On Pins And Needles Around Womaniser - Agony Aunt

Dear Helen

Thank you for yor letter. I can see that you've been going round and round with this, so what's the way forward? Perhaps your answers to the following quesitons will help you make up your mind.

Back before ever you met this guy, did you imagine your ideal love as a guy who kept dumping you? Did you want someone who constantly criticised you for everyday habits? Someone who disregarded your perfectly ordinary views on love-making as a sacred pledge between two loving partners, and instead was unfaithful, lied about being unfaithful, and wanted you to get into swinging? Did you want a guy who can't maintain a good, close, committed relationship however much he says he wants one? Did you hope for a guy your children actively disliked because he kept hurting you? Someone who pressured you into going on holiday without your kids by allowing you to think he'd be unfaithful if you weren't there to keep an eye on him? Did you want a man you have to stand guard over? Won't that just lead in time to his considering you as his jailer? Is that the sort of relationship you've always wanted?

You're an intelligent, articulate woman. You wouldn't have started going out with him if he didn't have some good characteristics %u2013 but the good bits come at such a high price, don't they? I invite you now to stop focussing only on the good things and trying to ignore the bad. They're real and they're part and parcel of being with this guy. You have no need to think you "should" keep forgiving him, or that you're wrong to dislike his critical, arrogant habits. Aren't your senses telling you that being with him undermines your confidence? That's a point we'll come back to. Whatever the reason he gives for his marital affair, he still broke a vow he'd made of his own free will. Don't you think the real reason you can't trust him is that his behaviour is untrustworthy? Hasn't he lied, selfishly picked you up and put you down for his own convenience, manipulated you into walking on pins to try to keep him happy? I'll let you into a secret. You can't keep him happy %u2013 but that's not because there's anything wrong with you. Nobody could keep him happy, because it's not their job nor is it within anyone's power but his own. His happiness is his own responsibility. His moods are his, not yours. All you need to know is that he is moody. Do you like that? I wouldn't!

Let's come back to your confidence. Sure, he has loved you %u2013 badly, but to the best of his ability. Love can be bad as well as good. Good love leaves you feeling completely accepted, warts and all. It leaves you feeling stable, nourished, valued and secure.

I dare say he'd be furious if he read that last part. So what? His opinion isn't holy writ. If you feel bad leaving your children to go to Spain with him, why not act on your own feelings rather than his? Your feelings are your survival mechanism. Once you stop letting his feelings dictate your life, you'll have your own feelings to guide you towards happiness. And overall, being with this guy hasn't let you be happy, has it?

You say that without him you face a black void. I know that feeling well. So do many of my clients. But we've learned that it's not reality. The next time you get that black void feeling, open your eyes. You'll see furniture, a house, streets, fields, the sky. You'll see your kids and your friends. You'll realise that the black void is imagination, not fact. Since it's your imagination, why not do something different with it? Put a frame round it as if it were a picture. Imagine splashing some brightly coloured paint on it, or putting another picture into the frame instead, one where you and a good, kind, loving, stable, honest and faithful guy go hand in hand into the sunset.

There are nice guys out there, ones who want what you want. People move into the area, change jobs, get widowed or divorced, get to a point where they want to settle down. They'd love someone like you: an attractive, kind, considerate, loyal and loving woman. While you're looking for that guy, you can weed out the ones who treat you badly, knowing their behaviour is their responsibility, not yours. And in the meantime, you can work out other ways of getting positive attention. You can become your own best friend and give it to yourself, working through confidence-building books and courses, finding out more about good relationships from books like Women Who Love Too Much (and the men who love them) by Robin Norwood, or my own Make Love Work For You. You can build up your interests and your network of good friends. You can invest your energy into enjoying your life as far as possible. Not only does it help you get rid of that horrible desperate feeling. It also enriches your life. Don't you deserve happiness and good love? I think you do.

I wish you good love and good luck. Back to Ask Anne