How can I keep a lid on things while not seeming to be a spoilsport?
Nicola W, Abergavenny
Dear Nicola,
The problem is drink, therefore the solution is don’t go near it. Did you really need me to tell you that? I understand the peer pressure must be terrible.
I confess, if I’d seen the pictures from last year’s bash, I’d probably be plying you with a bucket of cava as well.
The trick is not to make any announcement about not drinking. Make no fuss when people try to top up your glass and always be seen to be holding a drink. By all means, have a couple of sips so as not to arouse suspicion, but basically try not to drink all night and leave early.
If this makes you a spoilsport, so be it, because the sport in question is watching Nicola making a drunken spectacle of herself and then laughing at her when she shows up to work the next day with skin the colour of pea and ham soup, shaking like Kerry Katona on a tumbledryer. Most decent folk will respect you for your restraint and the mob will simply turn its jeering attention to some new drunken fool.
By the way, given your particular weakness for booze, I suggest that a posting to Dubai will either be your salvation or we’ll end up reading about you in the news section of the Daily Telegraph. Cheers!
Dear Graham,
My wife and I separated in January last year, having been together for 16 years. She and our three kids (12, 10 and 6) have dealt with the changes OK but I haven’t.
I’ve had very few highlights considering I have made the effort to put myself out there. I’ve tried bars and clubs; internet dating; salsa dancing; gym and tennis membership and even dated a client briefly (I’m in financial services). The dancing was brilliant but most of the girls were either too young, or already dating.
My ex is very attractive and, although I realise that looks aren’t everything, I haven’t felt the same passion for the occasional girl I have dated since our separation.
What I really miss is the satisfaction of having a healthy physical relationship, as well as the day-to-day stuff like the chats, the hand holding, the hugs (my kids’ hugs and kisses are great but not the same) and the company of being with someone I care for.
Loneliness is a horrible thing that messes with your head and my work as a financial adviser (dramatically affected by the credit crunch) means I spend a lot of time on my own, which only adds to the gloom. The pressure on my finances doesn’t help my social life.
My usually optimistic attitude is being tested and I really would appreciate your view on what I should do next. I am 53, but I keep in good shape and am young in outlook.
‘Jack’ (no address supplied)
Dear Jack,
I’m afraid to say that there is no easy fix for what you are going through. Time is really the only thing that will help. After 16 years with one person, no amount of salsa classes or internet dating is going to replace what you had. Comparing new women in your life to your ex-wife is pointless because that is over.
Try to see that starting afresh with all the trial and error that entails can be an adventure not just a litany of failure. You haven’t gone into detail about why the marriage ended but it sounds to me as if you aren’t just lonely but really missing your ex-wife and your family life together. Remember why it ended – even if she walked out on you that means she was profoundly unhappy and, no matter how you choose to recall things, a relationship can’t be a good one if one person is miserable in it.
The trauma of your separation coupled with the global economic collapse is going to put a huge strain on you so try to stay strong.
Bad times – just like the good times – don’t last forever. There will come a morning when you wake up next to someone you love and you will hold her and feel truly happy. I hope that time is soon.
Dear Graham,
I’m an ordinary, unassuming 30-year-old man with a penchant for large ladies. When I watched your television programme the other night and saw a lucky fellow being set up on a blind date with Dawn French, I was green with envy. The fact is that I like women with something to grab hold of.
Most of my female friends are model-thin and those who aren’t wrap themselves in acres of black fabric, endlessly harp on about diets and, like vampires, only really come out at night. The result is that I’m permanently single because I don’t fancy any of them. The thin ones are too thin and the fat ones are too damn miserable.
Any ideas?
Victor S, Coventry
Dear Victor,
If I’m correct, you are looking for happy fat women. I’ve never gone out of my way to try to find one myself, but I can’t imagine it’s that difficult. Getting a job in a Thorntons chocolates shop might expose you to some, or you could just hang around Madame Tussauds and wait for the Americans to show up.
The other thing would be to tell the miserable fat women you know how attractive you find their bodies and, trust me, that will put a smile on their chubby faces. If you are too shy for such an approach, then it strikes me that this kind of niche dating was what the internet was invented for. There must be some lardlover.com out there where you will be welcomed with open flabby arms.
Tie a cake to your face. Disguise yourself as an eclair… I’m on fire here – I don’t think I’ve ever given better advice. You’re welcome.
Dear Graham,
I am a widow with three wonderful grandchildren who I don’t see nearly enough of. My daughter is very close to her mother-in-law, who, like me, is a widow, but unlike me lives in a lovely, rambling house in Hampshire, with enormous grounds and lots of spare rooms.
Blessed as she is with plenty of money, she is able to have the children to stay with ease and can offer them wonderful treats.
Living in a small flat in Barons Court on a modest pension, I feel I can’t compete. As a result I feel rather left out. Raising the matter with my daughter – who has a lot on her plate already – would be awkward and I have no wish to cause trouble or be a bore. She is clearly very happy with the status quo and I can quite see the attraction of having a place to take the children at weekends.
