My ex-husband wants me to take him back – can I have a relationship with him and my new boyfriend?
Dear Richard,
I am a 40-year-old woman and have been married for 15 years. Seven years ago my husband and I went through a rough patch. He was and is very successful in business – perhaps too successful. Anyway, he couldn’t handle it. He developed a drinking and gambling problem and began dabbling in hard drugs like cocaine. I tried to get him help, and when he refused, I left and got a flat of my own. After we had been apart for two years, during which time I supported him in his recovery, I met someone else, who came to live with me. Now my husband has cleaned up his act, and is asking me to go back to him; I still have feelings for him but I have invested a lot in my newer relationship. I have mooted some sort of “French arrangement” – my boyfriend is down on the idea; my husband (we did not divorce) is unenthusiastically open to it.
For now I feel torn. What should I do?
– Elaine, Wilts
Dear Elaine,
Well, I’m afraid the three-way solution is a non-starter. Not in itself such arrangements can work for some people but everyone has to be fully on board. And let’s face it; your husband would be a reluctant participant at best, and your boyfriend wants no part of it. So that’s that. If you pushed ahead with what you call a “French arrangement” you’d soon find yourself in a cul-de-sac. So you have some hard thinking to do, Elaine. You can’t have both men.
I’d suggest buying yourself some time. There’s no rush here, is there? No deadline. So I think you should stick with the relationship you have for now – with two outcomes in mind, possibilities which run concurrently alongside each other.
One: will your new relationship last beyond the first flush of passion and “thrill of the new”? Two: is your husband’s newly cleaned-up act just that an act? Will the next act see him returning to drink, drugs or gambling? Or all three?
So don’t rush your fences, Elaine. Wander over the course a little. You’ve had a tough time. Take a considered approach to this conundrum. You owe yourself that. I wish you well.
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