"I'M CONFUSED ABOUT MY SEXUALITY AFTER SLEEPING
WITH A NEIGHBOUR"
Hello, please can you give me some advice as I don’t
know where to turn. I came across your website while I
was looking for counselling websites online. I used to
be bisexual when I was a teenager but grew out of it
when I was about 17. I met my husband while I was at
university and we have two kids of 17 and 15. I’m going
to be 50 this year. The problem is that I got very drunk
at a party given by one of my neighbours who is
separated from her husband and when everyone had gone,
we ended up going to bed together. She was really
embarrassed the next morning and now she is avoiding me
but it has made me realise what I’ve been missing all
these years as sex with my husband is so boring by
comparison. I feel like my body has come alive again and
that I need to rethink my whole life and sexuality. But
my kids would be destroyed by it and my husband didn’t
ever know about my past. I don’t know what to do whether
to be true to myself or stick with my family. I can’t
leave and take the kids as my husband would never let it
happen and the kids would probably decide to stay with
their father if they knew I’d had sex with a woman and
they are really happy in their school. Please help me
sort this mess out because I have to do something soon.
Also, I’m worried the neighbour will tell someone else
and he might find out anyway.
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"WHY IS MY DAUGHTER TREATING ME LIKE THIS?"
I have just listened to Philip Hodson on the Jeremy Vine
show (Radio 2). A caller was saying how her depressed
daughter no longer has contact with her family and Mr
Hodson said how people often complain of this. This is
new to me! My own 20 year old daughter has refused all
contact with me for the last 6 months and it's killing
me.
History: I left her father for someone else (taking her
with me) when she was 7 years old. I never spoke ill of
her father and I made sure she saw him regularly, until
she was about 14 when she started to make the decision
for herself not to go so often, “because he has no
interest in me” (he had 3 step children with his new
wife). After about 7 years of the relationship not
working and both my parents dying within 6 months of
each other, I moved into a flat with my daughter. Apart
from my loneliness and depression, we were actually very
happy and the best of friends. We also worked together
as dance teachers. We were extremely close.
Just before her A levels, I met a younger man and he
moved in with us. They got on ok, but he has a short
fuse and they had disagreements over her religion.
Eventually we all had a big upset over a mutual friend.
The next day, we arrived home to find my daughter’s room
emptied and a note to say she had gone. She was staying
with grandparents (who, over the years, she had had
little contact with). Things were a little strained
after that. As a result, knowing she was about to start
university, my boyfriend and I decided to move to
France. We saw her once on a short trip to England and
she seemed ok. But even the rare texts and phone calls
had become very stilted.
I sent a long email last summer asking her exactly what
was wrong. She replied that she found it impossible to
love me any more, that she was having counselling and
that she had decided it was best to stop contact until
she felt ready to resume. I respected her decision but
not realising it would go on so long. I sent the
occasional email/text saying I was here for her and love
and miss her, but she subsequently blocked me from her
email and phone. She also has a new address which
neither she nor her father will give me. She speaks
occasionally to my brother and has told him to tell me
to stop contacting her. I know that she is now
conducting a really full-on relationship with my
ex-husband and his family. It is literally just me, the
one who gave her everything growing up. I really want to
kill myself some days. Please help - is this a normal
aspect of counselling and what on earth can I do? Will
it harm her if I force contact?
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"I'M LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER TO MY WEIGHT PROBLEM"
Please could you give me
some advice. I live in south-western France and moved
here in 1997. I have one child who goes to school
locally and another who has left home and works in
Paris. I have always considered myself to be obese and
have tried hard to find a way to lose weight, not just
because my husband hates me being fat but because I am
tired of being out of breath and looking awful in
clothes. Please don’t tell me just to start eating
sensibly as I’ve tried that and I just don’t have the
willpower. If I was still in England, I’d probably go to
Weight-Watchers or Slimming World but there is nothing
here and my French isn’t good enough to join a French
club. I am starting to look on the Internet for some
appetite-stopping drugs and wondered if you could advise
me if this is a good way to lose weight? I feel that if
I can’t lose weight that way, I’m going to have to look
into surgery as my life is passing me by without any
hope of me feeling better.
