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 Good88hcm 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.

It freaks me out that although he tells me how scared he gets, it doesn’t stop him doing it. He’s a strong man and he will keep on pushing past the limits, and that’s what kills people – when their heads push them past the reality of the situation.