Long distance

Posted on January 7, 2006 by Suzie

Dear Suzie, 

i really like a boy but he lives 2 hours away what should i do from 

confussed

You could ring him. And text. And email. And suggest you each travel an hour to meet half way. If he’s worth knowing, he’ll make the effort too.

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Thanks to Elaine

Posted on January 7, 2006 by Suzie

Dear Suzie, 

I saw Step families last night and was so impressed by your skill, insight, hope and understanding in enabling the family to ‘heal’.  I am not in a step family situation.  I just wanted to express much appreciation for your insight, understanding, strategy and heart.

 

Thank you so much! I wouldn’t ordinarily publish this because it smacks of me being self congratulatory but I have no other way of thanking you for your kind words! I do appreciate them.

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Adults suffer when their parents break up too!

Posted on January 7, 2006 by Suzie

Dear Suzie, I’ve just finished watching your programme about Stepfamilies on BBC1 and thought it was excellent. However, I’m a little frustrated because programmes like this as well as online advice, helplines, specialist counselling groups etc. all seem to focus on the effect of break ups/divorce on young children.

My father left my mother for another woman 18 months ago and it’s no easier to deal with as a 27-year-old than it was for the children in your programme. The same conflicts and emotions arise no matter how old you are.   The inner child kicks in big time and to make it worse, you’re old enough to understand what’s going on in great detail. Is there anyone who offers help to an older "child" like me?

 

You’re so right – it hurts just as much, whatever your age! But counsellors and organisations such as Relate do indeed offer help to the adult suffering because of their parent’s separation – we all know how much it affects ‘children’ even when the child is 20/30/40 and older. Please – ask your own GP for a referral or contact Relate.

Look in the local phone book for your nearest centre or go to www.relate.org.uk  . They also do phone counselling – call 08451 30 40 16 for an appointment. Or the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy can suggest a counsellor in your area. You can ring them on 0870 443 5219 or write to BACP, BACP House, 35-37 Albert Street, Rugby, Warwickshire CV21 2SG or go to www.bacp.co.uk.

The Institute of Family Therapy can also help with family problems. Write to them at 24-32 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HX,  call 020 7391 9150 or go to www.instituteoffamilytherapy.org.uk  Good luck!

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not the Dad she might have wanted

Posted on January 7, 2006 by Suzie

Dear Suzie, I just watched your programme ‘stepfamilies’ on the BBC and was in tears for most of it. I just had to e-mail you to let you know the effect it had on me.

I am 28 and have recently decided to stop seeing my father who has always found it very difficult to show me emotion, love, affection or just general interest. My decision to stop seeing him was a hard one to make and a very upsetting one. Why? Because I have explicitly asked him to show me more love and give me more of his time over and over again, since I was a child. More reently we had a heart to heart for the first time and instead of making things better he made them worse by saying some unforgivable things. 

I was so fed up of being disappointed by our relationship and the big talk that we recently had that I called it a day. 

He and my mum split up when I was 3 and I have a step dad who I don’t get on too well with. I identified with so many parts of the programme and think the main reason I was so tearful when I watched it was because I wished I’d had you when I was 6 – to stop all this fall out happening. 

Counselling has helped me somewhat but I still feel very hurt and raw about what has recently happened.  I thought I was coping with my decision well until i saw your programme tonight. Just had to drop you a line to share my feelings. I wish my Dad could have seen that programme too.

 

I too wish you had had someone to talk with when you were 6! I feel so sad for you, especially because I know kids tend to blame themselves when parents let them down. Just like so may kids in your position, you ask or wish again and again for the parent to give you what you need, and again and again feel rejected and disappointed.

The main problem is that the parent in question may be incapable of coming up to the expectation, NOT because they don’t love you but because they themselves have a history of being let down. You learn how to love and show love by being given love. He simply may have no model upon which to base those skills. And that’s why he probably said such awful things – he feels frustrated, at a loss and very, very guilty. People who feel bad often lash out at others.  

 

Maybe he did see the programme. Maybe if it’s repeated you could ask him to. Whatever, it might help you if you could forgive him for not being the dad you might have liked and most certainly forgive yourself for being the child he found it so hard to show love to. I’m sorry it made you cry – but glad you could see you weren’t alone in your feelings and experiences, which was my justification for letting Becca cry and showing the sequence. It helped her. Hope it helps you too! All the best.

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can we marry?

