Dear Philippa,

I feel guilty even writing this (and like it’s a cliché) but I am really struggling in my relationship with my mum and I’m not sure how to improve it.

Subscribe now

I start by saying that I am very lucky. My mum is warm and loving. I know this isn’t the case for so many others which is why I feel like a terrible daughter that I can’t seem to enjoy my relationship and be closer with her.

Mum lives on her own after she and my dad divorced almost 30 years ago (when I was 10). She has never had a partner again and has developed a negative view of all men. She lives 3 and a half hours away so we don’t see each other lots, and every time I see her, the conversation is intense and serious and almost everything leads back to her discussing my dad and how bad he was to her. I haven’t had a close relationship with my dad as a result, but I have always felt uncomfortable listening to all the details from her perspective.

I feel I’ve been mum’s confidante quite a lot growing up- alongside looking after my 2 younger brothers as she worked full time- and I’ve recently had some therapy which has helped me understand the impact this might have had on me (I have struggled with low confidence and self-esteem, despite having a good job/my own kids and a partner).

Although she is sociable and active, she is also quite an anxious person and doesn’t have anyone close to her that she can talk to about things like this after moving to a new area a few years ago. I feel I have to be ready to listen to her every time I see her so she can get it all out to someone, but I quickly struggle and tend to want to go home within a day or two of being around her. She has become increasingly serious and anxious over the last few years. Last time I visited with my 2 young daughters, she gave me the silent treatment and went to her room for a few hours in the afternoon - I think because she got frustrated with my 3 year old’s behaviour - but she’s not able to say this. It’s a pattern of behaviour since I was a child for her to give me the silent treatment and it’s left me feeling confused about what she’s angry/upset about. I also feel she has always judged me more harshly than my two younger brothers, expecting me to ‘get on’ with things and being quite critical when I’ve not done the ‘right’ thing according to her. My own parenting is a source of frustration for her- although she doesn’t say this directly. She’s become more judgmental about others in recent years too- always seeming to interpret others’ actions/conversations in a negative light. I have often tried proposing an alternative version of reality but she can become quite defensive and I don’t think it’s helpful for me to do this- but I find it really hard listening to statements that assume the worst about people without any basis in evidence.

I don’t want to diminish her feelings and I feel like my empathy towards her has grown since having therapy and trying to understand how it must have been for her, but I do wonder whether she’ll ever be able to move on and stop this negative cycle and move on from her marriage to my dad being such a big part of her own narrative.

I know that I can only control my own responses and reactions so should focus on this rather than trying to change her behaviour - but I’m clearly finding this difficult. Is there anything I can I do to improve the situation?

Thank you for your advice.

My Reply

Read more

I’m 30, living in Paris. I was, until about a year ago, in a stable relationship of 6 years. Last October, I met a colleague – he is older than me (50) and already married with two children. It started as a platonic relationship: we sent long-emails to each other, and started to discover we have so much in common. We quickly realised we were falling in love. Although I had hesitations at first, we started a relationship and I left my then boyfriend to be with him. It was never clear, however, if he would do the same with his wife.

Subscribe now

We’ve been dating on and off for a year: mostly week-end get-aways, but also during the week in Paris around lunch or an exhibition. The time we spend together is always great, he makes me laugh and I love that he always find ways to surprise me. It is the first time I experience this type of connection - and the first time I would like to escalade the relationship by sharing a flat, or even having children together. However, since he is married, there are plenty of things we cannot do, as he doesn’t want his family to find out he’s been unfaithful.

I did meet his parents and some of his best friends – his parents don’t know who I am, but his friends do, which gave me hope that some day I could become his « official » partner. At first I was really upset about him staying with his wife, and it has of course been a subject of conflict over the last few months. They don’t share much anymore, and barely speak. She seems a bit unstable: she doesn’t work and spends her time on social media sharing fake news and conspiracy theories.

They’re not in love anymore, but he wants to stay because he feels guilty about his children: they’re 14 and 17, and he feels like being with me would mean abandoning them. He told me he would be willing to leave his wife when his youngest leaves home - but as we live in Paris I’m afraid this won’t be for another 5 years minimum.

I don’t feel able to wait for him that long - and I’m often frustrated that we cannot spend as much time as we’d like together. I’ve tried to move on and break up with him several times, but always end up talking to him again.

I would love to hear your thoughts: what do you think I should do in the short/middle term to deal with this situation ?

Leave a comment

Personally I had a reaction when I read how this man refers to his wife - unstable and addicted to social media - it sounded too much of a cliché, and so somehow I found myself disbelieving that description. But over to you readers, what do you think?

Write to me with any problem, dilemma or question at AskPhilippa@yahoo.com Subject to Terms and Conditions

Dear Philippa

Its hard to explain what I’m afraid of as surely this is something we are all afraid of and will ultimately happen to us all but I worry and fear about death a lot. It started off a couple of nights a week I would be worried about going to sleep. I would be sad about the day finishing and getting older. I’d think about how lucky I am and how hard I have worked for this lovely life. Now the anxiety works its way into every day. Anything good that happens is tinged with anxiety that I’ll loose it all one day. I don’t feel like I’m enjoying this life it feels like I’m grieving the moments I’ll never have again when I die.

I’m not famous or rich. I have a lovely family of my own, a supportive husband two small boys, a house that I own and a job that’s hard but helps people and I get a lot of meaning from that. I’m studying a masters in psychology in my spare time hoping to work towards a career as an educational psychologist. I also volunteer once a week for a charity. I have many hobbies and I love to paint because it connects me to my dad who was an artist. My life is full and wonderful.

It’s not always been this lovely of course. My dad died very suddenly in my mid 20s. It was a terrible shock. I worried for years that every phone call from family would be news of death.

In my 30’s my husband and I tried to get pregnant but nothing was happening. After 7 IVF treatments we finally had a baby but there were miscarriages in-between. The worst of which was a late miscarriage at 18 weeks. This was also a terrible shock and an extremely traumatic time because I had to give birth to a dead baby and it took 12 hours of labour for it to happen. I was diagnosed with PTSD after the event and this really effected my mental health in my following pregnancies which were thankfully successful.

I had a career in TV for 15 years but was made redundant in 2024 which basically felt like a death because I defined myself by my job and I didn’t think I could do anything else with my career. I realised with time away from the industry that my job isn’t who I am anymore and I wasn’t really enjoying it anyway.

I would describe myself as a pretty resilient person despite these traumatic times. I’ve managed to work through these events and turn things around. I worked hard to push through my PTSD to bring my boys into the world. I worked hard to change my career and I work hard to be a good example to my boys like my dad was to me that creativity is a space to be free and express yourself. The blank canvas is an adventure. I am proud of myself.

But now since I’ve turned 40 all these things I love and have worked hard for are tinged with the fact that it will all be gone one day. I don’t know when that will be or how. My husband and my kids dropped me off at the station the other day, I waved and blew a kiss at them through the window and then pulled a funny face and they giggled as my husband drove away. In that moment I felt so happy and then a knot of anxiety formed in my stomach that I will be gone one day. It makes me sad that I can’t live in the present and enjoy life without flashing forward to death.

