On the other side of love

If you are one a serious relationship with some and yet fall in love with someone else..that’s tricky. I recently got a letter from a gay man in his early 30s.

His letter went thus: “I’ve shared my life for the past three years with an absolutely lovely guy who dotes on me and whom I care for a great deal."

“We have until recently enjoyed a happy life together. My problem is that I appear to have fallen in love with a good friend of ours. I'm now moping around and can't concentrate at work, and, worse, I'm really questioning the validity of my own relationship. I feel guilty and confused all the time.” Well, we all face such a dilemma some time or the other in our life. Gay, straight, married or cohabiting, it seems that good sense is just a detail where matters of the heart are concerned.

Another reader forwarded me a letter the other day that she'd written to the New Scientist asking why they haven't yet found a remedy for unrequited love. It made me laugh, but actually she has a point — all those amazing advances in medicine and science and still no cure for the crippling malady that’s love.

If any one of you is facing such a situation, don't panic. I must add that if you are in a serious relationship then you've got an awful lot to lose if you pursue it any further.

Worse still, if you give up the reasonably contented existence you now enjoy in pursuit of this new passion, there's no guarantee that it will be a success.

One minute you feel it, the next it's gone, then it's back again. So, what should one do?

Stop feeling guilty, first of all. You've been struck down with a condition for which the only cure is irresponsible indulgence or the summoning of levels of will power not commonly found in homosapiens.

My first instinct is to be grateful for what you have rather than imagining that elsewhere lies happiness and fulfillment. Take your time, think about it and then make rational decisions.