I think you know what you want to do so go ahead and contact him. It’s not a question of forgiving or even understanding; indeed, I doubt talking to him will answer any questions for you, but at least you won’t live the rest of your life with this huge bit of unfinished business trailing behind you like loo paper stuck to a heel.
Please don’t let your father’s legacy of secrecy become part of your life as well – tell your mother that you are planning to talk to your father, not because you are sympathetic or on his side but because you need to. Your mother may be unhappy and why wouldn’t she be? Her entire life was based on a lie told by a man who didn’t even trust himself to remember more than two children’s names. It’s amazing he wasn’t rumbled years ago.
What’s important is that your decision to see your father doesn’t distance you from your brothers. The one good thing that should come out of this mess is that you will become a much closer family unit. Just because one part of your family and personal history was a lie doesn’t mean that none of it was true. Sometimes love is a very fragile thing but at other times it is tough as an elephant’s foot. Only time will tell how much survives. Good luck.
“Sometimes love is a very fragile thing but at other times it is tough as an elephant’s foot.”
Dear Graham,
Have you ever split up with anyone on holiday? I recently spent a disastrous week in Majorca with a new boyfriend, who I thought was my dream man. He booked it (I gave him a cheque for half the money) and he picked this horrible high-rise hotel full of drunk people from Manchester.
Our room was dark and dingy, we found cockroaches in our bed and the ‘balcony’ backed on to a wall. Meals were just awful – greasy and tasteless – and because he had signed us up for full board my boyfriend wouldn’t try any of the local restaurants.
Apart from the bugs, he didn’t see anything wrong with the place and refused to move, saying he wasn’t ‘shelling out a second time’. Even when I said I’d pay, he told me to ‘get real’, and stop being ‘such a princess’.
I stuck it out but I had a really miserable time. He kept putting me down and telling me how boring and middle-aged I was (I refused to do karaoke or swim in the hotel pool). He dumped me on the plane home, saying he would have had more fun with a robot.
Now I’m back at work I feel my self-confidence is in shreds. I know he probably wasn’t right for me, but am I too fussy for my own good? Everybody else in the hotel seemed to be having the time of their lives.
I am 26.
Jo L, Nottinghamshire
Dear Jo,
They were having the time of their lives? They were drunk people from Manchester. Give them a clean bus shelter and some warm chips and they’d be happy. I really don’t know why this whole experience has affected you so badly. You had a horrible holiday and the man you went with has left you. Problem solved.
There is nothing wrong with you or your boyfriend. You just weren’t compatible and your Majorcan version of Guantanamo Bay has simply accelerated the end of the romance. Be grateful. You are only 26: the chances of this being your worst holiday, or indeed boyfriend, are pretty slim.
Try Cuba with a man who won’t eaten frozen fish and doesn’t like rum.
Dear Graham,
I moved into my boyfriend’s flat three months ago. I’m very easy-going and relaxed, but my boyfriend is really uptight. Whenever we cook anything, it’s as if we’re preparing for Carla Bruni’s visit to Buckingham Palace. The fruit and vegetables have to be sliced in a particular way and certain dishes demand certain plates. Everything has to be perfect: candles, silver, flowers, crystal.
I always use the wrong salad bowl or wrong glasses. One night we were making salad and I squashed an avocado (very ripe) straight into the bowl, rather than cut it into half moon slices and arrange them in a fan shape. I was hungry and couldn’t be bothered. My boyfriend lost it, I got bored and furious, and we almost split up.
We are both in our late thirties and in every other area we seem compatible. We just drive each other nuts in the kitchen. He thinks I’m a barbarian and a slut. I think he’s a sad, nit-picking old maid who’s in love with Gordon Ramsay.
How do I avoid more Avocado Nights?
Nico D, Earl’s Court
Dear Nico,
You get on with your boyfriend everywhere except the kitchen, so try this radical piece of advice: avoid cooking together. Clearly, how things are prepared and presented matters a great deal more to him than to you, so let him do it. If you insist on being a sous-chef, do it his way. Doubtless, he should relax and be less Anthea Turner about it all, but, trust me, it’ll be easier this way.
My warning is that, once he has his way in the kitchen, you may have problems in new areas. The difference between a squashed avocado and a pretty green fan seems to indicate two very different people and soon his attention will turn to how you put magazines on the coffee table or open letters. Once this happens, he will have to let go of some control or you will have to move out before you find yourself wrapped in clingfilm and stored in the cupboard under the stairs.
You have been warned.
Dear Graham,
When my weight shot up to 14 stone, I was mocked so cruelly by a gang of schoolchildren at the bus stop that I decided there and then to do something about it. It’s been a long and arduous slog and I still have some way to go, but the hardest thing is the lack of support from friends and family. It seems everyone prefers me fat and cuddly.
When I invite friends over, they bring boxes of chocolate, even though I ask them not to. ‘Oh, go on. One won’t do you any harm,’ they say. People – my slimmer friends, especially – make me feel I’m being controlling and obsessive by dieting. And some days it seems as if all the world is conspiring to make me the obese, self-loathing 33-year-old woman I once was.