Posted on December 23, 2005 by Suzie

Dear Suzie, my boyfriend is a christian and i am not. i will never understand what he believes in and i don’t think i want to be a christian. the problem is that he cannot marry a non christian yet we love each other so much. i really don’t know what to do.

You could stay as an unmarried couple but I’m afraid if you want to marry there ARE only two choices; you become a believer or he marries a non-believer. Or you split up. One of you, or this relationship, has to give.

It has always struck me as deeply ironic that a religion allegedly based on brotherly love and tolerance seems, in some hands, to be so unkind and intolerant. But there you are. If I could wave a magic wand and make the world’s religions and the world’s religious less insular, fanatical and bigoted, I would. Since I can’t I’m afraid you and your boyfriend will have to work this out yourself.

All I can say is that I would find someone who preaches, or agrees to, a creed that says so much about forbearance and acceptance but then says “But only our side can play” may not be someone I’d want to share my life with. What happens if you convert, and then find he has a further list of things you have to do or not do, believe or be or not be in order to be considered okay? If he can’t love you for yourself, is it worth it? But that’s just my prejudice, you might say.

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best enemies

Posted on December 22, 2005 by Suzie

Dear Suzie, i moved up to high school at the end of the summer holidays and i have made new friends. I now hang about with them and we are all best friends. Its just my old friend is getting jealous and she goes and moans to my other old friends. What should i do??

I get a lot of letters from people who find their friendships change when they move around. So let’s turn this round. Your old friend might write to me and say “I moved up to high school at the end of the summer holidays and my best friend has turned her back on me. She’s made a load of new friends and ignores me. What should I do??” What would you say to that?

In fact, I’d say the same to both of you. You need to accept and understand that people do change – that the person who was your best friend in primary school may no longer be the person who shares your interest and tastes as you get older. Things do move on and you shouldn’t take it personally. But I’ll add something special for you – that this is no reason to be mean. If you get a reputation as someone who sticks by friends and is loyal and kind, it will stand you in good stead. If you’re known as someone who betrays and abandons people, it may happen to you.

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bi-curious

Posted on December 22, 2005 by Suzie

Dear Suzie,
I have been seeing this lady that i moved in with in April of this year. She and I both were in agreement not to fall in Love. we both did very deeply, i got scared and started pushing her away,

I am 33 years old and three yrs. ago i wwent to mexico and baought a hooker for the night she turned out not to be a she and i experianced an orgasome that you wouldn’t belive and have been a little more than curious since then so have dabbled a little in the gay thing then started encorperating it into our(hers&mine)sexual experiances i realised i could get an erection any longer without being done in my ass first.

even though she used to turn me on tremendously i don’t feel like that anymore with her i cant explane to her so we have since split up and i have distanced myself to the point that she is in constant pain over our break up and i love her so i cant watch her hurt so badly so i wont even take her calls now i had changed my # then called her when i was drunk and wanted to see her then we started talking again and i couldn’t handle knowing she was hurting so bad and it was my fault so quit answering her phone calls.

If you don’t tell people why you do what you do, they come up with their own explanations – and that ALWAYS involves the belief that it was their own fault. So she probably believes your pushing her away was because she is undesirable, and your distancing yourself was because she was poor in bed and your leaving her was because she was unlovable. Unless you explain you have emotional tussles of your own, she will be left struggling to make some sense of all this and blame her own inadequacies. That’s not very kind, is it?

Being bi-curious isn’t a crime – it’s actually pretty common. I think many people, if not the majority, are neither fully straight nor fully gay but strung out somewhere on a continuum in between. And there is no doubt at all that anal stimulation both excites and satisfies many people – gay or straight, male or female. So I strongly suggest the best, and most decent, thing would be to get back in touch and sit down with her for a heart to heart over what happened and why.

It might help to do it with the guidance and support of a counsellor – ask your local Relate or your doctor for an appointment. But alone or with help, I really think she deserves it and so do you, even if this ends in your breaking up for good. At least you won’t both be left with confusion and guilt.

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should i stay or should i go?

Posted on December 22, 2005 by Suzie

Dear Suzie,
i have been with my boyfriend for 5 and a half years i am 19 years old and i live with him, but i dont know if i want to be with him anymore sometimes i cant imagine my life without him but other times i cant stand being around him even if we havent had a argument. we had a long distance relationship for about 3 years and then i moved away from my family to live with him he also wants to get married but i am unsure if this is what i want i just dont know what to do i have tried speaking to him but it never seem to get us anywhere please help

You started this relationship when you were a tiny teeny – 13 ½. That’s a lovely age to fall in love and go through all the agonies of learning about attraction and desire and how your body works and how emotions feel. It’s the age to experiment and to try new aspects of your own personality, to see who you’re going to become and who you’ll find suits you. It’s NOT the age at which to settle down with the first guy who rings your bell.