I have had talking therapy and I’m on my second round of CBT but it still won’t go away. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can work through this? The therapists I’ve worked with all say this is death phobia and one said health anxiety but I don’t avoid people or places. Could it be trauma from these life events? Am I having a midlife crisis since turning 40? Or is it all the same thing? I just don’t know what to work on as nothing feels like it’s helping?

Am I the only one who feels this way?

My Reply

Read more

Dear Philippa,

Subscribe now

Write to me with any problem, dilemma or question at AskPhilippa@yahoo.com Subject to Terms and Conditions

I’m 37, engaged to my partner of ten years, and we have two young children. We have a loving, secure relationship and a genuinely good family life. But a few weeks ago, while on a family holiday, I had an affair with a 25-year-old man, and I now feel as though I have silently set fire to my entire life.

I think I need to go back to the beginning of my relationship to explain why.

When I met my partner, I had just come out of a six-year emotionally abusive relationship. He was the opposite of what I had known before: kind, compassionate, caring and safe. Over the decade we’ve been together, he has helped me rebuild my self-esteem and my life. He is a wonderful father. He fits effortlessly into my family. I love him, but that love feels platonic because I have never found him attractive. I overlooked my lack of desire for him in favour of his other incredible qualities.

There has never been anything erotic about him to me. I don’t like the way he tastes when we kiss or the way his lips feel against mine. He would happily have sex much more frequently, but I have rejected him so often over the years that he largely stopped initiating. We now have sex perhaps once or twice a year, and I generally have to persuade myself into wanting it.

For a long time I grappled with my lack of desire. I wondered whether I had a very low libido, or whether I might be asexual.

More recently I realised that I’m bisexual and began wondering whether I preferred women and that’s why I couldn’t find him arousing. I desperately wanted to explore my bisexual identity with my partner. Not necessarily by opening our relationship, but by being able to talk openly about this part of myself.

When I told him, however, he clammed up. He cried and told me he was frightened I would leave him for a woman. I could see how painful and threatening the subject was for him, and I realised I couldn’t really talk to him about it. So instead I took it to therapy.

Eventually, I made what felt like a conscious adult decision: I would put my sexuality on the shelf. I loved my partner, I loved the family we had created, and this was the compromise I had to make. Shortly after my bisexual disclosure, my partner proposed - after always saying he did not want to get married. I accepted, but I felt sick afterwards. I was not happy about the engagement - I was full of dread. That was around 1 year ago

And then we went on holiday this summer. A man who worked at our camp site began pursuing me. He repeatedly asked me to show him how to play a particular card game. Initially I kept trying to avoid it and wriggle out of arranging a time to do this, but one day he waited almost fifty minutes after the vague time I’d given him, and feeling guilty I taught him.

At first we just played cards but I had a feeling he wanted something more, but I kept a boundary. Over the following days, though, I became extraordinarily attracted to him.

On my final morning at that campsite, he kissed me down by the lake. The chemistry between us was intoxicating. He wanted to go further and I refused.

My family and I moved on to another town, but neither of us could stop thinking about the other. We stayed in contact. He eventually booked a room in the town where my family was camping, and early one morning I pretended to go on a long solo hike so I could to meet him. We slept together. I cringe at myself writing this, but the sex felt life-changing. I experienced a level of desire and chemistry that I didn’t know existed for me. After years of wondering whether I was asexual, it felt revolutionary.

And that realisation has been almost as destabilising as the affair itself. The man told me he loved me. He told me he desired me, talked about wanting to be with me and asked whether I would end my engagement. I developed strong feelings for him too. Since returning to home, we have remained in contact every day, and I want to see him again. But now the holiday intensity is colliding with reality.

I am left in a situation where my partner does not know what has happened. In that sense I have “got away with it”. I could stop texting this man, pretend it never happened and get on with my family life. But it’s making me face head on what I have been ignoring for a long time - I don’t have any sexual desire for my partner.

I am terrified of sacrificing all we’ve built, in pursuit of sexual and romantic desire and discovering that I have made a catastrophic mistake. But I am equally frightened of putting this part of myself back on the shelf, marrying my partner, and waking up ten years from now knowing that I chose safety over something essential in myself.

So my dilemma is this: How do I work out whether this affair is telling me something fundamental about the relationship I am already in, rather than simply intoxicating me with everything a ten-year relationship cannot possibly compete with? And how much should sexual desire matter when so much else is good?

My Reply

This is what you must remember:

The story you write with your life is never just your own.

Your life isn’t just about you and your sexuality. You have two young children and a loving partner, and I think you need to be careful about turning a powerful sexual experience into permission to blow up everyone else’s lives. It is in your power to either have your children happy and secure or devastated and mistrustful. You used the word ‘essential’ about your sexuality. The only thing that is essential, is doing your best for your children, because children do not have much agency over their own lives until they are adults, they depend on you and your partner to create and continue to create a secure loving home for them.

You have discovered something: you are not asexual, and you are capable of intense desire. Fine, but that does not mean the 25-year-old boy is your destiny, nor that every part of yourself has to be acted upon because it feels vivid and exciting. You are comparing ten years of family life, bills, children, tiredness and familiarity with secrecy, risk, pursuit and sex on holiday. Of course the affair feels intoxicating. It’s had none of the boring bits yet.

You worry that in ten years you may regret choosing safety over sexual fulfilment. I would also imagine another ten-year future. How will you feel if your children are angry that you prioritised your sex life over keeping their home together? How will you feel if the affair fizzles out, there are other lovers, your partner eventually rebuilds his life with someone else, and you discover that the thing you threw away was the thing you most miss? Remember you had a six year relationship before your partner, that was probably more exciting, and it was a relationship where you were not valued.

There are other things to consider. It does need facing that you have promised to marry a man you have never desired, even though you were able to overlook that until now, and that you feel sick at the thought of a wedding. But while you face it stop texting the 25 year old boy while you work out what how to go forward. You cannot think clearly while you continue to feed your addiction to the boy.

Happiness can be boring. Family life can be repetitive. Long-term love does not always make you feel electrified. Deal with that before deciding that electricity is the same thing as truth.

You ask how much does sexual desire matter when so much else is good? My answer, based on my long term experience as a therapist and an agony aunt, not as much as you seem to think it might. And, nothing seems to cause so much long term misery as short term sexual urge to betray a valued partner that is acted upon. We don’t stop fancying people just because we are in a committed relationship, but for the safety of the children and because we don’t want to hurt our partner, we can leave fancying someone else as a fantasy, not as an instruction to be acted upon.

A lot of things fuel our sexual desires, and something being forbidden, clandestine and, well, naughty, is a strong aphrodisiac, just as familiarity, and routine are passion killers. Recommended read, Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel.

