The ManicaPost
Dear Tete Joyie
I am a 54-year-old virgin and I think I am going to die as one.
I would love to make more of myself, but I don’t have a lot of money.
It’s my own fault, I suppose.
I made a few bad decisions earlier in my life and I am easily taken in by people.
I feel paranoid just walking down the street.
I am also on medication and a side-effect is psoriasis on my face, and it’s also caused me to put on a lot of weight.
Have you any advice?
Tete Joyie says:
OK, let’s look at the things you can tackle straight away.
You can talk to your doctor about the weight gain and problems with your skin and discuss alternative medication or at least a treatment.
Improving that one thing could instantly make you feel better about yourself.
You don’t have to be rich to pick up some bits of make-up at the shop or a few items of clothing. Maybe you could ask friends to help you with a bit of a make-over.
Not all of us are brilliant at styling ourselves, but one of your friends might have a flair for it and know how to pick up nice things cheaply.
Weight gain is something else you can tackle positively yourself through being more active.
Exercise is also a brilliant tool for fighting depression and those feel-good hormones you get become pretty addictive; the more you do it, the more you want to do it.
As far as still being a virgin goes, if you felt better about yourself and had more confidence, I don’t think you would be focusing on that.
I think it’s just another thing to beat yourself up about.
***
Condom in hubby’s car
Dear Tete Joyie
Recently, I found an unused condom in my husband’s car, along with his new swimming gear and it has been really bothering me.
When I confronted him about what I had found, he said he was sorry for hiding the swimwear and that he had just bought it, but didn’t want me to see it because I would complain about him wasting money.
To be honest, I don’t care if he buys things for himself, it is up to him what he chooses to do with his money.
As for the condom, first of all he told me he didn’t know how it got there and then later confessed that he had bought a pack of condoms when we were having issues and forgot about it.
He says none of the condoms have been used.
Apparently, he had decided he wouldn’t sleep with me without a condom because he wants to avoid getting me pregnant again.
The thing is, I am already expecting baby number two and he doesn’t know yet!
I am just finding his story hard to believe and I am convinced he must be cheating on me.
He has apologised several times and promised nothing like this will happen again.
He wants us to discuss the issue and start afresh.
At first I was happy with that, but it keeps playing on my mind and I feel confused.
Please help.
Tete Joyie says:
Why is there only one unused condom? I would say: “Take me to the shop that sells one condom and if you can’t, you would better find the other two pretty quickly”.
Look, I don’t think you have got enough evidence to prove that he is cheating – if you would found a used condom, then obviously that would be different.
He is clearly keen to work things out with you, but he has to be totally honest – if he is lying about the condoms, he needs to come clean.
The only way to work through this is by talking to see if you can move forward.
Of course, you need to be honest too and tell him you are pregnant, which it doesn’t sound like he will be overjoyed about.
If you will be arguing over a second baby, then there is a chance that he is telling the truth about the condoms.
As for the swimwear, I don’t know if he had bought it to impress someone else – or maybe he just wanted a new pair of trunks!
But if you have been arguing lately, maybe he just didn’t want you to think he was spending money on frivolous things.
***
Affair turns sour
Dear Tete Joyie
I am divorced and had an affair with a married man for over a year.
He had been married for 20 years and has two young children, but his marriage was mundane and sexless.
I know this is often a line married men spin, but he had told a lot of his friends the same thing before we got together and most of them considered his wife cold and difficult and wondered why he was still with her.
We had been friends for a while before it happened and I fell for him so deeply.
But eventually, his wife found out and he had to move out of the family home. They are now splitting up.
The issue is, he has been unable to cope with the guilt of breaking up his family and losing daily access to his kids.
The separation is acrimonious because he humiliated her with our affair and she is now bitter and angry.
The long and short of it is he broke it off with me a couple of months after she found out.
She is now seeing someone else, but he is alone and living with a friend when he could have had me.
We have a number of friends in common, so I hear about what he is up to all the time.
I just can’t move on from this.
I have tried dating other people, but they just don’t compare to what I had with him.
I know it was wrong for me to get involved with him, but people fall in love and I am angry with him for throwing away what we had, especially now that his wife has moved on.
The worst thing is thinking that he might just have used me as a way to escape an unhappy marriage.
How can I get on with my life?
Tete Joyie says:
This is the problem with an affair, it hurts so many people and very rarely ends up the way you want it to.
I think you have to let him go for now as he is dealing with guilt.
When he comes to terms with it, he might want to pick things up, but don’t wait around for him.
If you love someone the way you love him, it hurts when it ends and there are no magic words to stop that pain.
It just takes time.
And there is no point in getting bitter and angry yourself, you knew what you were getting into when you started seeing a married man.
You don’t know if those things he told you about his wife are true.
I have been that wife and know that men or women having an affair will say anything to get what they want, or to justify it.
I understand why his ex-wife is angry, he ripped her heart apart and killed any trust she ever had in him.
