. I had friends who gave up living in London (when both kept de- manding jobs there) for a house in Gloucestershire; it was stressful, exhausting, even damaging — so now they are back in town. It would only work if you wanted to change your life, and you don’t. Tell him you adore him and want to spend the rest of your life with him, but moving to the coast to be a fortnightly step- mother-figure will not work. At least, not now — in two years’ time you may feel differently.

Suggest the B&B option. If he rejects that, then why can’t he go on renting (it’s only money, and you both have good jobs) with you offering to contribute a little to show willing? Do you spend time down there with him? If not, you really should — because it’s important you get to know those boys, watch them play football in the chilly wind, learn what they like to eat and do everything you can to extend your love for the man to his children.

If you don’t fancy doing that, you have to ask yourself what your relationship is founded on — travel, restaurants and sex? Of course not! Similarly he has to realise that he can’t require you to make such a fundamental shift to the life you love — when it isn’t necessary, as it would be if (say) he took a job in the US. He must also realise that when his boys are 15 and 18 (which will come so quickly) they won’t have much time for their poor old dad anyway. But you will. It isn’t a trade-off; all of us have to realise that our lives are a flux — and this adventure requires a flexible heart.

Do you remember when you were in Nepal you learnt about the Buddhist practise of praying and reciting mantras? By repeating resonant sounds they shut out all distractions to focus on essential principles. Can you visualise strings of prayer flags fluttering in crystalline air — the colours symbolising space, water, fire, earth and air as aids to contemplate the spiritual necessities of existence? Imaginatively re-breathe the heady incense — burnt since the 7th century to cleanse rooms and freshen the spirit. For you know, there wasn’t much point in travelling all that way unless you allow the experience to bring about a change.

I’m suggesting that you and your boyfriend take your love for each other as the vital mantra to help you to move forward. I’m asking you not to muddy its clear colours by fussing about rents and railway timetables, nor breathe the stale air of confrontation. And while invoking Buddhism — the other day somebody sent me one of those odd, travelling e-mails: “Instructions for Life” from the Dalai Lama. Let me pass on No 6 in all its usefulness: “Don’ t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.'

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