I sometimes wonder if it’s jealousy that makes them behave this way. Most of my friends are still single and perhaps their biggest fear is that I will meet someone and leave them behind.
What do you think?
Debbie S, Swansea
Dear Debbie,
Congratulations and hurrah for bored schoolchildren. I’m sorry you aren’t getting the level of support you’d like, but you must understand that your strength of character reflects badly on the rest of us. Am I the only one who has breathed a sigh of relief when a friend who has been on the wagon picks up the wine bottle once more? Don’t we all feel like pigs when someone refuses the offer of bread in a restaurant while we’ve already started slapping the butter on ours?
We can all sympathise with short bursts of self-discipline – such as losing weight for a wedding or not drinking because of antibiotics – but any encounter with pure unmitigated self-control leaves most of us feeling very unsettled and slightly judged, even if it is only by ourselves.
I hope for your sake that these are the reasons your friends are less than enthusiastic and that, by giving you tempting foods, they’re not trying to cut down the competition for the cream of Swansea manhood. People are also very resistant to change and in their eyes you are Fat Debbie. You must admit it has a certain ring to it and rolls off the tongue faster than Debbie Who Lost all the Weight or, worse still, Gorgeous Debbie.
Joke about your diet when you are around family and friends and don’t let them see how seriously you are taking it. Accept the boxes of chocolates with a smile, but then give them away to the schoolchildren at the bus stop. Revenge can be very sweet indeed.
Dear Graham,
I haven’t had full-blown sex since 1997. I’ve got a great life, with an exciting job and lots of lovely friends but I haven’t been in a relationship for years. Having lived like a nun for the best part of 12 years, I feel terrified at the very thought of taking my clothes off in front of a man.
There’s a guy I like, who fortunately doesn’t know about my lack of a track record. I think something might happen, but I’m worried my technique is going to be a bit rusty.
I’m 39 an
d my friends tell me I’m attractive. None of them is prepared to say why it’s been so long since I’ve seen any action.
Any advice to ensure the man doesn’t run away afterwards (or during)?
Jules M, Bristol
Dear Jules,
It may be 12 years, but, unlike mobile phones, I’m here to tell you that there really haven’t been that many technical innovations. Not to belittle your problem, but I imagine it really is like riding a bicycle.
Typically, I tend not to spend much time between heterosexual sheets but surely a red-blooded male would be rather turned on by you simpering some plea for him to be gentle because it has been some time since you were with another man? Fan your hair out on the pillow and apply copious amounts of lipgloss to complete the effect.
Presumably, men prefer their sexual partners to have slept with fewer men rather than more. They won’t feel as if you are comparing them to others and there will be the feeling that it’s special for you rather than another notch on a bedpost that is starting to look like a wooden comb.
Don’t be nervous – be delighted! Just remember, no man likes to find cobwebs. Have fun!
Dear Graham,
My husband (a peppy 63) and I live in such different time frames we might as well be on different planets. At dinner parties he tends to nod off before the cheese course, and at weekends, when other couples have sex, he is up at the crack of dawn, usually engaged in noisy DIY projects. I grew up in France and Italy and am very Mediterranean in my hours.
We’ve been married for a few years – no children and no plans to have any (I am 42) – but, as the years roll by, things only seem to get worse.
I fear that by the time he is 70 we will be living like strangers.
What would you advise?
Felicity T, Beds
Dear Felicity,
Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I do feel, however, it would have been quicker and simpler for everyone had your letter just said: ‘Me 42, him 63. Problem?’
I can’t understand how you have wandered blithely into this situation without figuring out that an age difference of 20 years might become an issue. It is almost touching that you can write a sentence like, ‘as the years roll by, things only seem to get worse’, as if this was some sort of insight on your part. Wait until he’s 83 and see how different your time frames are then.
I’m not saying that your relationship is doomed, but you must accept that your expectations are wildly unrealistic. You have fallen in love with a much older man and you must figure out how to live happily with that fact. So he doesn’t stay awake for the cheese course, but I’m sure he’s great at the history questions in the pub quiz. Enjoy what you can enjoy together and allow each other to do things separately.
If you continue to demand that he keeps up with you, he will grow to resent you or you’ll kill him. Either way, I can’t imagine it will make you any happier.
Dear Graham,
What is a decent interval to wait before you go to bed with someone? I’ve had a few (unintentional) one-night stands and it has always ended in tears with me sitting miserably by the phone, wondering if I should ring BT to check the line is still working. Men can be so very hard to resist, particularly when they show interest rather than banging on about cars, computers or football.
I’m about to embark on a second date with a very attractive man (a cross between Colin Farrell and an Italian waiter) and I’m determined to hold out for a bit, rather than seem ‘easy’. I want a boyfriend rather than a quick shag. I turned 30 last week. What would you advise?
Natasha M, Worcester
Dear Natasha,
Well done! After a mere 30 years on Planet Earth you have figured out the male of the species. On a first date, going all the way usually translates into going nowhere at all. The trouble is that the giddy world of dating often involves late nights and strong drinks and that can lead to a lady behaving like no lady should.
