15 JUNE 2002, Page 63

Q. My husband needs to be in London for his

work at least two nights of every week, so we have bought a flat there. I often come up and stay with him, but equally often I can't because I have children and things to organise at home. My problem is that there is an extremely tempting single woman living directly across the landing from us in our new apartment block. She is very beautiful and 39 years old. She has already been very friendly to us both, and I am worried that she will be so friendly to my husband, once he is alone, that he may confuse her with me — he gets very tired at the end of the day — and end up in bed with her. The next thing we know, he will have been sperm-napped. I know how these things work, and I regard it as a real threat. How can I keep their inevitable friendship on a purely platonic level?

Name and address withheld