His Thrills, Your Sleepless Nights?
Watching your man throw himself out of a plane, race around a track at 260km/h on his motorbike or balance precariously off a rock face is probably not how you – or most women – envisage spending every weekend. Not only does his pursuit of a dangerous sport eat into your precious downtime together but you also have to live with the constant fear that your man may break a limb or his neck – or both. You need to decide whether you can live with his death wish or whether it’s likely to kill you.
Fatal Attraction
Four years ago, shortly after Belinda, 35, a sales and advertising manager in Florida, met her boyfriend, Allan, he was introduced to high-altitude mountaineering. ‘Allan was hooked straight away,’ she says. This year he spent six weeks scaling summits in Ecuador. For those six weeks I lived in HB88 constant fear that he was going to die. I couldn’t sleep properly because I kept waiting for the phone to ring. Every morning I’d have to get up and go to work but it was so difficult to concentrate – I couldn’t stop wondering whether he’d fallen and injured himself : worse, died.
You start thinking about what you’ll do when he dies, what you’ll tell his family and friends, and what will happen at his funeral. Every time I say goodbye to him at the airport I never know whether it’s the last time I’m going to see him. The only way I can control my fear is by training with him to make sure he’s prepared. We argue a lot when I feel he hasn’t trained enough and isn’t taking his next challenge seriously enough. We also argue when he says he wants to tackle every single peak during his next expedition.
