Richard Madeley is here to answer your questions

Agony Uncle

QA few years ago, I found out during cognitive behavioural therapy that I have an “attachment avoidant disorder”. I am a 63-year-old woman with a whole lifetime of failed, car-crash relationships behind me: husbands, children, parents, best friends and work colleagues.

It all stems, of course, from my childhood, as my mother had severe mental health issues that resulted in our family being split up for extended periods, starting when I was three years old and continuing through to my late teens.

This was an era when psychosis was treated with electroconvulsive therapy and extended periods in a mental asylum, isolated from children and family. When we were together, we were a happy family, but I can now see there were dysfunctional dynamics that reinforced my disorder.

At my age, this disorder is deeply entrenched and is probably not amenable to treatment, even with the help of expensive private therapy, that I certainly cannot afford. It would not be available on the NHS.

So, given that I am made this way, how do I proceed with future relationships? Do I tell all in the hope that any potential friend/partner will recognise and engage with any early signs of destructive behaviour on my part?

Or do I say nothing and hope that I can recognise and divert it on my own? At my age, I feel that most people don’t want to form a bond with someone with this kind of baggage – life is literally too short.

Since my diagnosis, I have led an isolated life, and got a dog to plug the gap. Lockdown has suited me; I am content and even quite happy.

But still I hanker after intimate human company. Is it right of me to pursue it?

Anon, via email

Dear Anon

AI think you know, by now, that even in the most promising of relationships, your fear of attachment will rear its head and start to cause problems. So yes, once the relaxing of lockdown measures allow you to seek new friends or partners, I do think you need to be frank with them – but not at the very outset.

Give them a chance to like you or even fall in love with you a little first. Let them see what you have to offer. Then, before the relationship gets any deeper, calmly explain about your attachment avoidance disorder; why you developed it and the difficulties it’s caused you in your private life.

Warn them that it may manifest itself again – indeed, it probably will – and they need to be prepared and able to understand that it’s nothing to do with them or your feelings for them: it’s an inner struggle you are having with yourself. I firmly believe that to know all is to understand and forgive all.

Frankness can be your friend and openness your ally. You’re still only in your early sixties; there will be someone out there for you, if you can give them a context for your occasional withdrawals and anxieties. Good luck!

Dear Richard My wife is pouring cold water on my bike restoration project

QDuring the past three months I have returned to a long-cherished project: restoring a dilapidated Norton motorcycle I have had for over 10 years. Two months’ furlough followed by one working sensible hours at home without a daily commute and a culture of after-work drinks has allowed me to make some real progress.

I was looking forward to finishing the job this summer and taking the bike out. But my wife’s attitude to the project has changed.

I could handle all the digs about my midlife crisis and so on but, as the bike started to look more like a bike, she has become more resentful, avoiding the garage and making a big song and dance about safety.

I used to ride a lot, before I met her: I wasn’t reckless then, and I won’t be now. But I do want to give it a try, and now work is slowly ramping up, it’s hard to stay motivated to finish the job.

How can I reassure my wife that I’m not going to go freewheeling into the sunset – or into trouble?

Ian, via email

Dear Ian

AYou’re not training to climb Everest, are you? Or learning the refined techniques of cage-fighting? You’re not building a rocket in the garage to launch yourself into low Earth orbit. You’re slowly and painstakingly restoring

a classic motorbike, for heaven’s sake, and you’ll probably ride it with all the assiduous care and attention due a vintage machine like it.

So I very much doubt your wife is seriously concerned about your safety. That’s almost certainly a screen for something else: she feels sidelined and even rejected because of what she regards as your inexplicable passion for a heap of old junk in the garage.

She’s also probably worried that, once you get the thing on the road, she’ll see even less of you than she does now. You should regard it as a sort of compliment, actually.

Don’t resent her; reassure her. Take a few nights off from project Norton and focus on your wife. Do you cook? Well, cook dinner for the two of you. Buy some expensive wine to go with. Once the lockdown eases in July, take her out for some nice lunches. Make the occasional (JUST the occasional, Ian) selfdeprecating joke about your little project in the garage.

In other words, put her first, second and third. Do that, and who knows? When your labours in the oil-pit are done, she may even consider riding pillion with you. Have you asked her about that?

It’s not often I reply twice to one letter, but today I feel I should. Last week, I answered a letter from a woman concerned about noisy and sometimes argumentative neighbours. Although she said in her letter that in 10 years she had seen nothing to warrant contacting police or social services, several readers have written in pointing out that the signs of domestic violence can be hard to spot, challenging me over my light-hearted tone and suggesting that anyone worried about these issues contact Refuge’s National Domestic Abuse Helpline (0808 2000 247 or Refuge.org.uk). I’m happy to pass this on, and to sincerely apologise for any distress.