Confessions: I love a married man but he won't leave his wife

It has taken me quite a while to pluck up courage to write to you because I fear you’ll think I’m incredibly foolish.

I am in the throes of a second affair with the same married man – after a gap of 17 years.

I quite simply adore this man and he says he feels the same way about me, but trying to get him to leave his wife of more than 30 years is difficult.

He says his reasons for not leaving are financial and, yes, they have a lovely home.

But they don’t have a marriage in the true sense in that they’ve been sleeping in separate rooms for years.

He and I have been away twice in the two and half years we’ve been back together and I feel frustrated that he won’t leave her.

I do believe what he tells me and he appears to have a very unhappy married life. She stays in bed until lunchtime each day while he still works full-time (he is 63, his wife is 61 and I am 53. I cannot imagine life without him, but equally cannot carry on like this. What do you suggest?

 I hasten to add that I know the wife and have done for more than 33 years, so I know what he is saying about her is all true

I, too, am in a not-so-happy marriage.