BEL MOONEY: Will I get over this longing for my lost love?

Dear Bel,

I’m 40, have never married, have no children and have been in and out of relationships all my life.

With a good job and my own home, I should be quite content. But I feel lost. That I failed myself because I never married.

Recently I ended a relationship with a man who was married when we met. He had no plans to leave his wife; I told myself I didn’t mind. Then he discovered his wife’s affair and, despite his efforts to keep the marriage together, they split up.

He continued to see me and I was thrilled. He was generous and made me feel loved and wanted. He spoke about our future and I fell deeper in love.

Then he started to become a little distant, mentioned love less, called and texted less and, eventually, told me he’d simply fallen out of love.

Ever the pleaser, I did everything to try to make it better — to make him love me again. He became more distant, giving excuses as to why he couldn’t see me, text or call. So I ended it, but I’m gutted and want him back!

I sit at home, checking the phone for a text or email. I can’t stop obsessing.

Our love was so intense I can’t understand how he could walk away with such ease. He called me his ‘soulmate’ and I believed him.

Now he’s gone, saying our relationship ran its course, but he still calls me his soul mate. Doesn’t the word convey trust and friendship?

I don’t feel valued unless there’s a man in my life to give me value and I don’t feel attractive unless a man tells me so.

I’m thinking of changing my job and joined online dating sites, but I’m treading water in the hope he’ll realise what he’s lost and declare his love.

I don’t have any close friends and see my family infrequently, so I sit at home feeling sorry for myself. How do I move on and feel positive again?

LUCY

There is an ancient Irish lament which begins, ‘He is my love, O he is my love — the man who is most for destroying me.’

You stand in an interminably long line of women who became the victims of men who cast them off — and (for that matter) of men treated cruelly by the women of their dreams. This is the human condition, isn’t it?

So many people reading this page will know exactly how you feel. There’s no remedy for lost love except time.

In the meantime, you have to reframe your life right now. I reckon those dating sites are a mistake at this point; it’s far more important for you to tackle the misconceptions of the woman who believes she has to have a man to validate her life.

You need to look back and re-examine all those passing relationships — why were they brief? What seemed to be the reason for them ending? Perhaps you presented yourself as a too-needy female who wrote herself the script of a second-class citizen. Many men quickly become impatient by what amounts to subservience.

In your longer letter, you describe how when the man’s marriage was breaking up he actually asked you for advice on how to keep his wife and you gave it!

We could admire your disinterested generosity — or we could shout, ‘it’s time to get up off your knees woman!’ How will a man ever value you if you attach so little value to yourself?

You’re sitting at home waiting for him to make contact, like generations of hapless girls who wept while waiting for the phone to ring. But you are not a girl. You don’t bother with friends of family, so desperate are you for a crumb from this man’s table.

Well, now it’s time to dry your eyes, brush teeth and hair, put on some make-up and see what you can make of the rest of your life by walking decisively towards it.

I don’t mean the sad business of hoping a picture of your eager face online attracts some random bloke. I’m talking about doing things, making new friends, reconnecting with old friends, becoming interested in family members you’ve neglected. Learn something new.

Think of yourself as a work in progress who needs nobody to please but your determined self.

Sibling rivalry is tearing me apart 

Dear Bel,

My husband and I have been happily married for 50 years. We have a daughter, 52, and a son three years younger. Both have two children who we love very much.

Our daughter and family live 45 miles away; our son is only 15 minutes away.

Our daughter was always more attention-seeking from the day she was born, but we seemed to successfully manage her difficult moments over the years.

Her jealousy was revealed when her baby daughter wasn’t asked to be involved in her brother’s marriage ceremony.

As Grandma, I carried his baby son into the ceremony. Our daughter was angry that he and I hadn’t thought about involving her baby. She said she wouldn’t come and her brother said he wouldn’t send an invitation if she was going to spoil the day.

She didn’t speak to any of us for almost a year.

Eventually, she got in touch but on a stepping-on-eggshell footing — jealous of every time I mentioned we’d seen our son and family. This feud has gone on for 12 years.

Sister and brother have not spoken, although our son has tried to have a reconciliation, if only so that the cousins could meet.

Her insane jealousy came to a head again last Christmas and New Year when our son and family asked us to join them on several occasions. Because our daughter had been so distant last year, we accepted his invitations.