Also read a couple of my old posts: The Anatomy of an affair and The Affair was Intense, The Fallout was Real

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Dear Philippa

When people talk about ‘one-sided friendships’ they usually mean that one person is hogging the need for support.... But my problem is the opposite.

I met this friend several years ago on a course. We didn’t bond at the time and we lost touch. It was only a couple of years ago after a chance meeting that we re-connected, at her invitation.

The problem is this: we’ve begun seeing each other four or five times a year or so. These meet-ups with her are not heaps of fun - they’re pleasant, but not more than that. She’s simply not that much fun. In some ways, I feel quite inauthentic around her, and I hate that. I mind my Ps & Qs, don’t say ‘f**k, as if I’m in the presence of the headmistress. She has a strong Christian faith; I’ve recently (and in a peaceful, curious and untroubling way) lost mine.

However, over the last 2 years I’ve been hit by losses: three deaths of people who were very close to me and some serious health issues of my own, meaning I can no longer work nor drive. I’ve probably over-used her listening ear but at the same time find myself really resenting her constant benevolent attitude. This friend has (her words) “been there for me on my journey”.

I don’t know why this gets under my skin so much. She never shares her own vulnerabilities (and I noticed this on the course where we initially met). We have so little in common - her life has been steady, mines far more up and down and we’re from different generations. Not that I don’t have good friends from every generation but it’s another difference.

How do I cool this inauthentic friendship? Why does she want it? She must see the imbalance? I’ve recently started pushing back on her desire to help me with lifts etc, and I’ve requested shorter visits, but I find her a really powerful presence and difficult to stand up to.

I don’t want to be one of her waifs and strays. I want reciprocal, vulnerability-sharing - and fun! - friendships. How do I disentangle, without hurting her horribly?

Leave a comment

Share

Over to you readers…

Hi Philippa

I am a single person in my late forties, my sisters both have families with now teenage children. Some of them still live at home. I used to have a lovely relationship with one of my nieces in particular, but over time that has changed, and now she cannot even say hello without a prompt, let alone stopping to have a conversation, even though I may not have seen her for months on end. This hurts and upsets me, even more so as my sisters don’t appear to even notice this behaviour, or they take it as normal. I blame my sister for spoiling her, and in fact my sisters never encourage any of their children to say hello and have a conversation, although some are more forthcoming than others. As a close relative I would have really wanted a bit more. What’s the best way to handle this?

My Reply

Read more

Sometimes we go over the same problem, the same stuff again, and again, and we don’t really want to do anything about it, except perhaps change other people who are unlikely to change, so we get stuck in the same waterfall of words and feelings time and time again and when we tell it time and time again. It is only for our benefit as we are not really communicating with anyone else. In the psychotherapy trade it is sometimes called waterfalling.

I think the following is something of a waterfall. I received this when I wrote for the Guardian website, this email was thought to be unpublishable as the writer is not asking me a question as such, she’s probably hoping for a miracle. Hoping is what we do when we can’t face and work through our grief. If she followed me from the Guardian website to Substack she’ll get her answer.

I don’t know whether the fate of the writer was due to the consequences of her behaviour, or she was a victim of false allegations, either way, you can feel her sadness and suffering in this unedited email:

Her letter

“I’m still heartbroken at 58yo that my only child who is 29yo now has no contact with me. I seriously thought one day he would remember how much we loved each other and realize he was “taught” to be averse to me. I’m realizing he likely never will see…

Read more

I really hope you can help, as I’m struggling to move on from what I now believe was an unhealthy relationship.

I was with someone for five years and we are both in our late 40s. We met during Covid and, after only three months, he was talking about us selling our Edinburgh homes and creating a life together in the Highlands, while keeping a base in the city for work. I was slightly unsettled by the speed, but I loved him and hoped for the best.

After our second Christmas together, during which he had Covid and was behaving terribly – something my family witnessed – we disagreed about several things. He then told me he no longer wanted me to move in with him. By this point, I had accepted an amazing offer on my flat and was an month away from selling. He had made no moves to sell his house.

I was devastated, but because I loved him, I accepted it and went into overdrive trying to find a rented home for myself and my dog. Meanwhile, he continued looking for somewhere in the Highlands and eventually bought a place. I moved into a rental in Edinburgh, coincidentally only minutes from him.

From then on, a pattern emerged. When he was stressed with work or renovating the his Highlands place, he became critical, belittling and putting me down, both privately and in front of my friends and family. He was obsessed with how much I was contributing to the second home, despite the fact that I was now paying almost double my previous mortgage in rent and struggling financially as a freelancer, while he was very affluent.

Small things became power struggles. I was told to take cold showers because he did. Even putting the kettle on could become an issue. When I asked to leave a light on for my dog, he replied, “If you were paying the bills, then yes, but you’re not, so no.” He would mansplain DIY tasks when I tried to help, yet then began staying at my flat four nights a week without any discussion about it.

I travelled to the Highlands place as much as I could between work and searching for a new home, but I was constantly told I didn’t come or contribute enough. When I asked whether we could spend just one weekend a month together in town, he said, “You knew I was buying this place,” and gave me a hard no. Yet during the week, we barely saw each other because he was always too tired or stressed.

Eventually, I became exhausted by the criticism and the lack of autonomy and began retreating into myself. I focused on trying to buy another home and regain some financial stability. But the occasional affection and connection he gave me kept me hooked for another three years.

Last year, after another period of him pulling away because of work, I finally broke. I had been asking for more connection and some commitment to our future, only to be met with anger, deflection, or comments such as, “Why are you ruining a lovely lunch?” After a week or two of barely speaking, during which he said he needed “space”, I ended the relationship when he finally called. I was exhausted, hurt and no longer recognised myself.

Over the following six months, he contacted me wanting to talk and reconcile, but nothing in his messages suggested any real reflection or regret. He said he had experienced a breakdown at work and “hadn’t been himself”. When we eventually met, he told me I wouldn’t understand his stress because I wasn’t in a “leadership role”. There was still no empathy or apology for how his behaviour had affected me. Instead he was fixated on how abruptly I ended it and how it caused him to grieve.

We left the conversation feeling defeated, but I am struggling enormously to move on. For some reason, I still see him as formidable and attractive, and I continue to admire his confidence – qualities I value greatly in other people. I know I have achieved a lot myself, yet he somehow convinced me over five years that I was the problem.

How do I get over the guilt of ending it so abruptly? And, more importantly, how can I learn to trust myself again when I no longer feel I have a clear sense of what a healthy relationship looks like?

I would really appreciate your help.

Leave a comment

Over to you readers…

Share

Dear Philippa,

I am in my mid 30ies and I have been in a relationship with my partner for 15 years. I often find myself judging him and our relationship, I am crippled with doubt and it is making me suffer to some extent. Overall it is not so bad we own a house, we have a one year old, we do things together. But we are so very different I am outgoing and sociable, while he’s an introvert, and happy to stay home. For example whenever we go out he wants to go home asap while I want to stay out as long as possible. When things work out well we complement each other, I help him get out of his comfort zone and experiment things and he helps me stay grounded.