The trick is to plan ahead. Put brakes in place before you even go on the date and certainly before you are halfway through your second bottle of mid-range wine. Don’t clean your flat, leave your legs unshaven and even resort to wearing old underwear. Make an early-morning appointment that you can’t break. Arrange for your mother to come round for breakfast. Draw something embarrassing on your breasts with eyeliner.
My list of deterrents is endless. Remember that when you give a man your very special gift he should feel incredibly honoured and lucky, not like you’ve just shoved a free newspaper through his car window at the lights. Value yourself and others will follow suit.
Dear Graham,
My 71-year-old mother is hard of hearing, but in denial about it, and it’s driving me bananas. The frustration and intolerance I feel towards her deafness (she refuses to wear a hearing aid) is unbelievable. It drives me nuts that she doesn’t understand anything I say. Our conversations are utterly surreal. If I mention ‘granola’, she’ll think I’m talking about ‘Dracula’. I get a blistering headache just trying to keep the conversation on a sane, rational level. Sometimes I get so furious that I have to leave the room.
One thing she does really gets me every single time. On each occasion I go to see her, she will leap up sporadically with: ‘Oooh! What a fright!’ The noise? Just the usual one of my mobile going off in my pocket. But my mother behaves as if al-Qaeda are storming the house.
How do I get her to put that blasted hearing aid on and become human and normal again?
Toby C, Wiltshire
“Distance may make the heart grow fonder, but gossip makes the ears grow sharper.”
Dear Toby,
Mothers find pleasure in the strangest of places. For some it is keeping the grouting clean, for others it is counting the years a light bulb has continued to work, and, when it comes to your mother, it is clearly winding you up with her refusal to wear a hearing aid. Your job – and it is a very tricky one – is to find things she’ll enjoy more than watching steam coming out of your ears, but that require her to hear.
Your mother isn’t very old, so one hopes she still has some sort of social life. I’m surprised she enjoys not being able to fully participate in conversations with friends. Perhaps get them to tell her she needs a hearing aid. She might take it better from them than you: let’s face it, she could hardly take it worse.
The problem, I imagine, for your mother is that admitting she’s getting deaf is admitting that she’s getting old. You becoming annoyed is only prolonging the agony for all involved. Once you cease to react, she may get bored and decide to rejoin the world in all its loud glory.
One thing is for sure, and that’s that no one is going to regret going deaf if their visitors discuss things like granola. Arrive armed with dirt and gossip and you may see a 71-year-old lady change her mind. Distance may make the heart grow fonder, but gossip makes the ears grow sharper.
Dear Graham,
I got married a couple of years ago to a divorced man with two children. Sadly, he has little contact with his children, who now live in Sydney. Being separated from them has given him untold agony, but he feels there is very little he can do as they appear to be happy with their new life.
I really grieve for him, but at the same time I resent his not putting more effort into our marriage. We live in my flat and he shows little interest in our home, or our friends, and is down in the dumps most of the time.
It’s too late for me to have children with him (I am 48), but I’d like us to build a proper life together. What can I do to raise his spirits and help him move on?
Robin L, Hertfordshire
Dear Robin,
What should have raised his spirits and helped him move on was you. I don’t quite understand how he could have made this huge commitment to you when his heart was obviously occupied elsewhere. Perhaps he thought that marrying you would make things better, but it clearly hasn’t.
I doubt that even moving to Sydney would cheer him up, even if it did bring him closer to h
is children. What you describe as down in the dumps is what many call depression. Perhaps he should seek professional help.
Don’t give up on this man too quickly. If you love him and are strong, there’s every chance the two of you can get through this. Good luck.
Dear Graham,
Isn’t the internet marvellous? I have met a wonderful secondhand bookseller on a dating website and things are going unexpectedly well. We live near each other and spend a lot of time together. The only blot on the landscape is that he’s a chain smoker. He’s considerate about it and smokes out of the window and up the chimney and – most of the time – empties his own ashtrays, but as a non-smoker I really loathe the smell. It hangs in the air and clings to everything – hair, nails, skin, clothes. I am permanently opening windows and airing rooms just to get rid of the odour. And even though I find him very attractive, often I don’t want to kiss him because the smell of cigarettes makes me nauseous.
I wonder what I can do to encourage him to give up without meddling too much?
Neither of us is a spring chicken. He is 64 and I am 62.
Janice L, Nottinghamshire
Dear Janice,
You are in your sixties with a new boyfriend and you’re worried about a bit of smoke? Most women your age are either trapped in a loveless marriage, alone, or getting a tattoo of Westlife. No one is that keen on ashtray breath but it doesn’t seem to be that big a price to pay for the happiness you have found.
Don’t turn into the sort of nag who makes the bookseller long for his days of being single. But equally he’ll never know how much his smoking bothers you unless you tell him. The vast majority of people who are in relationships don’t do that very simple thing of asking for what they want and then somehow it becomes their partner’s fault for not guessing what you’d like them to do.
Ask Graham Page 15