BEL MOONEY: How could he be so cruel after I found his lost son?

Dear Bel

I have a ‘boyfriend’ whom I met eight years ago. In many ways he is kind, attentive and reliable. It’s nice to have someone to go out with for meals, events etc. We’re both in our 60s and get on well. 

From the start I knew he had a son whom he hadn’t seen for over 35 years — mainly due to a manipulative ex. I knew it bothered him so decided to try to find this man. 

After many hours on the internet, countless phone calls and a bit of cash, amazingly, I found him. My friend was delighted, contacted his son and arranged a meeting. We met him and his own young son for a meal, but his wife had an appointment so couldn’t be there. 

It was a lovely day — lots of talking was done. Three weeks later another meet-up was arranged, this time with the wife. When I said that was good as I wanted to meet her, the reply was: ‘No, we’ll leave it as it is for now.’ 

So he went alone. Bewildered, I asked why, but he clammed up. 

They’ve met many times since but I’m never invited. He spent Christmas Day and New Year with them while I was at home on my own. I don’t like it but he won’t budge. 

My best female friend says I should end the relationship, as this treatment is unacceptable, even though in other ways he’s good to me. I wonder what your take is on this? 

I do feel I worked hard to find his son, and a grandson he didn’t know he had, and now they’re off playing happy families, but I’m not included. It hurts.

What would you advise?

MAUREEN

Having tried so hard, it’s understandable you feel hurt; most people in your situation would, too. You had a wonderful idea — to restore your ‘boyfriend’s’ lost son to him after three decades — and worked to bring it about. Now it’s happened, you feel rejected. 

It’s easy to see why your friend advises you to call time on the relationship because, as you describe it, your chap has treated you with extreme discourtesy. After eight years you undoubtedly deserve an explanation as well as apprec­iation and kindness. 

So why is he behaving in this way? Why exclude you? Perhaps his son had memories of his own mother and the acrimonious end to that marriage, and somehow your presence upset him. 

Yes, he may be an adult, but in my experience some adults never grow up. Perhaps he said something to that effect on the telephone, making your chap think it best if he didn’t meet you again — at least for a while. 

Or perhaps the little boy said something about a granny (meaning you, when you’re not his grandmother) and that was not acceptable to his father. There could be many hidden layers. 

It’s obvious you and this chap are not committed to each other but have hitherto enjoyed a fairly casual, companionable relationship. It could be he has a long-term distrust of commitment, dating back to the marriage which ended very badly, and is now afraid of the very ‘happy families’ scenario of which you feel envious. 

Maybe he feels insecure in the way he is forging this new family relationship, still feels awkward in his son’s company, and doesn’t want you to witness it. It could even be that these recent events have awakened a deep-seated guilt at the way he ‘allowed’ his son to be ‘lost’. 

It’s all very well blaming a ‘manipulative ex’, but some fathers work ceaselessly for years to ensure they do not lose contact with their children. 

Please don’t think I’m making excuses for him, because I do think he is being mean-spirited not to include you and (worse) not to give you the respect of a conversation about it. I’d rather like him to see this page and realise how much he has hurt you. 

Should you break it off? Not yet, I’d say. Give him the chance to get used to the new situation.

Dear Bel

My concern is perhaps unusual as it’s not for myself, nor a member of my family, nor a friend. 

It’s for the person who is currently headline news and appears on the front page of every news­paper. 

He appears to be ridiculed by everyone — the laughing stock of almost the entire world — and seems to dig himself a deeper hole every day. 

Having been in a similar situation myself, but only with my family, am I the only one to show concern for his welfare and his mental ability to ride out the storm against him? 

The pressure must be enormous, overwhelming and possibly life-threatening. 

I remember the late TV presenter Caroline Flack and what happened to her when the pressure of being ostracised became too great. 

Heaven forbid that we should be wringing our hands in grief if the same fate should befall him. Do you agree? 

ALISON

Alison, I’m so glad you wrote this letter, which shows such compassion for the Duke of Sussex because, of course, you are far from being the only one to express such concerns. 

Rightly worried about Harry’s mental health (a subject which never seems to lose its fascination for him), you are concerned that the current ‘pressure’ could prove to be too much. 

Certainly, when I watched the first part of his TV interview with Tom Bradby I felt similar concerns, largely because I care about the monarchy, love the King and Queen, and also met Harry twice when he was about ten. 

When he married his beautiful bride, I rather adored him. But as Bradby’s very gentle interview continued, my compassion turned to despair. I segued from ‘Oh, poor little lad’ to ‘Oh, shut up, churlish prince’. No wonder he and his wife divide opinion. 