I don’t want to get all bitter and twisted about this. Any words of wisdom would be gratefully received.
Eleanor S, west London
Dear Eleanor,
This is a very tricky problem and I think you are being wonderfully understanding. It is unfortunate that in a situation that involves so many people only one person is losing out and that’s you. The obvious solution, though I’m not sure how practical it would be, is to befriend the mother-in-law. Then you could spend time with your grandchildren and have nice weekends in the country.
If you don’t feel comfortable fishing for invitations, I think there is another approach you could take which wouldn’t involve competing. Find an activity or invitation for one grandchild at a time.
It will be less economically draining for you and will tread on far fewer toes. And presumably the one-on-one quality time with each child will be even more valuable for both of you.
To be honest, I think you are giving your daughter a slightly easy ride. She ought to be aware of the problem and be addressing it rather than simply going with whatever makes her life easier. Maybe you would find it simpler to tell your son-in-law how you feel since there is less emotional baggage between you.
If all else fails just become the wild fun granny. Stock your fridge with Alcopops and get some certificate-18 DVDs and listen to your doorbell ring!
Dear Graham,
I’m a young mother who’s just started work again and I’m loving it – skinny lattes, proper conversations with intelligent people, a sense of self-worth now I’m not a full-time housewife whose biggest excitement is looking for nits and pairing odd socks. My husband is very supportive of me going back to work and we’ve got a great au pair (from New Zealand, none of that class-war business you get with British ones). But the problem is our kids (six and five), who feel unloved and abandoned. Every morning there are terrible scenes
when I leave for work.
Sometimes I think I’m going to die of guilt, or be punished in some terrible way for my selfishness. What should I do to restore peace in our house? Should I abandon all thoughts of having a career?
Sarah P, Bath
“All children are tiny conservatives – they hate change.”
Dear Sarah,
Well, you’ve come to the right place. I like to think of myself as a onestop shop for all your childcare advice. Let’s break down what is going on in your life. You have returned to work and you love it. That’s a good thing. You have great childcare. Another positive. Your husband is supportive. More boxes ticked.
Your kids have a fit when you leave in the morning. Not pleasant but is it such a bad thing? Obviously, I can’t imagine the guilt but all I would say is that it’s very early days. Right now your kids don’t like you leaving them behind, but that’s simply because all children are tiny conservatives – they hate change. On the up side, surely one of the most valuable lessons you can teach your children is that they can’t have it all their own way?
Imagine what sort of message you would be sending to your kids if you sacked the nanny, gave up work and sat with them all day. In the short term, it might assuage your guilt and their distress, but later down the line you will be bored and resentful and they will be smug control freaks. The choice is yours.
Please bear in my mind that all these words of wisdom come from a man who can’t get his dogs to sit for a biscuit.
Dear Graham,
I suspect my wife is addicted to diets. She’s never happier than when she’s on one. While everyone else is feeling miserable and broke after the holidays, my wife is planning with secret joy her latest diet campaign in minute detail. It doesn’t help, of course, that at this time of year all the papers and magazines are full of diet plans.
Egged on by Basha, our Polish cleaner, she’s just embarked on something called the cabbage soup diet, a hideous regime that makes her bad-tempered, headachy and exhausted – and gives her evil brassica breath (we won’t mention the other side effect). The fact of the matter is she never actually loses any weight at the end of these punitive diets. She just wastes an awful lot of time.
I like her just the way she is – curvy and solid. How can I get her to enjoy life and stop worrying about how she’s going to look in a bikini? Our last beach holiday was in 1992. Next year we will be eligible for freedom passes.
It’s ridiculous!
Freddy P, Northamptonshire
Dear Freddy,
You state very clearly that your wife is never happier than when she is on one of her fad diets – so apart from the odd bit of wind wafting past you and the Polish cleaner, where’s the harm? I’m sure it’s frustrating that your love isn’t enough to reassure her and she needs the mirror to tell her that she looks beautiful but very few of us have a totally healthy body image.
Although she may not lose much weight when she is busy counting calories, imagine for a moment what epic proportions she might reach if she didn’t do these diets every year. A freedom pass is of little use if you can’t actually fit on a bus.
Perhaps you could make a deal where you set a time frame for putting an end to her dreams of salvation through starvation. Two more years and she can retire to graze peacefully until death and you don’t have to listen to her wittering on about how she can’t eat an egg until she has had a grapefruit first.
The problem with all the miracle diets and exercise regimes is that even if they work we are just a skinnier version of ourselves and who we really want to look like is the model on the cover of the video or the box of strawberry-flavoured powder. Watch a few episodes of Extreme Makeover to see the pain in the eyes of the participants when they see the mirror for the first time and realise that they are still the same person just with clean hair and whiter teeth.
