I’m 58 years old, I’ve been married for 30, I’ve had a lover for 15. Or perhaps it would be better to say: a second wife. I live in Pavia, I work in Milan: from Monday to Friday morning I am with my brilliant, very beautiful, professionally accomplished Milanese wife. From Friday evening to Monday morning with his sweet, welcoming wife, mother and housewife. The affair has made me a more balanced and patient husband, perhaps because of the guilt. The two women know about each other, the lover officially, the wife essentially. And this balance endures. I don’t know if and how to get out of it, because I certainly don’t feel like a role model, but rather weak.
Gregory
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Dear Gregorio, I would suggest that you find a third woman in whom there is as much of both “yours” as possible. I don’t know if you are weak, you are certainly not a role model, but I would rather say that you are cleverly opportunistic. I would like to inform you that all of us, to try to strive for perfection in a relationship, would need at least a couple of people. Unfortunately, common morality demands that they be found in only one partner. At least only one at a time. Anyone would like to be able to “dissect” multiple individuals, extract the best from them and thus assemble the perfect man (or woman, in his case).
But we have to opt for someone who comes as close as possible to our ideal and try to make up for the shortcomings or surpluses. If we all resorted to this sort of sentimental “eugenics”, I fear that things, in matters of love and the like, would become quite complicated. In his case, however, it must also be said that both ladies have lent themselves, for fifteen years now, to the crowded ménage without complaining, rebelling or escaping. That both of them, along the way, realize that to be happy they must guarantee themselves only half as much as her? It may be that by dedicating yourself to both with a sense of guilt you have managed to distill for yourself the best to offer each. In this case, he could decide to continue like this forever and even start planning more convenient logistics for the years to come.
I understand that “bringing together” both women in the same city would destroy the perfect balance, but at a certain point in their lives they will both have the right to your support and you will perhaps be tired of having to split up. It’s the flip side of having found the perfect partner in two different bodies. All the others are always halfway between the ideal woman you can’t have and the real woman you can’t love.