At New Year she phoned angrily, insanely jealous that we had seen him.

She said she’d been monitoring my Facebook page and noted all the times we’d seen our son and that we didn’t care about her.

She swore at me, hung up the phone and I haven’t heard from her since.

We love our children and grandchildren and long for our remaining years to be harmonious. This situation is making us distraught, anxious and ill.

MAGGIE

Sibling jealousy is a family complication many parents will recognise. In small children tension can arise over something as relatively simple as sharing toys or as agonising as the preference parents have for one child.

Let me be honest here: looking back I know I was my parents’ favourite child, and that it had dire consequences for my late brother.

No parent likes to admit to favouritism, yet it is real. Looking at the relative ages of your adult children it seems likely that the unhappy present has its roots in the arrival of that baby boy when the girl was three — horribly aware that she had been ‘displaced’ and so screaming for attention from parents whose fond gaze was now directed elsewhere.

It’s interesting that memory makes you write, ‘Our daughter was always more attention-seeking from the day she was born’ — when, of course, no new born child can be accused of ‘attention-seeking’.

They need feeding, sleep, stimulation and cuddles, and to sum that up with the pejorative ‘attention-seeking’ feels very wrong indeed. Yet I don’t think you meant it that way and perhaps that is at the heart of the problem. This is not about attaching blame to the long-ago past.

Your unhappiness at this rift within the family is painful and worthy of compassion. But don’t we all owe it to ourselves to be honest about the past we cannot change?

You present your three-year-old daughter as a ‘difficult’ child, prone to ‘tantrums’ who had to be ‘managed’. Where did that insecurity come from? How did the jealous three-year-old, understandably resenting the new baby brother, turn into the neurotic adult reduced to stalking her elderly mother’s Facebook feed for family moments she did not share?

Looking back to your son’s wedding, it seems to me your daughter had some grounds to be upset — and that he handled her disappointment less than well.

It’s too late, but I believe it might now be useful for you to identify times when your daughter might have been comforted with understanding and more kindness.

After all, she is still the angry three year old stamping her foot and throwing toys around, just to regain and retain her parents’ attention. She was sad then — and I’m sure she’s even sadder now. The person she is really hurting by her behaviour is herself.

Yes, it’s inexcusable for her to instruct you not to see your son and to swear at you on the telephone but, in your place, I would just continue to keep in touch.

I’d post pictures of dogs, kittens and flowers on Facebook (they cheer everybody up!), swallow your hurt and indignation at her abuse and try to build a bridge. Can you invite yourself to hers for a Sunday lunch? Or invite the four grandchildren for a sleepover at yours — exhausting but hopefully doable?

You have become the passive victim in this family rift. Some sort of conscious action on your part might restore harmony. All you can do is try.

And finally… My positive force for a life change

It is so important to share positives — so much needed in these testing times. I hope this email from P will encourage those of you who fear making a change in your life:

‘Dear Bel, I wrote to you more than ten years ago about my marriage and my husband’s behaviour.

‘I then wrote again to ask you not to publish, because I was scared of the consequences if anyone recognised it was me. You replied with a very kind message and some advice.

‘I kept your message for a long time, for I was in a situation where just a little kindness made a huge difference.

‘I finally left my marriage in May 2018 and I get happier every day, with sweet pets and a peaceful home. You may have guessed my ex-husband was violent and controlling. It has only recently sunk in just how awful he was.

‘Amazingly, I was always worrying about him: he’d drink and drive, take drugs etc. Then one day, I read yet another newspaper story about a husband who had arrived home after taking cocaine and killed his wife and my mind changed, realising I should look after myself.

I sneakily rented a house 200 miles away and then left him a month later.

My life is now lovely, I feel as if I’ve another 50 years to enjoy. I have a good job and good friends and I’m telling you all this for two reasons.

‘One, I often see people writing to you with similar problems but they think they are too old to change. And, secondly, I have never forgotten your kindness to me.’

P’s story is uplifting and important and I’m grateful to her for sharing it. As I wrote last week, we all need to encourage each other.

Leaving a relationship (or a job) can be so daunting, yet P reminds us that it can be done, creating a better life as a result.

As for ‘kindness’ — yes, you never know how precious just a few words can be.