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DEAR DEIDRE

My boyfriend deserts me every Christmas Day

READ Dear Deidre Editor Sally Land's personal replies to today's problems.
Woman online Christmas shopping on tablet.

DEAR DEIDRE: EVERY Christmas Eve my boyfriend spoils me, lavishing me with generous gifts, a fancy meal and a night in a hotel followed with fantastic sex.

It will sound ungrateful but after 13 years of this routine, I’ve had enough! All I want for Christmas is some company.

Although the night before Christmas is perfect, come the morning, all I get is a quickie before he disappears off early to spend the day with his daughters and grandchildren. 

His wife died 12 years ago and we have never had an affair but he refuses point blank to discuss including me on Christmas Day because he’s worried his children will think we cheated while his wife was still alive. 

He says he loves me and we spend most of our time together but over a decade on and I don’t think his children even know about me.

It’s ridiculous. His daughters are both in their early 30s and we are in our late 50s.

The fact is that while she was alive we were both very respectful and agreed not to cross that line. 

While we had become close and shared our feelings for each other we weren’t physically intimate until after she had died of cancer.

And even then he didn’t see me for months after her death. It was a very difficult time for all of us.

Our Christmas Eve is meant to make me feel special but it leaves me feeling used and low for the whole of Christmas Day.

It hurts that even though we did the right thing, he still seems ashamed of me.

I’m sorely tempted to tell him to sling his hook this Christmas - what do you think?

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DEIDRE SAYS: This is more likely to be about his own sense of guilt towards his wife but also his daughters, than shame.

I can hear that Christmas Day is really really important to you and understandably after 13 years together, you’re smarting at the thought of spending another one alone.

Let him know how lonely and rejected this situation leaves you feeling and let him know the situation is so bruising you’re considering leaving the relationship.

Hopefully, once he appreciates the depth of your feelings he will reconsider.

Together you should be able to work out how you can reassure his children that you were both respectful of their late mother.

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