I come from a very chaotic family, my parents had huge rows in front of us, I was scared of my older brother (2 years older) who often hit me. I have trouble regulating my emotions and my partner has been a comforting and steady presence in that regard, he never withdraws his love. I think in my family we did a lot of activities, travels, outings, socialising and I have come to associate busyness with happiness, so when my partner is happy staying at home a whole weekend I feel desperate and lonely! I understand the way my family did it was too much even as a child I felt depressed when we went home on Sunday nights, but I still do want to explore around our home and the world, to me it’s just a question of balance.

Before the baby we found a balance where I would go out and he stayed home and we would still do some activities together, but with a baby that’s more complicated, we are now a family and I would like us to do more the 3 of us. I guess we were two independent items and I want us to be more “joined together”.

We are at the two extremes in terms of personality, and we fell in love very young,

I guess I would like to know if my doubts are valid or if the grass won’t be greener; if I should be happy with good enough and work with what I have. He’s really not a bad person or toxic, but is this as good as it gets ? Or is this just me trying to sabotage something good because I am used to feeling unsafe and unworthy ?

I do care for him, and we have a lot of good things, we have always respected each other, we share the same values, I think he’s a good person.

The other big thing between us is that he doesn’t want a second child, and it breaks my heart. I was already the one who pushed for the first, and he says to him it is already a lot of work and responsibility. I am starting to grieve that desire as I really wanted to be pregnant/give birth again, and see our son with a sibling, I have found so much joy and purpose in motherhood. It is also gruelling at times but I think i enjoy the rollercoaster of emotions, the rawness of it all. My partner is a good father and loves his son very much but I do the bulk of child rearing (partner pulls his weight at home in other ways). Secretly I am hoping my partner will change his mind once our son is older and more independent. For now I am trying not to think about it because it is too painful.

Sorry for the length, I hope you can help me find clarity and a newfound purpose in my relationship.

My Reply

Have you learnt to associate activity with being alive and happy? Does quietness make you feel uneasy, because in your childhood home you associated it with the calm before a storm? And, when you’ve been brought up in chaos, it’s often the case that people, not used to calmness, hunt or create a bit of drama to feel alive. Quiet can feel wrong, but it’s not wrong, it’s merely unfamiliar. Your partner is not depriving you of a good life when he wants to stay home, he has a different idea of what a good life feels like.

Fifteen years together, shared values, respect, affection and a man whose love doesn’t disappear when your emotions get difficult sounds like quite a lot. “Is this as good as it gets?” can be a dangerous question because somewhere in our heads there is always an imaginary partner who gives us everything this one does and also wants to stay at the party.

You don’t have to become alike. Could family life contain some outings the three of you do together, some things you do without him, and some weekends where he gets his wish and nobody goes anywhere? A family doesn’t have to move as one unit all the time to be a great family.

The second child feels different to me. I wouldn’t bury that sadness and secretly wait for him to change his mind. He may change it, but he may not, and meanwhile hope can stop you grieving what may be a real loss. Rather than hoping in private, please have conversations about this. These conversations are not to persuade him but about each of you saying what having, or not having, another child means to each of you. Take on board his feelings about this too.

And, if you accept him as he is now rather than try to wish him into being more sociable he’ll not be under as much pressure. Acceptance is a form of loving.

You ask whether your doubts are valid or whether you are sabotaging something good. My answer is, what makes a good relationship great, is committing to it.

Don’t make him into the person responsible for all the unlived versions of your life.

Don’t compare him to a fantasy partner.

If you want to get out more, get out more and let go of the expectation that the whole family has to come too. Go on your own, or with your child, and perhaps sometimes he’ll want to come as well. When he does come, make arrangements so you don’t have to leave the party when he does - I often go home and leave my husband at a party, we all have different capacities for socialising. Compromise does means not always getting everything we imagine we want, and there is a lot to be said for being grateful for what we do have. We need, to a great extent, accept the people we love as they are and love them for who they are. It’s not always easy and that’s okay.

Is the grass greener on the other side, or does it just look like that because it’s an artificial lawn?

Leave a comment

This is a problem that was sent to me when I was working on The Observer and although I replied privately to it, it was suitable because I didn’t want to cut anything from it because she tells her life story well. I feel for her a lot because we are imprisoned by the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and until we become aware that we can change the story, we do get stuck.

The letter

I am 50 and have been fighting against a tide which has always taken me far from the direction I was swimming for. All my life I have been trying to find a solution and I am tired of it all.

I was basically an imaginative child. But I didn’t get on with primary school. We moved after my first year at school and I never found friends in the new area or enjoyed school. I would daydream my way through the day, so much that I was put in the remedial group for a while. I was moved back in with everyone else eventually but maths never clicked with me so I was behind on that. Writing stories, drawing, playing music and singing were my pleasures. I had no friends, was plump and had goofy teeth so was bullied. The school and my parents did nothing but blame me when I defended myself by fighting back. Similarly, my parents always said they couldn’t tell the school I had ability, because it was my fault I did little work. I was miserable. I wanted to be in school plays and the dance drama group but the teachers always picked their favourites for everything and I was not one of them. I cried a lot at night.

I always dreamt of being the ugly duckling who would show them all what they had missed by becoming a beautiful strong swan when I got older. I would be successful. I would have friends. I would not have children, as this would probably prevent me from having the other things I wanted in life. I would be loved, as I am.

By the final year of primary school one teacher recognised that I had ability and tried to help me catch up on maths and do things but it was too late to prevent me failing my 11 plus and going to the secondary modern school. I didn’t want to go there but I had no choice. Everyone knew that it meant you were unlikely to do any exams of worth. The grammar schools did O levels but at the secondary modern they taught CSEs for almost every subject and class. I worked hard to defy the limitations and got some O levels/CSE 1s so I could go to an FE College to study for 3 A levels.

I wanted to pursue the creative side of me, but my parents steered me to written subjects and away from artistic and creative things. I really would have loved to be a performance artist but I sensed telling my family would gain no support. I actually told them of other plans, like going to study make-up for film/tv and theatre, but my mother said I wouldn’t get on the course (there was only 1 in the UK). School suggested I do a beauty therapy course instead. Later, if I talked about art college (even though I strangely failed my art O level in the end and never did A level), my mother couldn’t see the point in that at all.

I learnt that I had no support from my family. I only got support to do certain things.

My father left us after having an affair. I found a boyfriend who I adored. He seemed bright but had no aim to study after A levels. I think these events distracted me from studying a bit. My boyfriend made me feel loved in a way I had never had. I thought it wouldn’t make much of a difference but I think it did.

I actually enjoyed the FE college atmosphere, but academically I didn’t realise I was at a disadvantage with my previous school record/qualifications. I had some weird notion of FE college as a fresh start/record and didn’t realise how hard applying for universities would be. I thought I would apply and get conditional offers. Then I had to get the results. But I got rejected from all the places I wanted to go to. None of the places in clearing were ones I wanted. My confidence was shot. I put pressure on myself. I had to get wonderful results so they would have to take me.....

