At the time I was totally devastated. Until then I’d believed him truly perfect. If I’d had any pride I’d probably have thrown him out, but 35 years of marriage is a long time. We are still together and enjoy life, but I know I no longer love him. Things are not the same. I would like to know how I can put all this behind me.

I have never seen her since but we are due to meet this woman soon at a party of a mutual friend. Besides ensuring that I look glamorous, how should I behave? There are many questions I would like to ask her if I got her to myself — tell her how she affected my marriage and ask why she encouraged him. She only had to say to my husband at the time that it was no way for a married man to behave to a married woman and it would have stopped. Part of me feels I should ignore her totally and rise above it. Please help.

Susan

Let us begin with this party, then move on to the underlying issue. You should certainly give yourself courage by buying a new dress and great shoes, but then you must sail around the room looking like a woman who doesn’t give a damn that her husband wrote silly e-mails three years ago.

Ignoring her would be too obvious. How about a casual wave and nod across a crowded room, and then turn away to get your glass of wine? I know you feel betrayed by her, but since you know the answers to those rhetorical questions there is no need to ask them. Of course she knows she hurt you, but she played her part in the flirtation because she probably felt as flattered and excited as he did. That’s what people are like. It’s a relatively uncomplicated case of “ Lord, what fools these mortals be” — and there’s a lot of it about, believe me. But on the scale of wickedness it doesn’t register, does it? Not really.

I don’t use that tone to diminish the pain you have suffered, but because I genuinely believe you have to get it in perspective, allowing yourself to reflect on your marriage.

Are you really telling me you “no longer love” this husband of 35 years’ standing because he revealed that he was not “truly perfect” but a normal, fallible human being? He let you down, but the burden of perfection is as heavy as jealousy itself. You say things have changed, but I want you to realise that it’s how things always are in a marriage — altering, shifting as we grow older, with different needs and miseries, and it is as unrealistic to expect stasis as it is to believe in perfection. Mid-life crisis or menopause moods . . . don’t we have to do all we can to help each other through these ghastly stages?

I bet you find yourself brooding about those outings in which they played Happy Couple, and seethe with rage, because (as with so many women) it is the emotional bond that bothers you more than any act of sex. But it is over, so you must stop dwelling on this blip in 35 years, and move on. Instead of asking the lady questions, ask yourself some, because it will be more useful. Never mind all this foolish talk of throwing him out (I do hate that kneejerk response to marital problems) and ask yourself if it was lack of pride or innate wisdom that led you to go on with this husband of yours.

You say you “enjoy life”, which sounds like happiness to me. Could it not be because you love this man in a different way?

In Edith Wharton’s Tales of Men and Ghosts (1910) Lizzie West discovers her husband has lied to her and resolves to leave. Then she imagines life without him. “She understood now that she had gradually adjusted herself to the new image of her husband as he was, as he would always be. He was not the hero of her dreams, but he was the man she loved and who had loved her. For she saw now, in this last wide flash of pity and initiation, that, as a comely marble may be made out of worthless scraps of mortar, glass and pebbles, so out of mean mixed substances may be fashioned a love that will bear the stress of life.”

Dear Bel, Some time ago I took early retirement from a middle-management job. At first I enjoyed the leisure but it wasn’t long before I became bored stiff. I tried good works, but nothing was quite suitable. One night in my local I met a man who was a butler and the more he described his life the more interested I got.

A London domestic agency helped me find some training and I got a place as manservant to a young Arab gentleman who owns a racing stud. I work on a beautiful estate, the duties are well within my capabilities and the pay supplements my pension agreeably. I’m better off than ever and haven’t been so happy since my wife died.