I’m currently reading a brilliant book called The Body Keeps The Score by psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, subtitled ‘Mind, Brain And Body In The Transformation Of Trauma’. 

The word ‘trauma’ is often used to describe the effect on Harry of hearing of his mother’s death, and having to walk behind her coffin on that terrible day. But it’s also a word that’s often misused — turned into a cliche, which belies its seriousness. 

Care is necessary, since the word can describe many different states of response to varied events, from war to a motorway pile-up. For instance, van der Kolk mentions a disturbed girl in a clinic who ‘at the age of five, had seen her mother [a prostitute] raped, dismembered, burned and put into the trunk of a car. The mother’s pimp was suspected of sexually abusing the girl’. 

Surely some perspective is needed. To be frank, I pity the millions of children worldwide who are reported every year as victims of child abuse, far more than even a sad little boy bewildered by grief. I worry about a reader’s son who is currently threatening suicide rather more than about the ‘ridiculed’ figure you describe. 

After all, the public attention you so kindly bewail has assiduously, greedily, been pursued by Harry and his wife, who live a life of unimagin­able privilege and — we hope and trust, for their sakes — great happiness. 

We should ask, with van der Kolk: ‘How do horrific experiences cause people to become hopelessly stuck in the past? What happens in people’s minds and brains that keeps them frozen, trapped in a place they desperately wish to escape?’ 

His book contains far too much clinical analysis to summarise here, but I think you’d agree with me that Harry does indeed now seem to be more trapped within his flawed memories and locked-in resentment than ever he was as a courageous Army officer, and then the brilliant, dedicated founder of the Invictus Games. 

Yet I was heartened to read this in the book: ‘Our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring wellbeing.’ Isn’t there hope there to reassure you? Of course, it depends on Harry’s willingness to be ‘healed’ rather than create a career out of resentment and misery. 

To maintain contemplative silence in front of the finest scented candles the Californian ‘wellness’ industry can provide, instead of spouting more and more of his very own, very noisy ‘truth’ — because, in another quotation from van der Kolk: ‘The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves’. 

I wish Harry would apologise, as he demands an apology. Forgive, just as he expects his father to forgive him, in spite of all his vitriol. Realise that, without his family (flawed as it might be), he is nothing at all. 

Prince Harry will certainly never know what true wellbeing is unless he actively works to ‘restore relationships’ — even after taking his flamethrower to them. Until he displays the kindness he and so many others pontificate about. But you and I better not lose sleep over that, as it will require much time and intent. 

Freud wrote: ‘Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.’ And those who admire Harry may think that by flexing his muscles in public he has shown that strength. But, of course, it’s only abject weakness that we’ve witnessed in his interviews. 

What’s desperately needed now is a miraculously rational decision by Harry to stop making himself his own victim, ditch the therapy and focus on the good new life he is capable of living. I’d say a prayer for that outcome. 

AND FINALLY… Don’t give up – dreams do come true 

Once upon a time (as the fairy tales begin) my ex-husband and I were invited to lunch with a couple we had met through friends. 

Hearing they had a daughter of ten or 11, I took along my recently published novel, The Stove Haunting, for her. 

She and I talked and talked, and to be honest, I was more interested in the child than in the adults at the smart lunch! She told me she dreamed of being a writer… 

So many people say that. So many hopes, expectations, disappointments. I sent little Christina a card with a kite on it, by way of encouragement, telling her to fly. 

Years passed, her parents became friends and so it was that, after the end of my marriage, I was invited to her 2004 wedding to a handsome American. Off she went to live in the States. 

And that might have been the end of the story, had she not made contact a decade later to say she’d been back, sorting out her old room at her parents, found the little card with the kite and was determined to become a children’s author. 

She visited — and the crossgenerational friendship was resumed across the miles. 

The lovely, gentle mother-of-two experienced setback after setback, rejection after rejection, but her experience as a teacher made her determined one day to succeed and write the story she knew was inside her. She refused to give up. 

So can you imagine how thrilled I was, last October, to received a book from the States with an inscription that made me cry. 

The book was Wildoak by C. C. Harrington, published to massive acclaim in the States and just out here. When I finished reading it I shouted aloud: ‘You did it, my girl!’ 

I’m as proud of this wonderful, magical novel about a snow leopard, a girl with a stutter, a threat to a wild wood and the interconnectedness of all things — as if I’d written it myself. That little girl flew high.