DEAR BEL: I’ve been enjoying erotic experiences with escorts for years since my wife left me… but now I worry God is judging me. What can I do?

Dear Bel,

I am 65 and have always had problems with relationships.

I was unhappily married for 14 years but that pain was offset by having a wonderful daughter with whom I live, along with her boyfriend. My daughter and I have heard nothing from her mother, who severed all ties as she could not manage parenting.

I’ve never had the confidence to pursue relationships. Consequently I’ve experienced feelings of low self-esteem and worthlessness which have made me quite unhappy.

So for many years I have been visiting escorts, who have been nice, non-judgmental and always complimentary about my kindness and politeness to them.

For about four years I have been seeing a particular escort (six or more times a year) whom I like very much, mainly due to her sense of humour and sensitive nature. We engage in non-penetrative, gentle and sensual activity with no demands made by either of us.

Now this lady has decided to leave escorting and focus on non-sexualised massage, but still wants to maintain contact with me. She’s cancelled her work with the escort agency and given me her contact number for private appointments.

My father passed away ten years ago but it’s only recently that I had his ashes laid to rest. The people I met at the church were so lovely and welcoming that I have started going to a service each week. I am having a spiritual reawakening, having not been to church for such a long time.

This leads to a state of conflict in that my connection with this young lady is likely to be seen as at odds with Christian behaviour.

I would hate to terminate things as I enjoy visiting her and she may well feel hurt that I am judging her to be a bad person.

If I were to finish things I’d have to do it in person and could not bear to do it by text as she would deserve so much better. But if I were to maintain the status quo then my status as a Christian could be in doubt.

Are you able to provide any advice on a way forward?

Stephen  

Bel says: As a woman and a Christian I find no conflict in my heart as I answer this question. But just as there are many interpretations of single Biblical texts, and age-old wrangles about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, I do not expect Christian readers to agree with my verdict.

But before we reach that point, please let us look with compassion on your life up to this point.

The end of your marriage must have been terrible; it is one thing for an adult relationship to end, but quite another to know that the person to whom you made your vows is not only abandoning you but your child as well.

No wonder you have struggled with a sense of ‘worthlessness’ and been so unhappy. Your confidence took a blow from which it could not recover and that is hardly a surprise. 

Yet now it’s vital to recognise the most wonderful achievement of your life. When your wife departed she left you with a daughter you brought up alone, so successfully, so admirably, that you now share a home with her and her boyfriend. I beg you not to underestimate the extraordinary value of that.

You may not have had the confidence to ‘pursue relationships’ with women, yet you have given one young woman the best grounding, in being the parent she could trust and love. I congratulate you with great sincerity.

Adult relationships come in many guises and sometimes a casual acquaintanceship can swiftly become of inestimable importance in someone’s life. Although warring married couples can make each other bitterly unhappy, a lonely man like you can, over months and even years, discover affection and solace with a kind woman who understands his needs.

So what if he has paid her for their time together? Does that transaction make the woman working as an escort a worse person than the young glamour-puss who gets her beautifully manicured hands on a very much older man with loads of dosh?

People may be wondering if there is a difference between a prostitute and an escort.

Traditionally an escort, though paid for his or her services, might offer companionship and not just sex. People are free to make up their own minds about that.

Reading your story, Stephen, I believe that what you have with this lady (whose name I wish I knew) can indeed be called a relationship. What else can it be after all this time?

To give you her number implies total friendship and trust. You’ve earned that through the kindness and the respect you’ve shown her – and she is now changing her life, too. I see nothing at all to be ashamed of.

The Jesus I believe in would agree – of that I’m convinced. He recognised sin and judged when necessary. But here? No.

I wish you every joy in your spiritual and religious journey and hope the consolation of mutual affection with this lady will continue.

I can’t bear to sell my late wife’s home

Dear Bel, 

Last year I lost my wife to cancer. We had been married for 48 years and were like one.

I have had a very difficult past year, feeling lost most of the time, full of conflicted feelings about doing things or not.

My daughter and son in-law have been great and the routine of collecting the grandchildren from school three days a week has continued. But I have almost broken down numerous times while driving to collect them – because my wife should have been sitting next to me.

My house is easily manageable, mortgage-free and five minutes away from my daughter’s. Over the last six months, we have discussed finding the right house and living together – although they realise I would like my own space/annexe.

A house has come up that could fit the bill, but I am now having second thoughts. I am not sure that I can sell my house – there are too many memories. My wife chose all the colours and it is just the right size for me. I remember her by looking at the sofa where she sat when we did the homework with the grandchildren, or in our small garden enjoying the sun.

All the furniture will come with me – but my problem is the memories. I do not want the feeling of ‘moving on’. I really don’t think I can make the move. I cannot leave the memories and my wife behind.

Gerald

Bel says: There will, I know, be many people grieving for a beloved life-partner who, reading your letter, will join with me in expressing the deepest sympathy for your loss.

When you write, so simply, that you were ‘like one’, you encapsulate a lifetime of love and companionship – a precious closeness that not even death can destroy.

The space that your wife inhabited in your life looms so large and seemingly empty now you cannot stop the tears. What person who has also been blessed by a great love could fail to understand that?

And yet every word of your email signifies just how much your wife is still with you; beside you in the car as you collect those grandchildren she loved so much, and still sitting on the sofa as she always did while they did their homework.

When you stand in your garden wishing she could see this spring I wish you could allow yourself to breathe deeply and realise that she is in the very air, in the movement of daffodils in the breeze, in the song of birds preparing for nesting.

When people love and live so strongly for so long they feel melded into one soul, that blending cannot stop – just as you can’t mix yellow and blue equally and make anything else but a beautiful, fresh green.

That’s why she goes where you go, and always will. So how can it be possible for you to leave ‘the memories and my wife behind’? When you talk to her (as I’m sure you do) I think she will tell you all this.

If it’s not presumptuous for me to say so, my guess would be that she would want you to be taken care of by your daughter, who, in her wish to do just that, demonstrates all the love and care she learnt at her mother’s knee. I have no doubt such a plan will come to fruition in due course.

Yet I understand your wish to remain there amid the colours your wife chose, in the home still inhabited by her very DNA. You like this house, where you can feel shored up by all the familiar things as well as the routines you both shared – and just five minutes from the family.

So perhaps it is not quite the time to put the lovely plan into action; not quite the moment to move house. This last year has been so full of acutely draining sorrow that you need more time to rebuild – and always (please remember) with your wife’s help.

Talk afresh to your daughter and son-in-law. There’s inevitably a feeling of some urgency when the right property comes up, but in a year’s time there might be a better one and you might not be so afraid of a move. Or perhaps they will persuade you that the process of selling two houses can take so long it is better to start now.

Whatever you decide I just ask you to reflect that you would never be ‘moving on’ from the love of your life. It’s impossible because she is there within you for ever.