Dear Joely: The Vixen Across The Road

Dear Joely,

Emotionally, I'm all over the place at the moment and I could really use your advice. I've been married for seven years to my husband whom I love very much. We're both 36. We're both Geminis. I work for a bank, he's a photographer. We live in a nice house, in a great area. We don't have kids yet, but I'd quite like to start trying soon.

Over the road from us lives a woman I would call a vixen. She's about 45 I'd say, and stunning. Lots of auburn hair and a very curvy body. Rumours in the neighbourhood are that she hosts certain get-togethers at her place. These involve couples and 'swapping'.

We're not into that. But the other day, when I got home from work, she was talking to my husband at our front door. When I asked him later what they were chatting about he avoided the question. I tried a few times, and it was like I'd never even asked. This made me cross.

I pushed the point again when we were in bed later. He eventually admitted that we'd been invited to a gathering at her place Saturday week. I got snippy. He shook his head and turned away from me. We've not mentioned it since.

I'm scared. I want to be the only one holding my husband's car keys.

Heckles Up

Dear Heckles Up,

First of all, let us be calm.

You have not yet lost your husband to the auburn enchantress across the road, nor has he been discovered dangling upside down from a chandelier with a stranger’s house key in his teeth. At present, all we know for certain is that your husband was approached at the front door by a woman with a reputation, and instead of answering his wife honestly, he chose the communication strategy of a nervous schoolboy.

That is annoying, yes. But it is not yet an orgy.

The real problem here is not the invitation itself. Adults are invited to all sorts of things in this life, from gallery openings to mild depravity. The problem is that your husband avoided the question. Then avoided it again. Then eventually coughed up the truth only after you pushed the point in bed, by which stage the whole thing had already acquired the atmosphere of a diplomatic incident.

That matters.

Because once a person starts acting evasive over something sexual, however hypothetical, the imagination does what imagination does best: puts on heels, pours a drink, and gallops straight into catastrophe.

You did, however, strike gold with this line:

“I want to be the only one holding my husband’s car keys.”

That is deranged in exactly the right way. I salute it.

But your real task is not to seize the keys. It is to seize the truth.

At a calm moment — not in bed, not in a huff, not while glaring through the curtains at the vixen’s hydrangeas — say this:

“The invitation is one thing. What bothered me was that you dodged me when I asked. I need honesty from you, even when the subject is awkward. So tell me plainly — what did you feel about it, and why didn’t you just say so?”

And then, crucially, listen to the answer.

It may be that he was embarrassed, flattered, intrigued, awkward, or simply trying to avoid upsetting you. None of those are ideal, but they are not all equally sinister. The point is to find out which one it was.

Also, a useful question to ask yourself: are you frightened that he wants to go, or frightened that some part of him was tempted by being asked? Those are not quite the same fear, and knowing which one is haunting you will help you speak more honestly.

If he tells you clearly that he has no interest and simply handled it badly, then good. You can both laugh grimly about the swingers over the road and move on with your lives.

If he becomes slippery, defensive, or tries to make you feel ridiculous for minding, then I would pay much closer attention. Not because the neighbours are wicked, but because evasion is often more revealing than temptation.

In short: don’t catastrophise, but don’t ignore the wobble either. Talk properly. Demand honesty. And remember that the woman across the road may be a vixen, but she is not the issue if your own front door is sound.

Yours, in defence of candour and proper key management,

Joely

Dear Joely: An Inconvenient Crush

Dear Joely,

I am a woman in my late fifties and, until recently, believed myself to be beyond the age of behaving like a sixth-former with a biro and a pulse. Then I developed a crush.

It is not on a film star, which would at least be private and convenient. It is on a man I know in real life. He is charming, bright, entirely age-appropriate, and, maddeningly, just attentive enough to keep me flustered without doing anything so obvious that I can call the whole thing to heel.

Nothing has happened. He has not declared himself. I have not flung myself across a table. We are simply in that intolerable territory where eye contact begins to feel like an event and one finds oneself thinking far too hard about what to wear to somewhere that didn’t matter at all before he might be there.

Part of me feels thrilled to be capable of this sort of fizz at all. Another part feels faintly humiliated. I am too old, surely, to be mooning over a man like a girl in a ponytail. And yet I also resent the idea that desire should have an expiry date, as though one is meant to become a tasteful lampshade after a certain birthday.

So my question is this: should I enjoy the feeling for what it is and let it pass, or is there ever a dignified way to do something with a crush at my age?

Signed,

Unexpectedly Flustered

Dear Flustered,

First, let us bury the idea that desire is only attractive in the young. That is nonsense invented by people who prefer women to become decorative once they’ve learned a few things.

A crush in later life is not pathetic. It is inconvenient, certainly. Occasionally ridiculous. But also rather cheering. It reminds you that the shutters are not up, the blood still circulates, and your powers of anticipation have not been pensioned off to sit in a cardie by the fire.

The trouble with a crush is not the feeling itself. The trouble is what the feeling tempts you to do. It can turn an intelligent woman into an amateur codebreaker, forever analysing pauses, glances, and whether a man said “see you soon” with intent or merely manners.

So enjoy the quickening, by all means. Stand in front of the mirror a little longer. Feel your pulse misbehave. There are worse things. But do not build a cathedral out of crumbs. If he is interested, let him become clearer in ways that would be visible even to a woman who was not wearing your particular perfume and hoping for signs.

And if an opening genuinely presents itself, there is nothing undignified about warmth, wit, or a little well-judged boldness. The only thing I would avoid is tipping a whole bucket of fantasy over a situation that may yet amount to no more than pleasing chemistry and a decent jawline.

You are not too old for this. You are simply old enough to know the difference between delight and self-abandonment. Try to keep the first and avoid the second.

Yours, with eyebrows raised,

Joely