Innovative and beautiful Milborne St Andrew playing field bench is our virtual meeting place for today's relationships chat, discussion and debate

I snapped this bench while I was watching some Morris dancing during Roger's Rant Folk Festival in Milborne St Andrew, Dorset earlier this year. I thought it was the most beautiful bench I had ever seen so am sharing it with you today as the virtual meeting place for today's weekday chat.

Our topic today is about relationships and comes from a random chat I had on another bench which shall remain nameless for reasons which will shortly become clear (not in Milborne St Andrew).

It was a beautiful sunny day and I was admiring the views at this place I shall not mention and a woman came to sit next to me - so I said hello. Well, it was the least I could do. We began to chat, as you do and somehow the subject turned to fidelity, relationships and how she felt she was committed to her marriage but yearned for romance and excitement.

At this point, I have to confess that I chickened out and made some excuse to be somewhere else. I should mention at this stage that she was a rather attractive looking lady and I am a long term married man.

Should I have stayed? Perhaps for research reasons alone, it could have been justified. Was this idle conversation or had she decided that this respectable looking stranger could have been appropriate for a discreet encounter? Could I have been tempted? She was a musician too and an author. We had much in common.

I shall never know because I departed so swiftly but I am sure that this very ordinary pleasant and attractive lady must be only one of the many who regret the emptiness in their long term relationships but do not want to rock the boat and are struggling to decide what to do.

What do you think the solution is in cases like this? Should I have stayed - for research purposes, of course - or was I right to cut and run? With people living longer these days, are relationships and fidelity for ever?

Tell all - but no names :-)

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott - online author, fascinated by relationships