Allow your wife to enjoy chasing after something she will never get because if she did ever achieve the perfect body it wouldn’t make her happy. Greyhounds enjoy chasing that bit of rabbit fur on a roller skate – think how upset they would be if they ever caught it.
Dear Graham,
I’m planning to propose to my girlfriend over the New Year, which we’ll be spending with her parents in the Lake District.
Her mother is a dog-loving, salt-of-the-earth type who bakes cakes and plants bulbs. Her father is ex-Army and rather formal. What’s the correct etiquette in these circumstances? Should I ask for her father’s permission first?
Ben F, Fife
Dear Ben,
I imagine that, if I met you at a party and the next day had to describe you to others, I’d say you were very sweet but a bit thick.
Your intentions towards your girlfriend are lovely. Congratulations and I hope that she accepts.
I feel it would be remiss of me not to point out that your girlfriend is more than likely to turn into a salt-of-the-earth, dog-loving, bulb-planting, cake-baker. But if that’s OK with you, then so be it. As for asking the father for his permission, I have no idea what you should do.
But if I were in your situation, I’d propose first. If the answer is yes, then ask your new fiancée what she thinks you should do. Do fathers these days ever not give their permission? If he doesn’t, then of course you have a whole new set of problems.
By the way, if all goes according to plan – and I think it will – then please don’t invite me to the wedding. It’s not that I wouldn’t enjoy meeting you, but it’s so hard to gift-wrap an Aga.
Dear Graham,
My widowed mother keeps begging me to go on holiday with her. Her latest plan is a cruise around the Norwegian fjords. She’s had a really hard time since my father died and I desperately want to do the right thing and be supportive, but I go insane with boredom and irritation if I’m cooped up with her for too long.
It’s not that she isn’t lovely – it’s that typical mother/daughter thing. We get really irritated with each other. While I’m always happy to do lunches, or dinners, or cinema trips, I don’t think I could go on holiday with her without losing my rag and being horrible.
I’m single, but I live a very full and hectic life. Adapting to the geriatric pace of a cruise would be really hard. I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck on a boat, playing canasta and talking to elderly couples from Ohio.
Any advice? I am 45. My mother is 83.
Gail L, Lincs
Dear Gail,
You can’t think of anything worse than being stuck on a boat with your mother? Try sitting at your mother’s funeral wishing you had taken her to see the Norwegian fjords.
Your mother is 83 and soon such trips will be beyond her so set sail sooner rather than later. I completely understand that you won’t enjoy it and indeed it may be hell, but it’s not about you. You have already lost your father so surely it makes sense to spend time with your mother.
Oddly, the pace of a cruise may help your relationship because you will have no distractions. You might just enjoy sitting around talking about your father, remembering childhood holidays or, if all else fails, laughing at badly dressed fat Americans.
We can’t live our whole lives to please our parents but drifting around Scandinavia for a week doesn’t seem like much to ask. It may inconvenience you but I doubt you’ll regret giving your mother happy memories.
Dear Graham,
I’m an addict. No, it’s not drink, drugs or (sadly) sex, but all those cheap, bodice-ripping novels that clog up the shelves of supermarkets and public libraries. Even though I have a perfectly good brain, I just can’t read enough of the kind of books you cannot be seen with in public.
As with eating too many vanilla cupcakes or drinking one too many Cosmopolitans, I always feel a bit disillusioned and tawdry the next day, ashamed of myself for having such pathetic illusions and for being led astray by such nonsense. I know it should be a simple matter of marching towards the Classics section and picking up something by Dostoyevsky, but I always get ambushed by
those marshmallowy covers.
How can I beat my addiction?
Tara A, Middlesex
Dear Tara,
So you’re attracted to the wrong sort of books? There is no shame in that. We have all chosen to watch an episode of Hollyoaks over The Sopranos, but to do it constantly is, I suppose, a bit of a waste of time.
Why don’t you upgrade to the top of your genre? Jackie Collins or Jilly Cooper will, I’m sure, satisfy your addiction. Then move on to Maeve Binchy. Next try lowering the sugar content with a few Barbara Vines and, before you know it, you’ll soon be wading through all the titles from Richard and Judy’s book club.
The other thing you could do is to put down the book with a picture of Fabio dressed as a pirate on the cover and leave the house. Maybe then you could run your hands through the coarse dark hair of a real man while your heart beats wildly and you feel the rain soaking through your thin cotton dress.
You may get arrested for attempted rape, but at least you won’t have turned into a crazy old lady who smells of lavender.
Dear Graham,
Since we married two years ago my wife has stopped making any kind of effort. She has put on two stone, buys all her clothes from Per Una and often wears a hideous combination of fleece and old leggings that does her no favours. I can’t remember the last time she wore heels and showed a bit of cleavage.
We don’t have kids yet – we’re only in our early thirties – so she doesn’t have the excuse of children and sleepless nights. I’d like her to wear nice things but, whenever I drop hints, she goes into a major sulk.
Ask Graham Page 17