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"MY HUSBAND SAYS HE CAN'T CARRY ON THE PRETENCE"
My husband and I have been
married for over thirty years and we have lived in
France for over twenty-five years. We are both French
speakers and fully integrated in the French way of life.
Five years ago, we bought a house which needed totally
restoring. We bought it as a home for our retirement, it
was decided (mutually) that I would live part of the
time in this house to control the work, make new friends
and make a start towards this new life and I would visit
him frequently. It seemed an ideal solution and I would
have the best of both worlds. Things have not worked out
like that. My husband found the solitude difficult at
first, and then found that he quite liked living alone,
he has found that now my presence is annoying. He has
now admitted that for most of the years we were
together, he didn't love me, and that he wanted to leave
me and the children. He talks about suffering from bouts
of depression, but they only come on when I'm around. He
suffers from physical pains, but again, they only come
on when I'm around. He says he doesn't want to hurt me
but is unable to carry on the pretence of being a happy
couple.
He wants to get a job in another country (I am not
included in this project) and hopes that the last few
years of his working life give him job satisfaction
(this seems to be a major priority for him).
During these thirty years of marriage, I had no idea
that my husband was unhappy. He is a difficult man to
live with, as his career has taken up a lot of space in
our marriage. I can now see that he may have been using
his obsessive working as a cover for avoiding family
life.
He doesn't talk readily to me, saying that I'm a poor
listener and keep interrupting. His inability to
communicate with me is clearly a major problem, although
he has says that he has found female friends with whom
he loves to talk (but I doubt that he is discussing
emotional issues). The only indication that something
may have been wrong in our couple, has been his
inability to help me through moments of emotional
crisis. He has always turned his back and allowed me to
deal with the situation. I harbour great resentment over
this. Right now, I am suffering terribly. He is able to
offer me a silent hug, many apologies but no hope. My
husband is able to block out memories (of his childhood
he remembers very little). He almost (but not quite)
abandoned his parents, his sisters communicate with him
(rather than the other way around). If he goes to work
in another country, he will block me out. I still love
him and cannot believe that he is doing this to me. He
says he feels terrible about this (but only when I am
around).
Should I let him go, knowing that he might get the job
satisfaction he wants so badly, but knowing that he will
probably erase my memory? Should I try for counselling
when one partner has been unhappy for so many years?
What do I do in a house that was bought for a joint
future, that still needs a massive amount of work and in
which he seems to have lost interest?
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"HOW DID I GET HERPES?"
I live in southern France and have two kids who are settled
in school here. My
partner and me have a good sex life or we did until I
got herpes though I
didn't know what it was until the clinic I went to in
Scotland when I went
back to visit my mum last month said that was it and I
now think he must
have been having sex with someone. We mix with English
people only as
neither of us can speak French so I am sure it must be
one of the wives. I
haven't slept with anyone else although I've had lots of
chances so what do
I do now? Please help as I am at my wits end. He says
he hasn't been
putting it about but we haven't had sex since I asked
him and he says it must
be me putting it around.
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"I THINK I MIGHT BE DRINKING TOO MUCH WINE"
Can
you help me? I am 52 and have lived in a small village
in southern France for over 6 years, having moved here from
northern England with my husband. Our two sons are now at
university in England and my husband works as a builder,
so he is out all day and comes home after 6, very tired
and wanting his meal and not wanting to talk much to me.
My problem is that I am drinking a bit too much, around
two bottles of wine a day and I start at 10 in the
morning although I don't drink much after my husband
gets home as I am scared he will find out and be angry.
He has been violent towards me in the past although he
hasn't hit me since the boys left home. I don't know
where to turn as there is no-one who speaks English in
the village and I don't speak French.
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"MY HUSBAND HAS BEEN HAVING AN AFFAIR"
Hello, I am 45 and married with two teenage children. I
have lived in France for four years and my husband has
been having an affair since we attended a party given by
another English couple in our village last year. I only
know this because I have intercepted two text messages
and have also been told about it by the other woman's
husband. Can you advise me what to do about this? Should
I confront him or leave it to run its course?
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