Ask Andrew – 245
Dear Andrew,
Am working my way through The Single Trap – thank-you for actually “getting” the singles thing, treating us gently and not as lesser beings!
For the first time I’m seeing my situation in a context which makes sense but I have to confess that I’m struggling with an important element of moving on as set out in your book.
It may help to give you an overview of my history. I’m a 42 year-old woman; attractive, successful, liked and respected. I have, however, never had a relationship even though my dearest wish was always for marriage and children. I have found myself hankering after uninterested men in lengthy flirtations and, once, an affair with a married man (given my background in a respectable Catholic family, this was a huge transgression). I know that men are attracted to me but they rarely act on it. My one chance of happiness with a kind and balanced man came 11 years ago but, even in a long-distance relationship, I quickly felt suffocated by his warmth and unable to trust the prospect of being loved. I pushed him away after less than three months. I now no longer have any great expectations of finding someone to share my life with and I’m realistic about the prospect of motherhood at this stage in my life.
It will probably not surprise you to learn that I have identified my father as distant (it took until his early 70s for him to be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome) but he also displayed destructive traits in my childhood. My mother, meanwhile, qualifies very much as a martyr although she could also be described as controlling. Both suffer chronic and debilitating physical illness which ended their working lives and turned my sister and I into carers quite young: my father since I was 11, my mother since I was 18. I have seen them both use their ill-health as a weapon against each other and in some ways to control my sister and me.
My difficulty is in putting this stuff to bed so that I can get on with the life I want for myself. While I can manage my relationship with my mother (though it still often requires evasive action to prevent her taking over my life), I struggle with the concept of forgiving my father. He is now in a home with Alzheimer’s and I rarely visit him. The idea of a conversation with him as you’ve described is impossible and, even the idea of writing him a letter is unrealistic; the lack of interest, care and concern for anyone other than himself was so engraved into his personality that I feel I would – even now – be setting myself up for yet more feelings of rejection by doing so.
I feel anger and pain even writing this e-mail. And I feel profoundly ashamed that at the age of 42 these issues should still be with me and still so raw – yet to anyone who meets me I appear pretty “sorted”.
I feel that your book could really help me to love someone and be loved in return. But if you’ve any other advice you can give me to get over this blockage, I’d really appreciate hearing it!
Andrew writes:
First of all, I want to take some of the weight off your shoulders. Relationships are difficult. We’re not really taught about them at school. And we’re fed fairytales and simple messages by the media. Just a quick dash through the Ask Andrew letters on this site will show you that lots of people, if not most people, feel completely confused, overwhelmed and exhausted by relationships at some time in their lives’. So please don’t be annoyed with yourself for not having everything sorted at 42!
So with a little of the pressure removed….. where do you go from here? If writing this letter to me released some of the pain and anger, that’s good, sit down and imagine that you’re going to send the next one to your father. Start with your earliest memories and move slowly through everything that’s been painful or distressing. Keep going until you get to the present day. Hopefully, this story will run to several thousand words. Then put it away in a drawer for a couple of weeks and look again with fresh eyes. Imagine that you are someone else, a good and kind friend – what would she say about the letter? Are there any mitigating circumstances – like your father’s mental health issues? Read some books on the subject – like Aspergers in Love by Maxine Aston – and get a different perspective. Finally write a shorter letter to your father summarising how you felt when writing the first letter and then how you feel today. There will be differences. (I should stress these are letters for yourself – not to be sent to your father. Please also read the letter from the Italian woman – which is next on this section – and my words about forgiveness being a gift to yourself)
In the meantime, look at the exercise ‘Lowering the Shield’. Start with situations which are non-threatening and allow someone to see a glimpse behind the ‘sorted’ façade. And I do mean just a glimpse. Something so small, nobody but you would recognise it. Try and find something everyday and slowly but surely open up, first to friends and then to strangers, finally to men.
Finally, consider coming on one of my workshops – where you will meet other people dealing with complicated feelings, get a glimpse behind their façade and risk letting your mask down in a safe environment, you might also like to consider some long-term therapy too. You’ve had a lot to contend with as a child but your new knowledge and understanding can be the building blocks for a better and lighter future.
