Dad has fallen for daughter's best pal.

Q THIS will sound ridiculous, but I think I am in love with a friend of my daughter.

I am in my mid-forties and divorced. I have had a couple of affairs since the split, but nothing like this.

My daughter is at college and brought this girl round at Christmas. We instantly hit it off and when my daughter left to see her mother, her friend went home but then came back two days later.

Since then we have been inseparable, sex is fantastic and we can't get enough of one another.

She is 20 and has no family to fall back on. Her parents live and work abroad and she hardly sees them. I don't know how either of us is going to cope when she has to go back to college, and how am I going to tell my daughter? I don't want this to cause a rift between us.

Alan from Leamington Spa

A THIS relationship is fraught with problems, not least your own daughter's reactions. She won't be disgusted, but she might be hurt at not being in on the relationship from the start. She might also begin to see you in a new light - which could be good or bad news! It will also make her re-evaluate her friendship with your lover - in a strange way there could be some jealousy at sharing her father with her best mate.

I think you need to take a breather from this girl. Let her go back to college and give her a week or two without you to discover whether or not she is in love with you - or whether the attractions of an older man, and the inevitable 'father figure' have worn thin.

Once she is with her peers she may see it all as some kind of romantic idyll, or wild sexual fling, and nothing more.

Try not to make a fool of yourself by demanding her time if she doesn't want to give it - she has work to do and a life to lead away from you and you must respect that.

It must have been flattering to bed a young, attractive girl and that has no doubt done your ego a lot of good.

If your young lover wants to continue, then the two of you must talk seriously about how to break it to your daughter.