BEL MOONEY: He adores me, but I just don’t find him attractive

Dear Bel,  

I’m nearly 74 and faced with a problem I’m finding impossible to deal with.

First, a little history. Because I got pregnant, I was married at 16. My husband turned out to be obsessively jealous and controlling. I had two more children and was trapped, but I knew I’d escape when the children were old enough and so 18 years later I did.

Then a couple of relationships didn’t work out well. Bad choices. Recently I met a very nice man who’s kind, caring and generous and adores me. But as much as I like him, I don’t find him physically attractive — in fact I don’t want him to touch me except for holding hands.

He’d have liked a sexual relationship and I did try hard to respond as he’s such a good man, but it was no good.

I told him I’m not interested in sex any more and I would understand if he wanted to walk away, but he said he understood and as he’s 76 his desires will quickly fade.

He has such nice plans for us. I told him I loved Italy and had been looking at property with a view to moving. He latched on to that idea straight away, thinks it’s a wonderful plan, has sold his house and is looking at property over there.

I thought my feelings would grow. Of course, I don’t expect to feel the same as when I was young but thought I’d become more and more fond of him and enjoy being close to him. But that hasn’t happened.

He really wants us to be together and gave me a lovely dress ring just as a token of his feelings — as I made it clear I’m not interested in marriage.

He is quite persuasive and I’ve gone along with his plans so far, but I can’t get over my negative feelings and I’m worried about living with him as I fear it’s going to get worse.

Oh dear Bel, what can I do? I really don’t want to hurt this kind man who has had much grief and pain in his life. I think he deserves so much more than I’m able to give.

Do you think hypnotherapy might help me to overcome these totally negative feelings about physical touch? It’s all making me sad and worried.

GLORIA

Today I have chosen two letters which ask me about seeking some sort of therapy for a problem and so feel I must make my position clear on the subject.

Therapeutic interventions (to be pretentious) come in many forms and ‘counselling’ is not a magical cure-all.

It does many people untold good to talk though an issue with an experienced listener who can give guidance by means of the right questions, hopefully leading towards some sort of revelation or solution — even if that is to conclude that a marriage can’t be saved.

But sometimes I worry that people think that a therapist will solve all their problems, without putting in the thinking/emotional intelligence themselves.

It’s also important to point out that if you put the word ‘therapy’ into a search engine you will find the names of hundreds of people with varying skills. Not all will be good. How do you know?

The fact is, some problems need to be worked through and lived with (see Alan below). Others present answers which are quite obvious to any outsider. I believe yours is one of those.

It worries me that you are being carried along on a path which does not suit you, and that because you like the man involved — and feel sorry for him — you are allowing yourself to be led somewhere you do not wish to go.

When you were very young you were ‘made’ to marry the father of your child, when given a choice you may not have done. The marriage was a disaster. Today you are (in effect) being ‘made’ to accept a relationship with a man who is unattractive to you yet who is impetuously piggy-backing on your future plans.

This kind man adores you and many women are bowled over by such attention. On the other hand, he also sounds a bit desperate — and beginning a relationship with all the doubts you currently have is surely a bad idea. By selling his home already and looking at property where you are too, he is all but railroading you into sharing his life.

Were you to carry on in the UK as chums who can enjoys evenings out, then not fancying him one little bit wouldn’t matter. But to be closeted together in another country where neither of you have friends or family would impose a huge burden on you both — and on you in particular, because you will be trapped in the full beam of his love and neediness. You have been honest with me — yet somewhat evasive with him. The friendship is recent and so you have no knowledge of how it might develop and how you might become a victim of emotional blackmail.

The sensible thing would be to halt all talk of moving abroad and keep this on a level of honest friendship.

If you were to get to know him better, who knows, your feelings about physical contact might change. But I doubt it very much.

I’m obsessed by my first love

Dear Bel 

Recently I have been thinking of a relationship I had in the 1960s and experiencing such an acute feeling of loss. I fell in love with a girl and our romance lasted 18 months.

When I first met her it was instant attraction for both of us and it all seemed like paradise. I even seriously considered relocating my occupation to be near her.

I cannot seem to get this relationship out of my head — thinking of the music and the things we did at the time. I see girls of the same age as my lovely girlfriend when we met and brood on how great it would be if I could transport myself back in time. Love songs on the radio make me feel sad.