Of course that didn’t happen. I cried when I saw my results. They weren’t enough.

My mum had made me apply for teacher training. I tried phoning the universities but they wouldn’t give me any information on whether I might have a chance. The colleges were able to offer me degree places. Not quite what I wanted but maybe they would be just as good, I thought. So I chose one. It did mean moving to the opposite end of the country and leaving my boyfriend behind. We agreed to stay together anyway.

I hated college from the day I got there. I stuck it out because I thought it might get better. It didn’t. I made terrible choices of subject combinations, courses were cancelled that I had my heart stuck on, I made terrible choices of friends. I was stuck at a little college too far from the nearest city and the best gigs and creative people to gel/mix with. I was lonely. I found drink and drugs. Basically I ended up trying to get through the course despite hating almost all of it. 3 years is a long time to be stuck somewhere you hate, but I couldn’t see how I would get into anywhere better now. I had blown my chances of doing any course I had wanted by not getting good grades, hating college and doing badly there too....

I always thought I would gravitate towards my tribe of creative artistic people. But I never found them. My life had been full of missed opportunities and dreams. At this point I didn’t want to have to live with my mother. I wanted to live with my boyfriend and start a new life. I had given up on my dreams and decided to find a regular respectable job with a career path so I could build a life, find a home and be happy. By this time I had talked him into joining me at college as I had dropped out in my final year and had to go back. I had to wait for him to do his course, fight for my degree to be reclassified after an administration error led to coursework remaining ungraded, and apply for jobs.

Eventually we moved south and I got a job in London. I tried so hard to be what I was supposed to be to follow that career. I worked and did a postgraduate course. We lived in awful flats but I still held onto dreams of us getting past all the problems. He had an affair but gaslighted me for a long time. Eventually I had to move back to my mother’s place because I had no money. I tried to build myself up but all I had worked for was gone. I thought I would meet someone but it never happened. I rebounded into another bad relationship which ended badly. Then no-one. My career stymied. I had a manager with no faith in me, but plenty in my colleague who started the same day as me. We had a restructure. I saw this as an opportunity to make a sideways move into an alternative path/role but management made it clear they saw me in the same role and had already decided who would get the opportunities for career development. I was passed over for the roles I applied for because they wanted me where I was. With less pleasure in work, I resented that others got study leave but my manager would pretend that because I was so good they couldn’t let me have the time off.

I decided to give up drinking, which was really hard. At first this made me feel great - re energised. It gave me hope for the future. Maybe the drink/drugs were the problem holding me back all this time. I also did a total meal replacement diet to lose the weight that had piled on over the years and gave myself a physical makeover.

I returned to creative pursuits. Singing and acting classes. I began to dream of actually pursuing these things for real and fought real life obstacles to try to do so. I took voluntary redundancy and went to the only place that would take me. I don’t regret doing the course because it is the closest I ever got to actually doing what I wanted in my life. It did mean I was at a huge disadvantage when competing with others who had family/contacts and who had been to the best drama schools, especially at my age.

I had to fall back to the career I hated (it now more closely resembles being a teacher), for money, and I could see so clearly how I was exploited at work. I have no power in the workplace at all. I really don’t have any enthusiasm for work at all. My CV only leads to more work of the same nature that I hate. I don’t like the type of people who are successful in workplaces. I can’t identify with them at all. None of them have been serially unsuccessful like me. They see me as a loser to be exploited. So I have an unhappy work life when I work. I also have an unhappy home life.

I always had an idea of how I would have my home. I will never have my home. I am in a room I rent.

I missed the boat on finding my partner. I really wanted a creative partner. I wanted to be a muse and performer with my partner. Someone I could riff my creativity with, who valued the same things and activities and me. I miss being touched. I miss the physical too. I always wanted someone to travel with through life who valued me and made me smile.

I am trapped in a life I never wanted. Doing jobs I never wanted for too little money to do things I wanted to do. I never even got to have the relationship or the house. Some people have it all - the career/job, partner, house, children, pets, hobbies, travel, company.....

I probably shouldn’t have tried to progress academically at all, all those years ago. I should have had the confidence to reject it and do what I wanted, whatever it was, and change routes if I felt like it. I felt compelled to prove a point by achieving academic qualifications despite my schooling. What a waste of time and effort.

I am also old. 50. I feel invisible at best.

I have wondered whether somewhere out there in an alternate reality, there is a me having my life.

I was told I was an accidental baby. I wondered whether my mother would have had a better life if she had chosen not to have me. She might have left my father and met a better match who treated her better. Maybe I shouldn’t have been born at all. Maybe that is why everything goes wrong for me and I have been unhappy all my life. I have been on antidepressants most of my life, although I don’t know if they really make any difference. I have tried positive thinking, have had cognitive behavioral therapy and have little faith in anyone offering me any practical help that will actually make a positive change to my life.

I have felt this way for some time (years). I don’t even enjoy my hobbies anymore because they have failed to offer me the escape they cruelly offered. I actually preferred the pandemic lockdowns because at least no-one expected anything of me. I could hide away in the house and avoid the outside world as much as possible. I feel resentful and angry about the interactions with the world that I have to do.

If I can’t be happy, I just want to be left alone. I don’t want to be lied to, told this will all get better etc etc. I don’t want my expectations raised at all, if it is all a sham. I have spent years trying to put a smile on and face the world, telling myself it will get better. It never does. It gets worse, because I am older and the chances of positive change are much slimmer.

I resent that I seem to have been put in this world to watch others being happy whilst I feel alone and empty and I can find no solution to all of it.

My Reply

Read more

Write to me with any problem or dilemma at AskPhilippa@yahoo.com Subject to Terms and Conditions

Dear Philippa,

I’m perpetually dissatisfied with life. I’m in my mid-30s and on paper doing quite well. I have a loving partner, great friends, many of whom live nearby, and despite dropping out of university I’ve managed to forge a pretty decent career in a sector I care about. I have a fun and full life which I’ve worked hard to build over the last 10 years, and I am grateful for it. So why am I still left wanting more? Whenever I achieve something, I find myself feeling disappointed, almost like anything I can do can’t really be worth celebrating.

I didn’t have the most stable or secure upbringing. Looking back, I think I was quite depressed for most of my teens into my early 20s when I moved abroad and (cliche alert) learned who I was and who I could be. This felt like an exciting time and life felt full of possibility. I miss that feeling.

Now I can’t help but wonder what’s next? I don’t want children. I would like more big adventures and more freedom, but I can’t see a path to achieving those things without switching careers in a direction that wouldn’t interest me or align with my values. So I guess this lack of direction is making me feel a bit stuck. Am I wrong to want more? And how can I create the life I want within the constraints of my 9 - 5? Do I simply have to accept that life will never be as exciting at 35 as it was at 25, when anything seemed possible?

Any advice would be appreciated.

