How will I get over my obsession for my lost soulmate?

DEAR BEL,

People stood around, eating pastry or drinking coffee, others having a late-morning spritz. How wonderful, yet how terrible, to emerge from [the mortuary] and enter here, amidst the click of cups on saucers, and come face to face with this reminder of what we all know… that life plugs along, no matter what happens to any of us.’ FROM DRAWING CONCLUSIONS BY DONNA LEON (AMERICAN CRIME NOVELIST, BORN 1942)

I’M 40, have never married, have no children and have been in and out of relationships all my life.

With a good job and my own home, I should be quite content. But I feel lost. That I failed myself because I never married.

Recently I ended a relationship with a man who was married when we met. He had no plans to leave his wife; I told myself I didn’t mind.

Then he discovered his wife’s affair and, despite his efforts to keep the marriage together, they split up.

He continued to see me and I was thrilled. He was generous and made me feel loved and wanted. He spoke about our future and I fell deeper in love.

Then he started to become a little distant, mentioned love less, called and texted less and, eventually, told me he’d simply fallen out of love.

Ever the pleaser, I did everything to try to make it better - to make him love me again.

He became more distant, giving excuses as to why he couldn’t see me, text or call. So I ended it, but I’m gutted and want him back!

I sit at home, checking the phone for a text or email. I can’t stop obsessing.

Our love was so intense I can’t understand how he could walk away with such ease. He called me his ‘soulmate’ and I believed him.

Now he’s gone, saying our relationship ran its course, but he still calls me his soul mate. Doesn’t the word convey trust and friendship?

I don’t feel valued unless there’s a man in my life to give me value and I don’t feel attractive unless a man tells me so.

I’m thinking of changing my job and joined online dating sites, but I’m treading water in the hope he’ll realise what he’s lost and declare his love.

I don’t have any close friends and see my family infrequently, so I sit at home feeling sorry for myself. How do I move on and feel positive again?

LUCY

HERE is an ancient Irish lament which begins, ‘He is my love, O he is my love - the man who is most for destroying me.’

You stand in an interminably long line of women who became the victims of men who cast them off - and (for that matter) of men treated cruelly by the women of their dreams. This is the human condition, isn’t it?

So many people reading this page will know exactly how you feel. There’s no remedy for lost love except time.

In the meantime, you have to reframe your life right now. I reckon those dating sites are a mistake at this point; it’s far more important for you to tackle the misconceptions of the woman who believes she has to have a man to validate her life.

You need to look back and reexamine all those passing relationships - why were they brief? What seemed to be the reason for them ending?

Perhaps you presented yourself as a too-needy female who wrote herself the script of a secondclass citizen. Many men quickly become impatient by what amounts to subservience.

In your longer letter, you describe how when the man’s marriage was breaking up he actually asked you for advice on how to keep his wife and you gave it!

We could admire your disinterested generosity - or we could shout, ‘it’s time to get up off your knees woman!’ How will a man ever value you if you attach so little value to yourself?

You’re sitting at home waiting for him to make contact, like generations of hapless girls who wept while waiting for the phone to ring. But you are not a girl.

You don’t bother with friends of family, so desperate are you for a crumb from this man’s table.

Well, now it’s time to dry your eyes, brush teeth and hair, put on some make-up and see what you can make of the rest of your life by walking decisively towards it.

I don’t mean the sad business of hoping a picture of your eager face online attracts some random bloke.

I’m talking about doing things, making new friends, reconnecting with old friends, becoming interested in family members you’ve neglected. Learn something new.

Think of yourself as a work in progress who needs nobody to please but your determined self.