My new boyfriend’s house is a shrine to his ex-wife 

Dear Bel,

I want an honest opinion on something causing me some anxiety. Six years ago I lost my husband after 43 years of marriage. I threw myself into creating a new life, joining various clubs and societies and spending time with family and friends.

I thought that would be the pattern for the rest of my life, but in the past few months I began thinking about how much I missed male company and a one-to-one relationship. Also the physical side of a relationship.

I decided to give online dating a try. Within weeks I met a lovely man who had lost his wife of many years. We hit it off from the start and very quickly we were seeing each other almost every day and soon became intimate.

For genuine reasons he can’t stay at my house so if we want to spend the night together it has to be at his house. We go out regularly, I have met his family and friends and have lots in common.

The problem is that his house is like a shrine to his wife. Every room (apart from the room we sleep in) is full of photographs of her.

Either alone, or together or with their children who are both now married. We sit eating breakfast facing an array of them. He takes flowers to her grave every week without fail.

Only months into the relationship is it too early for me to say that these photographs bother me? I sometimes wonder if, due to the obvious strength of his feelings for her, there is any room in his life for me.

It’s six years since we both lost our partners and I loved my husband dearly but I don’t feel the need to cover every surface with his photographs. Am I being unreasonable?

Vanessa 

Every expert on grief discusses the stages of mourning (denial, anger, and so on), but while it’s true that the way people respond to bereavement does indeed shift and change in recognisable patterns, there are no rules here.

It should be obvious that since we are all so different, men and women will respond to the loss of a beloved person in different ways and at different rates. Yet you are judging this man you are fond of by your own standards.

You ask for an ‘honest opinion’ as to whether you are being unreasonable, and my answer is ‘Yes.’ Although, as I often point out, ‘reason’ has precious little to do with matters of the heart.

Now if this chap were to write to me in turn, asking, ‘Is it unfair of me to expect my new lady friend to be happy sitting among so many pictures of my late wife?’, my straight answer to him would also be ‘Yes.’

The only way through is for both of you to realise that there is no right and wrong in such matters, and to understand that moving forward with any relationship at any time depends on considering the other person’s wants and needs. Which may not coincide with your own!

You have both been bereaved for six years and — both having decided it was time to try to find love again — been lucky to have found somebody you have so much in common with.

The future could be wonderful and I rejoice at that prospect — especially as you sound so determined, positive and energetic. (I love someone who can write, ‘I threw myself into making a new life…’) But the truth is, after such a relatively short time, you have no right to dictate what he does or does not have in his home.

The fact that you personally don’t ‘feel the need’ to be surrounded by pictures of your late husband has no bearing on this man’s delight in visible memories of his wife.

As time passes I hope he will be sensitive enough to realise that you seeing all these images each time is perhaps an obstruction to relaxation.

He might put a few in a drawer, feeling guilty as he does, knowing that his feelings of grief have already settled and he must look ahead. When will that happen? Well, if you continue to be happy and enjoy life together, it will probably happen soon. But if you show you resent the photographs I doubt it will happen at all.

If I were you I would encourage him to talk about his late wife as much as possible, I’d look at all the photographs, admire them, and then reach the point when you ask — very gently — if one week you might go with him when he takes flowers to her grave. If he asks why, the answer can only be that you are so fond of him you want to share all aspects of his life.

He might feel conscience-stricken at finding new happiness when his wife his dead. In that case you must tell him that our beloved dead want nothing more than that we live life to the full, for their sake.

Tell him it is obvious that his dear wife taught him how to love, as your late husband did you — and that’s wonderful.

Of course there is ‘room’ for you — because the heart is infinitely expandable, if it is nurtured, not pressured.

I dread spending weekends alone

Dear Bel

I am sure I am only one of many thousands who dread the weekends. I am retired, with my family several hundred miles away.

Various friends have either died, have dementia, or other ill health problems or are busy with their own families.

On a limited income, I have a couple of health issues and spend each weekend just sitting and feeling sorry for myself, completely lacking motivation.

Any advice on how to kick-start myself at the weekends would be most welcome. The rest of the week I am (on the whole) fine.

Please help, it’s really horrible feeling this way every weekend without knowing what to do to feel better. I really do hate myself for seemingly being unable to do anything about it and feel such an idiot reacting the way I do!

Marion

Last week in And Finally I talked about the TV programme The Undateables and raised the issue of people needing to learn to be alone.