My Reply

Read more

Dear Philippa
I am aware this all sounds excessive but - after you answered a dog-related question recently, here’s my own animal-related one. I think I have a co-dependent relationship with my cat. I am constantly anxious about her and sort of hypervigilant. If she goes into the garden I check through the windows that she’s not being menaced by neighbourhood cats and I stand ready with water sprays etc to see them off. If I have to give her meds, I myself feel sick. Taking her to the vet is a horror show of anticipation, guilt and misery for me, because she hates it. I got this cat a matter of weeks before my mother (for whom I did the bulk of the caring) died from a years-long and horrible illness. I have worked out so far that the vet visits equate somehow to the literal ‘horror show’ of eventually deceiving my cognitively severely impaired mother and ‘putting’ her into a care home which was at the time the only option and actually turned out to have been the correct course of action. During the period of my mother’s illness, family estrangements developed which have basically continued, though are no longer ‘active’ if that makes sense. I just have a drastically reduced contact with family. I don’t have a partner and live alone, so feel as if this dearly beloved cat is all my responsibility and as if I have to wait fearfully for the next anticipated painful thing to happen - but I am not truly sure what that is. The ACTUAL cat is a cheerful independent healthy being, and a normal cat in every respect . My imagined ‘shadow cat’ is vulnerable, fragile and on the brink of disaster at all times! This situation feels inordinately painful sometimes, it REALLY does. It stops me enjoying my lovely pet properly and I long to get some better perspectives and a better plan of dealing with the situation - I can’t be looking out of the window all day trying to avert disaster, and - when not doing that - worrying obsessively about her! I do talk to friends about it but feel the problem is too ‘minor’ for me to be really honest about how upset it can make me.

Subscribe now

My reply

A useful phrase in your email is “shadow cat”. There is your actual cat, who sounds perfectly capable of being a cat, and there is the other cat who exists in your imagination and needs you permanently stationed at the window with a water pistol.

I think what’s happening is that after years of caring for your mother, your mind has forgotten how to come off duty. You really did have someone vulnerable to watch over, terrible things really did happen, and you had to make decisions for someone you loved that caused you pain even when they were the right decisions. Then your mother died, but the vigilance didn’t die with her.

It seems the love, responsibility and fear that had nowhere to go attached itself to the cat.

Sometimes loving someone means doing something they hate because we know it is necessary. You had to do that with your mother and now, on a much smaller scale, you do it with the cat when you take her to the vet.

I think the work is to notice when you are responding to the actual cat and when you are responding to the shadow cat. When she goes outside, you might say to yourself, “There goes the actual cat.” Then see if you can leave her to get on with the important business of sniffing things, staring at walls, catching mice and negotiating with the neighbours without turning her into “shadow cat”.

And please don’t dismiss this as too minor to talk about. You aren’t just talking about a cat. You are talking about grief, responsibility, guilt, loss and what happens to us after we have spent years waiting for the next terrible thing to happen.

And, in case you think you are the only person who has gone a bit mad over a cat, I am attaching something I wrote eight years ago about my own relationship with Kevin, my cat. At one point my husband observed that my mental health depended on knowing where the cat was. So I am writing to you as a fellow sufferer rather than from any great height of psychological superiority.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/04/i-have-a-loving-husband-and-thought-i-was-secure-then-a-cat-came-into-my-life-philippa-perry

Perhaps both of us have had to learn that loving a cat also means tolerating the fact that they are separate creatures who have no intention of organising their lives around our anxiety.

Your cat’s job now isn’t to give you somebody else to keep alive. Perhaps she can teach you something about loving another creature without having to control what happens to her. You won’t be able to protect her from everything, any more than any of us can protect anyone we love from everything. The challenge may be to love her while allowing both of you a bit more freedom.

And as a P.S. to that article Kevin is alive and well 8 years later and hasn’t got into any scrapes lately. Famous last words!

Leave a comment

Share

Write to me with any problem or dilemma at AskPhilippa@yahoo.com Subject to Terms and Conditions

Dear Philippa.

My wife and I are retired and are happy in a relationship and sex is fine between us.
6 months ago my wife got a letter from her ex-husband now living abroad asking if she would be ok if he wrote to her to catch up as they had not spoken for 40 years. Initially I was supportive of this so her ex began emailing her...Soon emails began to appear weekly but I could not see my wife’s replies.

I expressed my concern to her after reading his emails feeling that he was seeking a relationship rather than just being a friend and catching up. In his emails he said that he was depressed he was not well and his wife had Alzheimer’s. He is articulate and expresses his feelings and creative ideas well.

My wife is a kind empathetic person and I know that she experiences some guilt about their marriage break-up… no doubt he does also as it ended by him treating her badly. I became suspicious after the emails suddenly stopped and after an argument with my wife she admitted that her ex had been texting her every week. She said that she had deleted her replies. She assured me that it was harmless and I had nothing to worry about so I relaxed....

Recently when I have approached I noticed that she quickly clicks shut her mobile phone closing what she is reading making me think they might still be communicating regularly.

I do fundamentally trust my wife but have the matter nagging away in the background. I do not want to ask her to stop the texts completely as it would be hurtful to him and I respect that she is a free person and can make her own decisions. An exchange every 6 weeks would be fine for me. However I do believe that ongoing weekly communication can lead to intimacy. I do not like feeling jealous and don’t want to give the impression that I am a saint. I am not.

Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?

Please give me your advice.

My Reply

Read more

Write to me with any problem or dilemma at AskPhilippa@yahoo.com Subject to Terms and Conditions

I met my boyfriend 8 months ago through a mutual friend. I’m 48 and he’s 46, we’re both Christians. He’s previously married for 28 years in what he has described as a toxic relationship including infidelity. I was single for many years after my relationship with my sons father ended, this was an abusive relationship.

My current partner and I had a nice connection on our first date and both indicated we would like to see each other again. From there we went in regular dates, picnics, coffee, movies, walks and spent lots of time talking and getting to know each other. We have common things we both enjoy doing together and things we like doing apart. During this time it seemed like our feelings for each other were growing at a similar rate. During this time he asked me to be his girlfriend officially with a view to seeing if we are compatible to get married.

Since then we spend a lot more time together and both enjoy doing everyday life together eg making meals, housework etc. We have both said we see a future and a life together as a married couple.

There have been times during our relationship where I have felt uneasy about things in terms of trusting him. This has become a bone of contention. At one point I discovered he was online dating. At first he denied this but later admitted it and he only went on because I don’t trust him and he wasn’t sure he could see a future with me.

We recovered from that and he reassured me it wouldn’t happen again. Its been difficult for me to completely trust him since then and again it has become a bone of contention in our relationship.

We continued talking about how our future might look in terms of managing/ blending finances and where we could live eg. his place, my place or buy a new place together. While we’ve talked about we haven’t reached a consensus or made any specific plan.

He began voicing that while he would like a future with me my lack of trust is an issue for him and he doesn’t want to make a commitment unless I fully trust him.

