And before she packs up all her furniture and trundles off to Heathrow, she should at least re-read her old diaries, if she kept them. Sometimes it's salutary to remember the bad times as well as the good.READERS' SUGGESTIONSSacrifices will be neededAlex must ask her ex-husband if "not having sex" means he doesn't want to share a bed and enjoy cuddles and mutual stimulation. Around the time of our ruby wedding we abandoned penetrative sex but still both enjoy orgasms - not always on the same occasion - and the thrill of pleasuring each other.But if he is worried that sexual activity will affect his heart, Alex must accept that his health concerns are likely to invade other areas of life; that she will have to make sacrifices, and that feelings of inadequacy in a formerly dominating man may make him difficult to live with.A "younger lover" would not help the situation."DARBY AND JOAN"SurreyAre you bent on revenge?First, you should resist being fooled into thinking that your husband's personality has been transformed by his heart attack - he is still the same man whom you divorced for belittling you.You would be wise to examine your motivation in renewing the relationship. In doing so, then taking a younger lover behind his back, there may be an element of revenge for the way he treated you when you were married. If you are in love with him in any real and lasting sense, you would relinquish the idea of a sexual relationship and not embark upon a deceitful, and, to the potential younger lover possibly exploitative, affair.MS HEIDI GJERTSENCambridgeA toy-boy is a bad ideaWhat was Alex's sexual relationship with her former husband like before they divorced? And why does she think he would not belittle her now?But there must be some aspects of his character that are still attractive. People are rarely entirely incompatible; Alex is sensible and honest to acknowledge his good points.Sex with another outside a relationship is a minefield. Most people want their sex with the person they love and live with.NAME WITHHELDNext Week's DilemmaDear Virginia,My dear wife died last year and I'm beginning to get over the shock.

She'd begun to accept my transvestism; we spent some evenings both dressed "en femme" and she let me wear a nightie in bed. Now I can dress as much as I want to, and all the time under my male garb, but it's so lonely I can't give it up. I've tried throwing out my wardrobe, but a month later I'll buy a new set. How do I meet a lady who will accept me? And how do I broach the subject? I can't bear to resign myself to being a solitary, sad transvestite.Yours sincerely, PaulAnyone with advice quoted will be sent a bouquet from Send letters and dilemmas to Virginia Ironside, `The Independent', 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL, fax 0171-293 2182; e-mail dilemmas independent.co uk, giving a postal address for a bouquet. Jack Kevorkian has been trying to have himself jailed - jailed or vindicated - for the best part of a decade. Now he is finally behind bars, sentenced this week to a minimum of 10 years for the murder of a terminally ill man who pleaded to be put out of his misery. "No one, sir," the judge told him firmly, but gently, "is above the law." Jack Kevorkian, who has made the "right to die" his personal crusade, smiled through Judge Jessica Cooper's sentencing.

He smiled when she refused bail, smiled when she said that any appeal would be publicly funded, and smiled when the handcuffs were snapped on to his wrists and he was led away. It had been a bizarre encounter: the middle-aged woman judge, the white- haired and frail-looking former pathologist, and the jury of 12 men and women who had been called upon to decide whether he was a saviour or a criminal. I pray that I'll be able to tell him that the participantsagreed 10 years later to have that final taken out of the record books. I believe that is fair.For me, I pray that thoughts of that crowded pen will stop wrenching my guts.I pray that in years to come, my grandson will ask me why there was no FA Cup final in 1989. The justice they want is simple: a fair trial of those responsible for the disaster and for the lies and cover-ups afterwards. They've struggled to come to terms with their loss and the reasons for it.