A father has found a lover and wants to leave his unfaithful wife. Mariella Frostrup advises him to slow down and put his daughter first
The dilemma I am married with a young child in my early 40s. My wife is older than I am and more advanced in her career. Recently I found out she was having an affair, and I think she wanted me to. I have made a lot of sacrifices to allow her career advancement and she continues to ask me to do so, despite the slightly damaging effect on mine. Now I have fallen in love with someone else, and an already difficult situation has become intolerable. I don't want to end my marriage because of my child yet I can't imagine my life without my lover. She doesn't want to break up my marriage and has gone to the other side of the world. My wife says her affair is over and wants us to continue together, but now I want to take my daughter and go and find the woman I love. But I know I will break the hearts of the two people closest to me, my daughter and my wife. I feel like I am in a torture chamber.
Mariella replies Let's not exaggerate. You may have drifted into turbulent emotional waters but there's no one water-boarding you or using your body to extinguish cigarettes. With phrases like famine, torture and abuse so prevalent in the media I'm increasingly uncomfortable about using them to describe any inconvenience I'm experiencing.
Then again having given my seven-year-old son a lecture on how blessed his life was compared to almost any child in sub-Saharan Africa, to my eternal shame I ended the conversation by telling him I was "dying of thirst"! A hypocrisy he was more than happy to point out.
I'm not going to argue about whether or not you've been hard done by, I'm sure the devil is in the detail, but I will glance over the reasons you feel that way.
There's no question that roles once undertaken by women with barely a whimper are increasingly slipping on to the shoulders of boys and men. In many cases the actual performing of the devolved chores has yet to materialise, but you wouldn't know it from the friction levels caused by the increased assumption that the male of the species would begin getting his hands equally dirty on the domestic front.
I appreciate it's shocking news to the many of your sex who reluctantly handed us the vote a century ago that we're banging on the door again, just a few decades later. Talk about ungrateful. Yet here we are in the 21st century asking for further favours from our long-suffering male partners. We do understand that the aforementioned privileges were only meant to be embraced after we'd finished whatever needed doing around the house, not instead of our responsibilities there, but it's proved harder than we imagined to live up to all that is expected of us.
Obviously you are a special case, having supported your wife at no small expense to your own career with nothing but her infidelity as thanks. As you all but spell out, now that you've found someone you'd prefer to be with, you've virtuallyearned the right to grab your child and dash off across the globe in pursuit of her. Or have you? From my position neither of you is an innocent party here. Both of you seem pretty committed; not to each other but to severing the tenuous ties that still bind you together. I'm sure you could both be histrionic in defence of your behaviour, but whatever sacrifices have been made and opportunities missed, the future is a different landscape altogether. Just because you've been a supportive spouse for a few years doesn't give you the right to behave in whatever fashion suits your current desires. You can't seriously think your wife's infidelity gives you just cause to whip her daughter away and run off after your own lover.
It's unfortunate your relationship has deteriorated so far that you'd contemplate such a draconian punishment, let alone attempt to drum up approval for your plan from an outside party like myself. The only course, as I'm sure you know, is for you and your partner to work out what's best for the entirely innocent victim of your relationship's demise and ensure that whatever path you choose, your child's welfare remains your primary concern. I know that when you're lovesick reality can get in the way, but don't delude yourself that taking the back seat, no matter how unappreciated your efforts have been, gives you the right to abscond with impunity to far-flung shores.
It's only human to use the material in your reach to justify more primal impulses but it's my job to highlight the flaws in such a plan. No matter how low others may sink, the higher ground is where to aim for. I note you number your wife alongside your daughter as the two people you are closest to. Maybe there's hope for the three of you after all.
If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow Mariella on Twitter @mariellaf1