Dear Wilhemina

Prospect's agony aunt responds to readers' problems
July 22, 2009
MY HUSBAND AND I ONLY SPEAK ON THE INTERNET

Dear Wilhemina

My husband and I now only communicate via Twitter, Facebook and email. At first the fad seemed a powerful antidote to the need to deal with work emails late at night. But slowly we got more interested in expanding our numbers of friends and reporting on the moment rather than being in it. As virtual sex seems a long way off I hope you have some suggestions.



Worried half of a couple

Dear worried half of a couple

Yours is a familiar complaint—the tools that were supposed to bring us closer together may have enhanced our social lives, but not our intimate ones. And it's not new. There's a wonderful and no doubt apocryphal story of the wife of Alexander Graham Bell complaining that her husband "spends too much time on that telephone" and not enough of it with her.

Undoubtedly, today's technology can create disturbing emotional illusions which we may not fully understand. But, in the 2004 book Love Online: Emotions on the Internet, the philosopher Aaron Ben-Ze'ev spells out something important: that anonymity can allow us to be more truthful and open than we would be face-to-face. We take more risks because vulnerability is (or feels) reduced, quickly creating a simulacrum of intimacy. What you're experiencing doesn't sound like that sort of illusion, rather one of those bad habits that we get into as busy couples and exhausted professionals. Treat yourselves as you would lazy kids. Limit your time online and plan activities with your real-life friends. You'll see how easily ersatz relationships reacquire their significance. And if that doesn't work, why not give virtual sex a shot?

Wilhemina

WHY SHOULD I SUPPORT MY WIFE AFTER WE SPLIT?

Dear Wilhemina

My wife of 20 years and I have decided to split up. It's been a gradual thing, an unravelling over a decade or so, and we've jointly decided to go our separate ways—though in all honesty she's keener to move on than I am. I've been talking to a solicitor and the upshot of our separation, given that I have a steady job and she has yet again lost hers (we have no children, so this is not due to any sacrifice for the family), is that I will be in a much worse financial situation once we are apart. If we sell the house, it won't bring enough money for each of us to buy another. And she can't afford to rent (nor will anyone rent to her) so I will have to subsidise her accommodation while renting myself. It's unfair: why should I be the one taking a hit when neither of us can make this work?

John T

Dear John T

While I sympathise, two things instantly spring to mind. First, how much of this frustration is about paying for something you don't really want (splitting up) versus paying disproportionately for something that affects you both equally? If you wanted to move on, wouldn't you just cough up the cash and have a celebration with what's left, even if it is in a rented flat? Second, I am always surprised when couples expect their separation to look very different from their life together. You suggest that you've carried her for years and that her behaviour has been motivated mostly—though I'm sure not exclusively—by her own desires without much regard for you as a couple. Why would you expect this to change as you separate, when behaving as she always has now carries an even lower price-tag? Separations do bring changes and you can hope that one might be a change in your partner's attitude but that's seldom the case—at least not right away. Try changing something yourself. You've supported her for years and you're focusing on how you might have to support her in the future. Ask yourself what life would look like if you saw this separation, whatever financial constraints it brings, as an opportunity to stop worrying about this. You'd have to be a whole other person. Scary isn't? But pretty damn wonderful.

Wilhemina

MY STUDENT HAS A MAN CRUSH ON ME

Dear Wilhemina

One of my students mentioned to a colleague of mine at graduation that he had a big "man crush" on me. My wife is impressed, but I am a little freaked out. Has it become a normal thing for students to discuss with their professors? Have I been asleep for the past 15 years while the world changed around me?

Ben C

Dear Ben C

Which bit of this situation bothers you the most? That you're the object of a man crush—which after all only consists of admiration and isn't sexual—or that such secrets are now shared between professors and students? If it's the latter, you really must have been dozing! How else could it have passed you by that the student-tutor experience is different nowadays? Whether it's because the age gap is often quite narrow, or perhaps due to the growing pressure placed on tutors to advise and counsel students in informal and personal ways, it's clear that the relationship has become more informal and involved. As for being admired by your male student, I'm with your wife. Take it as a compliment that one of these picky, notoriously hard-to-impress little creatures has chosen to be dazzled by you.

Wilhemina

Send your problems—in confidence—to wilhemina@prospect-magazine.co.uk