One reader, JS, took issue with me — and her email is relevant:

‘I would like you to put yourself in my shoes. I am a gregarious, mostly-happy lady of 73 who absolutely hates being on my own for long.

‘But life has thrown me the short straw and I have spent a good few years alone, even after trying everything you have suggested: clubs, internet dating, voluntary work . . . you name it, I’ve done it. But nothing has worked and there have always been more women than men . . .

‘It was only when I got to 60, with a broken marriage that I started to feel the awful pain that comes with loneliness. I have just spent the last three days not speaking to a soul, no knocks on the door or phone calls . . . my boys don’t bother very often . . . and they live a long way away. Where I live is so unfriendly that I wouldn’t dare to knock on someone’s door, as I know I wouldn’t be invited in. I think I am beginning to give up now, and accept the fact that unless I keep making the effort, nobody is going to be bothered.’

I’m grateful to JS but hope she didn’t think I was saying it’s just hunky-dory to be alone. This is what I wrote: ‘Sometimes the first step on the path to relating to others is (strangely) to decide you like being alone and want truly to know yourself.’ I was thinking of self-sufficiency and self-knowledge being attractive to others — but I do admit my words could sound insensitive and sincerely apologise for that.

And it is precisely because I’m aware of how many people are tormented by loneliness that I’ve chosen your letter, Marion. You don’t use the word but I imagine that’s why your weekends are so dire.

Years ago in this column I suggested to a certain lonely lady that she try going to one of her local churches, but you’d have thought I’d suggested she sell drugs on the High Street, so indignant was her email back. ‘I’d never do such a thing’ she snapped – and I wondered why, when so many church communities offer coffee mornings and other social events.

Does it matter if you believe in God? Not really; most Christian churches welcome you, doubts and all. But you see, I had the distinct impression that the cross lonely lady didn’t really want help. She wanted to sit in her room complaining — whereas I’d try anything, just to see whom I might meet.

But JS has indeed tried many ways of meeting people. Yet one problem arises when the underlying motivation is romance, because then, when love remains elusive, people can quickly become very sad and disillusioned and just give up. On the other hand, if companionship is what you want, then an imbalance in the sexes would not matter, would it?

You say you ‘hate yourself’ and ‘feel such an idiot’ but it’s time to give yourself a break. Make a plan to do one new thing each weekend – and for that you MUST find out what is going on locally.

The Ramblers’ Association, dog-walking, volunteering, driving the elderly, church activities, line dancing, picking up debris from beaches, mindfulness groups, a book club . . . I’m just listing things off the top of my head because I don’t know where you live.

I can’t motivate you, other than to remind you that this life you have is very precious and you must use it well. Moping is not the answer — and you acknowledging that is the first important kick-start.

And finally… Never let a chance to talk pass by

One of the interesting ‘extras’ of a job like mine is meeting people. I’d be fibbing if I said this is always welcome. Sometimes (especially when tired, with pressing deadlines) you don’t actually want to catch a couple of trains and take an (unpaid) day out, speaking to strangers. Yet I never fail to feel the better for it.

So Wednesday found me in Exeter — the lunch-time speaker at an English-Speaking Union fundraising event.

Are you asking what the ESU is? When the invitation first came last year I didn’t know either. And there’s the first benefit — finding out what wonderful things go on without you ever hearing about them.

For in that room was a large gathering of interested, mostly-older people who care so deeply about encouraging confidence and articulacy in the young that they join the ESU — a global educational charity founded after the horrors of World War I.

The purpose (or should I say, ideal) was improved communication — because the more people engage with each other in dialogue, the more chance there is of peaceful co-existence. Always.

Their work is ‘enabling young people to find their voice.’ Speaking and debating activities are sponsored in schools across the UK (the head teachers have to be keen, of course), and there are international exchange programmes, scholarships and internships — with the aim of getting the young to think, stand up and express ideas in good, clear English. As someone who loved debating at school I can only say — how brilliant!

It was so easy to talk about my career and this column for 40 minutes, then take questions, because the aims of the ESU chime with my own philosophy. I said: ‘As an advice columnist I remind readers to talk, talk, talk — for surely all of us are trying to promote understanding of the human heart, mind and spirit.’

Anyway, my reward for that day was to be reminded, yet again, that the world is full of decent, intelligent people who really care.