I cannot get this torment out of my head, it’s there every day. I have been married for more than 50 years, and have a wonderful wife and two adult boys. You are probably thinking I should grow up and concentrate on my present life and family.

I really do want to forget the relationship, put it behind me and get on with my life. If you think there is an answer to my problem it would be wonderful. Would counselling or some sort of therapy get it out of my head?

ALAN   

Just imagine what it would be like if scientists came up with a magic formula that would make us forget people and/or events, just by keying certain codes into our computers — or maybe taking a pill.

Since many of us have said or done things we regret, or had awful, unwise sex on occasion, I wonder how many people would choose selective amnesia? I happen to know individuals who practise it anyway . . . conveniently forgetting mistakes!

You don’t tell me your age now or why you and your girlfriend split up all those years ago. So I have to hazard a guess that you are in your (perhaps late) 70s and that the 18-month romance ended because you were too young or one of you met somebody else or that it just ran out of steam, as young love can easily do.

The situation you describe is not uncommon. I remember one great love affair in my own life with amazement (that it happened, because it was unlikely) and some regret too.

And how many of us find ourselves wondering wistfully, ‘What would my life have been like if I’d married X?’ Or (leaving romance aside) what if I’d had the confidence to turn down that boring job and start my own business?’

Aren’t such feelings normal? That’s why I’m certainly not going to patronise you by suggesting you should ‘grow up’. Romantic memories and sad regrets and unanswerable questions are part of the complicated package that makes us human. One day an old song on the radio will trigger almost unbearable nostalgia. What’s to be done? Nothing . . .

Except perhaps, to think a little. When Alice in Wonderland finally got small enough to walk through the tiny door she found that the beautiful garden was full of lunatics like the Red Queen.

If we meet our memories with honesty we can remind ourselves why relationships went wrong, how we acted in bad faith, and how we learnt from our mistakes. Such realism is a useful antidote to dreamy nostalgia.

And you might even change your mind about that old song (see my And Finally section today).

There will be sad readers who are wondering why I printed your letter when you don’t really have a problem. But brooding about this lost love could have a negative effect. It may be normal to remember with a sigh, but not to brood with regret.

Unless you remind yourself to get real you could turn into a moping bore who affects your wife’s quality of life. That would be wrong.

So please forget the notion of having counselling for this harmless recent memory and take your wife on a swish weekend away instead.

I suspect this sudden bout of normal, soppy yearning has everything to do with not liking getting older. But hey, Alan, it’s happening to every single person reading this column (yes, even the young ones) so there’s nothing to be done except learn to live with it.  

And finally…Let’s hear it for all the Nowheres 

I love my old LPs and the glorious close harmonies of the opening bars of the Beatles’ song Nowhere Man catapulted me back to 1965 when I turned 19, failed to get into Oxford, and bought Rubber Soul.

John Lennon’s nasal lament on ‘Nowhere Man’ was a revelation; a devastatingly wise comment on human aspiration.

Fancying myself an arty intellectual who knew more about life’s complexity than most people, I joined in with the essential superiority of the words: ‘He’s a real nowhere man / Sitting in his nowhere land /Making all his nowhere plans for nobody/ Doesn’t have a point of view/ Knows not where he’s going to . . .’

And when Lennon sang, ‘Isn’t he a bit like you and me?’ I knew he didn’t believe it — and nor did I.

Poor old nowhere man was tedious Mr Ordinary: pitifully ‘blind’ to possibility and always needing a helping ‘hand’ — from the cool guys who knew so much more they could even ‘imagine’ the impossible.

What patronising piffle! I now dislike that snobbish lyric, expressing (as it does to me) the tedious superiority of those who know they are right on every issue, for example, from the EU to the unadulterated evil of colonialism to the moral genius of Stormzy.

You name the subject — the elite is convinced not only that it knows best, but that anyone who disagrees is ‘nowhere’.

In truth, the nowhere man is the sensible one. He makes plans but doesn’t impose them on others. He isn’t so sure of himself that he sticks to rigid points of view imposed on the world in sneery platitudes on social media.

And he keeps his options fluid and open, ready for forks in the road and new routes — instead of barrelling ahead because naturally he knows the way.

‘There’s plenty of smart ‘nowhere’ women too, wisely and quietly facing life as it comes, and definitely inhabiting somewhere that matters.