How can I look ahead when I feel so betrayed by my dad?

DEAR BEL,

I’M 18 and taking my A-levels. Recently, I had my third operation on my left arm, trying to resolve a pain I have endured for five years after an accident in 2012.

Now I’m struggling with exam stress, my relationships and my weight (over which I have been bullied in the past).

My kind boyfriend has been incredibly helpful throughout my surgeries, but we broke up in January and got back together in March. I’m starting to wonder if it was the right decision.

I care about him, but he’s not what I need any more and I don’t know what to do.

I’m terrified of losing another person from my life. I have already lost contact with my father and half-brother, and am about to see my only close friend go off to university in another city.

I’m also going to university (exciting) but, unfortunately, I’m not mobile enough to live independently, so will be staying with my mum and going locally.

My dad was one of the last people to find out I applied for university. My relationship with him is not good because of my stepmother, who’s been around since I was eight.

As the years passed, her hurtful comments about my weight developed into something more; she’d twist things I said and sometimes lie, which would often result in my father shouting at me and, a few times, sending me home to my mum.

In the past few years, however, things have got even worse. Every time I tried to calmly tell my dad she had upset me, she would scream at me, calling me manipulative and horrid, and pretty much everything under the sun. My father appeared to back her up.

My stepmother has gradually excluded all his family and old friends. At one point, my dad was my best friend and now he doesn’t speak to me and won’t see me.

So, the problem is not my boyfriend or father, but both. I miss Dad terribly, but feel betrayed by him.

I care for my boyfriend, but don’t find the relationship good for me any more — I’m on edge with him, as though we’re trying to build something out of ashes.

I feel obliged to remain the same person I was two years ago when we met, but I’m not. I don’t know how to say it in a way that won’t hurt him.

Am I just projecting my other issues on to my relationship with my boyfriend, or am I clinging on to my relationship because I no longer have one with my dad?

RACHEL

Your email was very long, with too many facts and feelings to print in full here.

But let me start by saying that I feel great sympathy for an 18-year-old facing so many problems at once, and feel glad that you have such a good, supportive relationship with your mother.

The end of your parents’ marriage when you were seven must have been a great shock; in fact, you probably feel that was when you actually ‘lost’ your father.

Your original uncut letter explains that, at first, his new girlfriend was ‘over-attentive’ to you and your mother ‘spoke to my father’ about it.

This might have caused a rift that would never be healed, if your (later) stepmother felt rejected by you. Who can possibly know? These relationships are so often fraught with difficulty.

You give details about an incident where your stepmother lied to your father about a holiday, making him unjustly furious with you.

Sadly, given the complexity of the situation, I fear it will be very hard indeed for you to achieve the

relationship with your father that you yearn for. To be blunt, he loves his second wife and that will not change.

Please don’t take that as entirely negative. The way forward may be for you to scale back your hopes (and sense of how a dad should behave?), to expect very little.

Honestly, you have to accept you can no longer be his best friend. Then, when in time he speaks to you again (as I’m sure he will) you can be calm and welcome your father back into your life.

To reach that stage you have to learn far more about yourself (and see my reply to today’s second letter, too).

But what of the boyfriend? I am impressed by your insight into how and why these relationships may overlap.

You simply can’t turn the boyfriend who has been so supportive into a father figure; at your age that wouldn’t be very healthy, would it?

If you no longer want to continue with the relationship, then the best advice is to end it because you are too young to feel locked in.

At the moment, you have exams to cope with, and a severely damaged arm, and then the next stage — which is university.

Your fluctuating weight worries you. That being the case, it’s something you should discuss with your mum — perhaps asking her to help you with a sensible eating plan. Look ahead, Rachel . . . Talk frankly to your boyfriend, share with your mum, make some plans to go and visit your close friend when she leaves for university and please realise that you have much time ahead in your life to discover and love who you are.