Recently a few things he said and a shift in his interest in our relationship led me to think he maybe online dating again. A dating website link also appeared in his google search history, this apparently may or may not mean he’s searched or visited the site. I believe I have found a profile belonging to him on a dating website but cannot prove that it is his.

I’ve asked him directly if he is online again or is open to meeting someone else. He’s told me he’s committed to me and our relationship and isn’t online dating. I feel quite uneasy inside and I’m not convinced he’s being truthful.

He’s also told me he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with me if I don’t completely trust him and he will have more how he feels if there are no trust issues in my part for the next month.

I’m actually pretty upset and feel like I’m on borrowed time, and that he wants this time to line someone up to move on with.

I feel powerless, and I don’t know how to respond to this. I feel uncomfortable about it but also don’t want to do something that could ruin our relationship. I’m so confused…

My Reply

Read more

I’m 31 and for the past three years I’ve been involved with a woman who is 24 years older than me. We met in 2023, when I was 28 and she was 52. We both lied about our ages to begin with - I added a few years to mine and she took a few off hers.

It was very casual to start with, neither of us saw it as more than just bit of fun that …

Read more

Dear Philippa

Throughout my childhood and now into my early 50s, my parents have had money and lost money, and it’s left me concerned about my own finances, with worry and resentment that their further money problems will impact me and I will have to bail them out.

When I was a child they went bankrupt which meant that we lost our home and moved into rental accommodation. My grandmother was kind to give us money to buy a new home. My parents were able to work and buy a house again. However, almost everything that they’ve built up, they’ve spent, including their pension and now this year, their home of 40 years, and they are now renting.

I believe my mother has a chronic spending problem and even after losing another home it doesn’t look like her spending is going to slow down. She had trauma as a child which may contribute to problems with planning. I’ve tried suggesting financial counselling but she won’t seek any help and doesn’t think she has a problem. My parents have argued throughout my life about money but my dad has stopped arguing now that he’s in his late 70s and has accepted their poor financial management and is permissible with her overspending and enables it.

She doesn’t buy extravagant things for herself, but overspends on gifts for friends of friends and relatives of friends and neighbours, and she also buys two of things rather than the one she needs, and has a huge stock of things she’ll probably never use. She also throws out food to make room for the new food she’s bought because she hasn’t looked at what she’s needed before she’s gone shopping. She puts the clothes dryer on when it’s hot outside, and uses energy like it’s free. There are many increments of spending and simply not looking at what she’s spending which has lost them so much. They were so upset about having to leave their home, which they’ve just left, but she can’t even see her role in this, and even just bought a gift for the new landlord’s grandson.

It’s so frustrating to see them making choices about what they’re buying for their rental home to make it comfortable but with little consideration of how much things cost or making money-based decisions.

Now they’ve paid off their debts from the sale of the home they have a small amount of money to last them the rest of their lives, and they’ve said that their financial planning is to either die in the next 5 years or to win the lottery. It is utterly exasperating and worrying in itself, but I worry that if they keep on spending like they are, which they will, that I will have to bail them out, and my financial situation is just okay, but what if they drag me down. I love them but I am worried that the care that I’ve taken to have a moderate retirement of my own and a bit of security is going to be impaired if they become desperate for money and I have to bail them out. I worry about this a lot and I wish I could stop worrying or protect myself and them.

Friends suggest practical things to try to get my parents to spend sensibly but it’s very difficult to be practical when my mum can’t think rationally about money, and now they’re in their late 70s, with my dad predicted to have a very long life, and not enough money to last them.

I can’t change their situation, it is so entrenched. How can I protect myself or change my thinking about the situation so I can relax about it?

I’m single without children and I’m aware of how important it is for me to protect myself for my older age. I worry that if their behaviour puts a dent in my security, for example, if I’m obliged to bail them out, that I will have long-term resentment even after they’ve died. They are very kind and loving people and I love them a lot. The only thing I can change is my own thinking about it. But what ways can I start doing that?

My Reply

You write, “I will have to bail them out.” I think it’ll be obvious to everyone but you that you don’t, so it’s really great that you wrote in. You are not legally responsible for them. You may choose to, or you may decide not to give them financial help, but you are not obliged to.

Your parents’ relationship with money has shaped your life for decades. Losing your home as a child because of financial difficulties is the sort of experience that can leave us feeling that security is fragile and can disappear without warning. It seems to me that you responded by becoming the opposite. You’ve built a life that feels financially responsible I expect because you never wanted to experience that uncertainty again.

You’ve already begun paying for your parents’ spending, only not in cash - in worry.

You describe in detail their wasteful habits and every decision they make seems to add to your fear they are edging closer to financial ruin…again. I get why you keep such close account because you are trying to work out whether the ground beneath your own feet is about to become unstable again. I’m wondering whether paying such close attention keeps you emotionally bound, in a heart sinking horrible way, to choices that are theirs, not yours.

I don’t think there is another argument or another piece of advice that is likely to change either of them. That leaves you with the question you can influence, which is how you want to respond if the situation deteriorates.

It may help to make that decision now, while there isn’t an immediate crisis. You could ask yourself what you would be prepared to do if they needed money. Would you contribute a fixed amount in a genuine emergency? Would you help them explore state benefits or other sources of support? Or would you decide that protecting your own retirement has to come first? You don’t have to tell them those decisions if you don’t want to. Equally, there may be something liberating about saying, kindly but clearly, “I love you both very much, but I won’t be supporting you financially if your money runs out because I have to protect my own future.” They may not welcome hearing it, but it would place the responsibility for their financial decisions where it belongs, with them, rather than leaving you to carry it in anticipation.

It’s okay to protect yourself and I’m wondering whether you’d think doing that was selfish? Whilst protecting your parents is somehow loving? Those aren’t opposite positions. There comes a point where looking after your own security becomes an act of responsibility, particularly when there is nobody else to do it for you.

You describe your parents as kind and loving people, and there is warmth in the way you write about them despite your frustration. I wondered whether love and responsibility have become so closely entwined that it has become difficult to imagine one without the other. Yet it is possible to love people very much and still refuse to rescue them from the consequences of decisions they continue to make. That may sound harsh, but I think it can also be an expression of respect. They are adults who have lived according to their own values and made their own choices throughout their lives. You are entitled to do the same.

I suspect stopping worrying altogether would be impossible. But you can remind yourself, each time your mind races ahead into a future that has not yet happened, that your parents are free to make their financial decisions and you are equally free to make yours. Holding on to that distinction may not remove the sadness, but it may help you put down some of the responsibility you have been carrying for a very long time.

Loving people does not make you automatically responsible for them.

Share

Leave a comment

Dear Philippa,

I’m an avid fan of your substack - long time reader, first time writer! I’m not even sure what I want to ask you but I felt compelled to write. Hopefully putting everything down will help me work that out, or at least be cathartic!

