I’m happy with just my girls, so do I have to find a new man?

DEAR BEL, I’VE been in severe pain for several years and my ex-husband simply didn’t care what was wrong with me. All he cared about was how much money I was bringing into the household.

I’ve suffered panic attacks and severe anxiety attacks — but he always dismissed me and told me I was ‘stupid’ and ‘doing it all for attention’.

When our youngest child was born (she’s now 11), she had severe physical problems (thankfully, she’s OK now) and when I needed his support he would just disappear. While I was living at the hospital with her, he would regularly leave our eldest (then three) with anyone who’d have her.

I had only ever had one relationship — being with him since we were 15 — so had nothing to compare this relationship with. Once our youngest was OK, he withdrew from family life unless he absolutely had to be present — and I did 99.9 per cent of everything, domestically and emotionally.

My severe pain (I’m still on several medications) made me unable to have sex, so he deemed me not to be worthy of his time.

Unknown to me, he decided to have at least one affair. After 22 years together (and married for over 11 years), he texted me — would you believe? — 11 days before Christmas five years ago to say he was leaving, as I was ‘no longer a contributor to society’. I’m on benefits because of my medical problem.

He has come to my house and caused trouble and threatened other people involved with us — so to cut a long story short, the courts have now decided he is no longer allowed to see the girls.

His behaviour throughout the relationship was controlling, but I didn’t see it until he was no longer with us.

People are now telling me that five years since he left I should ‘move on’ and find another man. But, honestly, the children and I are doing so fantastically and they are flourishing at school. I am really proud of them for overcoming what they have been through.

My question to you is: do you think that I am weird or abnormal because I am so happy on my own with my kids and family around us, or do you think that I should try to seek out a special someone else?

I know this doesn’t seem like a big problem, but strangely it is becoming bigger in my head as the time passes.

MANDY

WHO are these ‘people’? It always amazes me that folk are so ready to offer opinions on the lives of others: what they should do, whom they should love, whether they should have another baby, and so on.

Yes, writing a column like this requires offering opinion — but then I only do so because I have been asked!

A woman of my acquaintance once divested herself of the opinion (framed as a question) that I had been ‘too forgiving’ towards my ex-husband. really! Luckily, I was too polite to suggest she mind her own business.

You have been through various stages of hell, with your own health, a sick child, a selfish, neglectful, controlling and unfaithful husband, and then his behaviour resulting in the court decision.

But without this man your life has become calmer and you see how much happier your daughters are without their father. So I wish ‘people’ would leave you alone and let you develop the life you have — rather than the life they think you should be chasing after.

Your letter raises two issues that interest me greatly. The first is (as I’ve just outlined) why people believe they have a right to offer opinions without reflecting on the hurt they might cause.

I suspect social media has made this tendency worse. Yes, humans have always gossiped and offered their two-penn’orths and sniped — but this is now the norm on a scale nobody could have imagined, and it seems reticence and decorum have disappeared. For pity’s sake, people — don’t busily tell the parents of an only child that they should have another, because they might have tried and failed many times — or else think one is just perfect, thank you very much!

And don’t offer any opinions about a person’s need for another relationship — because you can have no idea how thrilled he or she might be to hunker down in a cosy solitary bed at night.

AS FOR you, Mandy, you remind me how much I love to hear from those happy to be independent — so thank you. Your new life of contentment, of peace after so many storms, will be an inspiration to others who write to me in terrible anxiety about their single state. It’s not always bad, is it?

You have your girls — who matter more than anything else — to focus on and deserve time to think about who you are and what you want. In the future, you may well meet another partner and that might be unexpected or as the result of a concerted effort.

Who knows? What matters is refusing to be embittered by the past and trusting in your ability to create a new future.