BEL MOONEY: My youthful man is all I need however do we have now any future?

Dear Bel,

Five years ago, after a somewhat acrimonious divorce, I went on a celebratory city trip with my closest girlfriend. After a few glasses of wine, I got fixated on a particularly handsome younger man in the bar. We got talking and I couldn’t stop laughing at his humour.

He was smart, funny and seemed smitten — so I ended up spending the night in his flat by the seaside. Next day I realised he was younger than my eldest daughter.

I haven’t stopped seeing him, but always thought it temporary. He’s now 28 and I am 48. I believe in ageing naturally: my hair is now silver. Though slim, athletic and looking younger than I am, nobody would ever mistake me for his contemporary.

I know he thinks I’m beautiful and is proud to be seen with me. Our age difference has only posed problems with his friends, particularly their wives and girlfriends who seem to think he’s wasting his youth on an older woman.

I’ve always kept strict boundaries, telling him there’s no future for us. I don’t let him visit me but spend three to four days a week with him. I’ve had other relationships during this time, but not been honest with him about them. I know he has never been unfaithful to me.

He caters for my every need and pays for every dinner out and every holiday we take together. He is strikingly handsome, and very successful.

But something changed in the last month. On our recent holiday I befriended a 62-year-old German woman who’s everything I want to be at her age.

Beautiful, confident and intelligent, she’s lived an interesting life and taken risks I’d never have considered.

On our last day on the island, she told me I’m a fool for not marrying the man who so obviously adores me.

That moment changed my thinking and now I want to commit to him and for him to commit to me. How do I tell my boyfriend, after five years of saying we had no future together, that now I would like him to propose?

NICOLA

Bel Mooney replies:  There will be many women ­reading this and feeling full of envy. ‘Good on you’ is often the response when women hear of a lady with a much-younger partner. Others may mutter that the age gap is indeed too large — and what if he decides later that he really wants to have children?

Some may wonder why on earth you let your hair go silver because nobody has to do that these days and ‘ageing naturally’ is a mixed ­blessing, especially when you have a younger lover with friends his own age who might think you look like his mum. Others will admire your strength of mind on the whole issue.

You don’t mention your career or financial ­situation, but you are clearly a strong person who knows her own mind. You fancied him, you slept with him and then controlled the relationship by setting out the terms, both emotionally ­(‘temporary’) and practically (‘strict boundaries’).

You chose to have ‘other relationships’ while seeing this handsome, successful, caring ­paragon among men — and weren’t bothered about lying to him by omission.

But after five years you’ve changed your mind, simply because of one comment from an older woman you came to admire on a holiday. ­Interesting and sparky she might have been — but I have to ask what she could possibly know about you, and your boyfriend, on such short acquaintance.

Observing somebody’s romantic behaviour on one week’s holiday is a very ­different matter from deciding that the attentive lover actually wants to become a husband.

The questions are obvious: have you and he ever talked about marriage? Has he ever asked why you set those firm ‘boundaries’ and said he’d like more of you? How do you know ‘he has never been unfaithful’ — when presumably he thinks the same about you?

How do you think he’d respond to an admission of two-timing — were you to make it?

People often say, with chirpy optimism, that ‘age is just a number’. The trouble is — it’s not. Ageing is a process full of ­uncertainties and fears which are just as natural as silver hair. I happen to be married to somebody 17 years my junior (and have also known other very successful age-gap marriages) but I worried in 2006 (when he proposed) that one day he would be sad never to have had a family of his own.

I dread a future when he becomes a ‘carer’ as well as a ­loving husband. But we’ve talked all this through.

Obviously the only way forward is to start talking about his feelings and yours. I quail at the thought of you telling him you ‘want him to propose’ — that’s too much of a jump. Take it slow. Give him more. Ditch your own boundaries, but be prepared to be hurt.

Nasty neighbour makes me despair 

Dear Bel,

We felt sorry for a neighbour. She lives alone with a little dog above us in a block of flats. We cooked meals for her and ran errands as well as buying her gifts as a treat.

We have a lovely communal garden with a beautiful green lawn and lots of flowers. We were surprised when brown patches appeared on the lawn and flowers were trampled or uprooted. We thought it was the wind or maybe a stray dog.

I installed CCTV and was horrified to see it was the neighbour. She kicked our garden ornaments and poked the petals off flowers with her ­walking stick as well as uprooting plants. She had a look of pure hatred doing this. She let her dog loose and it weed on the lawn.

I confronted her but she denied it. I said we had proof so don’t lie. She wasn’t a bit remorseful and said we can’t stop her and she will go in there with her dog when she wants. I’ve reported her to the building owner, the police and council anti-social behaviour unit and await responses.

My problem is that she has shaken our faith in human nature. How can people be so wicked when treated with nothing but kindness?

MATTHEW

Bel Mooney replies: Because language matters so much I’ll start by gently ­suggesting an amendment to yours. You see, your email subject line is ‘Evil neighbour’ and you ask about people being ‘wicked’.

There are plenty of truly wicked people and much real ‘evil’ in this world of ours, but I’m not sure it really helps you to think of this lady in that way. Your disappointment, justifiable ­disbelief, annoyance and disillusionment are very easy to understand. I’d feel the same. But I ­suggest we all intensify our feelings in a negative way by attaching the wrong names.

How often is what we call ‘anger’ really ­‘sadness’? (do please read And Finally, on this important subject.) It can help to re-frame our thoughts in order to be able to deal with a situation.

You were so kind to this lady and feel shocked and disappointed she has this destructive secret life. You felt sorry for somebody who turned out to be malicious, angry and a liar. No surprise your ‘faith in human nature’ has been shaken.

All I’m suggesting is that you stop thinking of her as ’wicked’ and start using the term ‘damaged’. Because, by any standards, the anti-social behaviour you describe is hardly normal — especially when the garden is communal and the area you live in (which I know) is extremely desirable, pleasant and safe. Her actions seem pointlessly vengeful, so I’d want to ask why.

Some people feel inferior because they have been helped, and begin to resent the kind people who are helping them. Some resent ‘charity’ and think, ‘Keep your pity’.

Some are so quietly eaten up with envy of the happier lives of their ­neighbours, they wish to do them harm. After all, some dogs are so damaged when young they instinctively bite the hand that feeds them.

The ‘faith in human nature’ you have cherished is a beautiful thing. I had it too — once. But just pause to consider (if you can bear it) the appalling world of ‘trolls’ out there, causing pain and even suicidal thoughts in their victims by clicking on their keyboards/phones to attack people they don’t know. How can they do it? Because it’s a part of human nature. Such people are often powerless and/or unsuccessful in life, but the internet has liberated their vengeful destruction.

In a sense, she is your neighbourhood ‘troll’. I’m wondering exactly when the brown patches appeared? Was the garden vandalism going on at the same time as your acts of kindness? If not, if it started happen a bit later, then I’d wonder what might have triggered it. Was there a small falling out? Did the neighbour take offence at something you did or did not do? Have a think.

Please understand I’m not asking such questions to defend her behaviour. Hardly! And if I suggest she is damaged rather than wicked I’m not trying to make excuses, just to find reasons.

Your complaints might result in a warning to your neighbour. OK, but you will still be neighbours.

In your position, I would try quietly to talk to her again, maybe offer to take her dog for walks so he doesn’t have to pee on the grass, ask for her thoughts on what she’d like in the shared ­garden, suggest that what happened is in the past and you need to work out the future together.

I guess it’s a choice between aggro — and some more (just grit those teeth) kindness. It might work.

• Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY, or email [email protected]. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.