I am in what feels like early middle age, married to a wonderful man and have two beautiful young children. I work hard at a prestigious firm in a job that I feel mostly undervalued in, however I am laughably well-paid and do - at times - still find it interesting. We have a good network of friends and do not worry about money. I am proud that we are able to give our children a stable life and that they are always surrounded by people who care for them (even if some of that is in the form of paid help). In many ways I am living the life I would have wished for myself when I was younger.

My own childhood was fairly happy & I was largely oblivious to my father’s alcoholism until it became obvious even to a pre-teen. My mum took the brave decision to leave and move us hundreds of miles away so she could go back to work. My brother and I had to grow up quickly, we were aware our new life had to work & didn’t want to cause her undue stress - we both focused on being “model” children, worked hard at school, both went to Oxbridge. We never wanted to be a cause for concern. I do not want this pressure for my own children.

I guess why I’m writing is that even though I know I am so lucky, I feel deeply unhappy and like a square peg in a round hole - I am not trying enough, I am not present enough, I do not care enough, I am not happy enough. I often open my eyes in the morning and feel resigned about the day to come or panic at the thought of all future days feeling the same. I have previously done therapy which helps for a while but does not seem to get to the root of the problem (perhaps I did not commit enough).

I am not asking to feel elated every day but I would love to at least not feel constantly let down by myself in my own life. I would love your perspective. Thank you for reading!

My Reply

Read more

Dear Philippa,

I would love to have your advice on a dilemma I am facing.

Subscribe now

I’m in my forties, I live with my partner, and I am lucky enough to work full time in a job that’s quite well paid. This work has its ups and downs, but I’m good at it, I have a good work-life balance, working from home for much of the time, and I have nice colleagues in many different countries.

My passion though is singing, especially opera. It’s something I have been working on for years with lessons, practice, and courses. It’s difficult, but it brings me real joy. I know I am getting better at it and people tell me I have potential to go further.

To take the singing as far as I can, and have the possibility to sing professionally, I would need to study at a conservatoire for at least two years. If I auditioned and were offered a place, I’d need to leave my job to do this training.

It’s likely I would enjoy those two years and come out of them a better singer. But opera is something that very few people can make into a sustainable career - it’s a competitive world and the work is scarce and poorly paid. So, while I’d be getting better at the thing I love doing most, I’d also be trading a life in which I have security, quality of life, and a hobby I love, for one that is poorer and precarious, with no guarantee that I could simply return to the job I’m doing now.

I could regret it in future if I look back and feel I didn’t do enough to develop the potential I have as a singer. Equally, I could regret it if I make life more difficult and stressful financially in the long term for both myself and my partner, despite knowing the risks.

I can’t tell whether I’m in a delusion and chasing a fantasy, or simply following my instincts to do what I love.

How should I approach this choice?

My Reply

Read more

Hi Philippa

I am hoping you and your wise commenters can offer me some perspective on this. I am a woman in her early 60s. I am happily married with one son with whom I have a very good relationship. I have good friends. They would describe me as fun, thoughtful, kind and also hyper-independent.

I have been self-employed for decades and have written several technical books. I am the eldest of three and grew up with a volatile father. He had his good points. I have inherited a good work ethic and a commitment to honouring my promises which has served me well. Dealing with his volatility has taught me how to read a room and his inability to explain anything has made me a very good instructor. I also got very good at using humour to deflect. My mother was kind, loving and did her very best. My childhood would have been very different if it hadn’t been for her. I have the Eldest Daughter traits of reliability, being conscientious, showing up and stepping up. These have also served me very well.

However what I am struggling with is this: as I move into my later midlife, I have started exploring other projects - such as creative writing and drawing. I want to be skillful and competent at both. However I also know that to be good at anything takes discipline, regular showing up, things not working, disappointment at the reality vs the dream and I feel weary of that. I feel drawn to do them but another part of me resents the work and discipline involved.

I also have a problem with my weight. I have been overweight since my teens and my efforts to lose the weight have boomeranged every time. I am now heavier than I have ever been. I know it is not helped by my junk food habit. I have a weird relationship with sugar. I feel as though it is the one thing in my life that requires no give and take. I can eat the sugar and I don’t have to do anything in return for it. I am considering going on Ozempic but part of me feels terrified that I will lose the thing that sugar gives me and then what? I feel conflicted. Part of me tells me I have to lose the weight so my last chapter can be healthy. Another part of me tells me that losing the weight will mean I will be less/smaller. Another part of me feels as though part of my identity will be changed if I lose the weight. I feel resentful of the people who describe fat people as lazy and undisciplined when I am rather good at getting s*** done. My husband (who can eat what he wants and not gain weight) is not really a help with this. It is as if the good stuff in my life is in pastel shades and FAT thing is in large glo colour capital letters.

So basically I feel stuck. I have been to counselling but I did not find the experience particularly helpful. This was with two separate people. I suppose what I am asking for is your wise perspective on this and also the viewpoints of your commenters.

Thank you

My Reply

Read more

Dear Philippa,

I am trying to help my mother come to terms with a difficult childhood.

She was beaten as a child. I asked if she felt she deserved to be beaten. She answered: “I probably was.”

I try to explain that no child deserves that, and she tells me it was the norm and it is in the past so she is over it.

I have given up trying to talk to her about my childhood, as any feedback is taken as an attack akin to me calling her a bad mother… I tried telling her, no, you weren’t perfect because your parents weren’t perfect, and so on. She responds by defending her parents/caregivers - the people who abused her.

That is my limit. I cannot listen to my mother explain/condone her own abuse, I’m just not emotionally mature enough myself. I have one sibling, who has two children (6 and 8), so my mother is also a grandmother. But once agitated (and all too easily) she is still like a child herself. It is widely acknowledged (by all except her) that she has an anger management problem.

I have read one of your books and it has helped me a lot. I have tried to get mum to read your book, but she just doesn’t want to think about it. I suggest therapy, and the response is the same.

Any word of advice would be (so) greatly appreciated!

My Reply

Many people survive difficult childhoods by finding a way to make sense of them. “It was normal.” “I probably deserved it.” “That’s just how things were.” Those explanations may sound shocking to you, but they may also have helped her get through a childhood she had no power to change. Asking her to abandon them now could even feel to her less like healing than having the ground pulled away beneath her.

You have offered books. You have suggested therapy. You have asked thoughtful questions. She has said no, I think it maybe time to respect that no.

That does not mean you have to agree with her version of events - no child deserves to be beaten - but you do have to accept that she is allowed to understand her own life differently from the way you understand it.

You also mention her anger. You cannot make her revisit her childhood, but you can decide what behaviour you can and cannot take from her - “If you are going to shout at me, I’m leaving” - sort of thing. I wonder what would happen if, instead of trying to change your mother, you allowed yourself to enjoy the relationship you can have with her, rather than mourning the one you wish you had. When she is good company, enjoy her. When she becomes angry or impossible, step back. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do, for them and for ourselves, is to stop trying to improve them and begin relating to the person who is actually in front of us. Acceptance might just bring you a bit of peace.

Leave a comment

Share