I don’t know what age he was and now is but whatever, I can assure you I’d be amazed if what worked then works now. Move on. You’re clinging to him, and maybe he’s clinging to you, because it feels like a safe part of the past and a lovely protection against whatever else might be going on in your lives that feels unsafe and sad.

Okay – some people stay with childhood sweethearts and it works. Clearly, it isn’t working for you. This isn’t love – it’s fear of the great unknown and a habit. If you were a friend of mine or my daughter, I’d be supporting you to take a deep breath and step away from this.

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jealous boyfriend

Posted on December 22, 2005 by Suzie

Dear Suzie,
My boyfriend and I have been going out for 4 years and love each other deeply. I am 25 and he is 30. Everyone says we are very well matched. My problem is that he is very suspicious of me all the time. I’m a chef and work in a very male environment. If I’m late home from work by even half an hour he starts interrogating me.

He goes through my mobile to see who I’ve rung or who’s rung me and flips out when I talk to other guys or about the people I work with. I live abroad and because of my job and his job (construction) 80% of the people we know are men, which makes life pretty awkward. I have never been unfaithful to him and have no intention of being so. He hasn’t cheated on me but was often unfaithful to his ex-girlfriend.

His accusations are incredibly hurtful and are stopping our relationship from progressing. He wants to marry and so do I but I feel I’d be stupid to do so when he can’t seem to stop himself from thinking horrible things about me. We’re best friends but argue over this often.

Can he change? Why does he think these things? He says it’s a problem with self esteem so can I help him get over it? I tell him everyday that I love him and we’re always affectionate (to the point of nauseating other people!). What more can I do? It’s like he doesn’t know me at all sometimes. And I can’t understand this. Please help, Suzie, as I don’t want to lose him over things that aren’t even going on but I find his accusations so hurtful that I won’t put up with it much longer.

You’re not the one with the problem; he is. Which is why, to be brutally honest, you can’t do anything about this, except refuse to play and insist he does something about it. Yes, it’s almost certainly about lack of self esteem. Some people are unfaithful because they simply don’t believe that anyone would stay true to them so they get their licks in first, believing that will make it hurt less. Or they can’t stay true because losses in their past make them believe everyone they love eventfully leaves, so again they ‘leave’ first to minimize the pain. But this is an explanation, not an excuse. If you want this relationship to work he is the one who needs to face up to his behaviour, both past and present, to explore the reasons for it and understand how they affect him, and make changes. This sort of behaviour isn’t a show of love, it’s bullying, and it’s the death of trust and love and closeness. You could make an appointment with a counsellor through Relate or your own doctor and tell him you’re going and he should accompany you – no request; it’s a given. If he won’t, that’s his choice and you can’t do anything about it. But if you try to fit in with what he demands or make efforts yourself to change or change him, it’s doomed to fail.

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waiting for the perfect 10?

Posted on December 22, 2005 by Suzie

I’m 27 and my girlfriend is 25. We’ve been together for a year and a half. We get on really well, have a lot in common and the sex is good. She gets on well with my family & me with hers. We spend pretty much all our time together out of work & get on really well for most of it & have fun.

My problem is that she tells me that she loves me regularly. Whilst I care for her a lot, deep down I’m not sure that I feel the same. However, when I look at it intellectually there are so many things about the relationship that are good and it’s much better than being single.

My dilemma is, do I end it with her because I’m not completely in love? Or would it be stupid of me to throw away what is otherwise a great relationship?

Any advice?

Many thanks

I think it depends on what you mean by not being, or being, in love. To an extent, I think we all know when this is The One – when love is there and you’re in the relationship you want to commit to. But I also think that sometimes people have very unrealistic expectations. You search for the Perfect 10 and in doing so, simply miss the 9 that is under your nose and is actually far better than a fantasy relationship you’d never really get.

Do you find it hard to say “I love you” because you don’t love her, or because you come from a family that has taught you to bottle up, or that declaring love puts you on the fast track for disappointment? I don’t think anyone should settle for second best. But I do think you may do well to ask yourself, honestly, whether you’d feel and act the same in any other relationship as well. In other words, is the problem in you or is it about her and you? Answer that and you’ll know what to do.

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