Should you ever give up on your dreams?

You yearn for the perfect partner, home or career. But life just won’t play ball ...

EARLIER this week I did a series of interviews for BBC local radio stations all over the country. The subject was ‘love the second time around’ and, of course, I talked about my column and my new book, for which I selected highlights from the early years.

So with the BBC audiences, I shared some stories of emotional loneliness, and love lost and found, and how the ‘baggage’ people carry can get in the way of finding love again. Again and again, I heard myself remind the interviewers that life is very, very complicated; that’s why this advice columnist always tries to keep an open mind.

But I do believe in change, in hope, and in the fact that people can and will be helped. Writing my problem page, I feel rather like somebody leaning over the side of a canal, holding out a stout rope to the person floundering in the water. I never learnt to swim — so I can easily imagine how it feels to be in there, panicking, cold and wet and longing for a lifeline to be held out towards your desperate hands.

Then you suddenly realise, with gratitude, that somebody really is there to help you. That you can reach out and (oh, the effort of it!) be pulled out. What’s more, you discover there’s a friendly, protective embrace waiting to reassure you that you’ll soon be warm and dry again, and that it will be all right.

That’s what I try to tell my readers, as these extracts show, as often as I can. That it will be all right. It really will. At least . . . I hope.

Dear Bel

I’M 48, my partner C is 40 and we’ve known each other for three years. I’d be grateful if you could tell us how to change our lives. We are sick of what we have. Every day the same old drudge, mess and misery.

I have a job stacking supermarket shelves for miserable money. I’m in debt and rely on C to feed and clothe me as she can earn double what I earn — but it still won’t get us where we want to be.

I dream of being a wedding photographer and going on a course to learn the trade, but how — without money or a car? People say, ‘Only you can help yourself.’ But I’ve tried everything: tarot cards, wishful thinking, visualisation techniques, books, friends, Samaritans, prayer spells (to try to lift the curse).

I don’t want another job — the chances are it would be a day job, less money and little time for photography. I don’t want your shoulder to cry on. Both C and myself have cried enough tears of frustration and we don’t want to whinge on about how unfair life is.

All we want is a chance — just tell us what we must do to get fate off our backs. We need money to let us lead the life we want.

We want to get married with a proper church wedding, to travel, to get the photography up and running. If there is a way to change our lives, why can’t we see it?

Reply

You may not want a shoulder, but you have one. Your letter haunted me while I read a magazine feature about what was spent on four spoilt rich girls’ 16th birthdays by parents with more money than wisdom, judgment or taste.

Here’s a monstrously selfish brat getting the £16,995 sports car she demanded when she can’t yet drive — and there is a decent 48-year-old man desperate for a break in life.

It’s enough to turn you into a revolutionary.

Yet, I’ve never been one because I’m a realist and all the wishing in the world will not deliver equality this side of heaven.

First, I must point out that all those who have made academic studies of happiness (at least nine volumes on my shelf) will tell you that you start from the biggest advantage: your loving relationship.

Despite all the pain each of you has suffered, you and C have found your soul mate.

Second, I want to pour water on the ‘just follow your dream’ philosophy which deceives people into the belief that dreaming will deliver. It won’t. Yes, have a goal in life — but who would counsel following a dream if the fantasy leads you into a bog you get stuck in?

So, because you can’t attain the dream, you do nothing at all. That’s what has happened with you. What if I were to suggest you ditch this idea of becoming a wedding photographer? Your letter is written in capitals on file paper: you have no computer skills, which are as necessary as a love of taking pictures.

Modern wedding photography is a slick, hard business (there’s dozens in your area — I looked) and photography in general is a tough way to earn any sort of living. Will it surprise you to know that many wannabe snappers don’t make even as much regular money as you do?

I think you should keep it as an enjoyable hobby, check out competitions and go for it (take moody nighttime pics at work) and in the meantime move on from dreams to practicalities.

Readers may be bothered by something in your letter. You weep because you’re in a dead-end job yet say you ‘don’t want another job’. What? You’re stacking shelves at night and haven’t even investigated whether you could get a better job?

If you want to change your life and make more money, that simply isn’t good enough.

Be energised. Why didn’t that pesky tarot reader tell you to act? Have you investigated skills training in your area? Go to the Citizens Advice Bureau and see what they suggest about (a) your debt and (b) your lack of skills.

You are C’s new family. Show her how much you love her by taking a lead, one step at a time. And please set a date for that wedding.

By all means go for the church if you have sincere religious faith but if not, what are you waiting for? A register office does the job, and you don’t need to save up.

The more you ask how far it is, the longer your journey seems. The more you weep for what you haven’t got, the more you will be blinded to possibility.

Dear Bel

LONELY Adrian wrote to me describing how he ‘works, then hangs about, because there’s nothing else in my life. It’s a horrible downward spiral, and the longer you’re alone, the harder it seems to be to find something to talk about. People at work gave up long ago asking if I had a nice weekend. My answer is always the same — No!’

Reply

When I first read your letter I was overwhelmed with a feeling of compassion for this lonely man with nothing in his life except work.

But forgive me — on second and third readings I began to feel as frustrated by you as you are by your lonely, empty life.

I can’t do this job unless I’m honest — and there is a part of me that would like to take you by the shoulders and shake you out of this terrible, tedious self-pity.

It is obvious that you need help. You need to go out there and do the obvious thing: pay for proper counselling (you have a salary) to help kick-start your life.

You say in your letter (no space to print it all here) that you ‘live on chocolate, crisps and vodka’.

You probably have unhealthylooking skin, hair and teeth, not to mention a spreading middle.

not attractive — and certain to increase depression.

If you answer your work colleagues with endless negatives, they won’t want to ask you anything. And if your response to loneliness is to ‘mooch’ about supermarket cafés and bars rather than join any one of hundreds of classes or voluntary activities that would force you to interact with people — then you have the imagination of a flea.

Do you know how you ‘find a friend’? not by ‘wishing’, but by taking an interest in other people: asking questions, reaching out, realising that behind the most confident-seeming person are individual worries, hope and fears, waiting to be shared. If only someone will ask.

here comes a phrase I swore that I would never use: Pull yourself together.

Believe me, Adrian, I do understand about the ‘downward spiral’, but you can stop this endless plunge. Vow to do one new, positive thing each day (as above) and I promise you that spring will brighten for you, as surely as the leaves will burst from the bare branches all around.

One month later:

A numBer of readers reproached me over my reply, one lady even said that if he committed suicide it would be my fault, which wasn’t very nice. But you see, sometimes a deep instinct tells me that sighing, ‘Oh, you poor thing’ isn’t good enough. We all have to take control of our lives and if somebody goes to the trouble of writing such a long letter it’s unlikely (though not impossible, I admit) they are suffering from clinical depression.

Anyway, a month later Adrian wrote to say he’d found my advice ‘a much-needed shot in the arm of reality’ — and the first thing he did was start to repaint his flat. There’s positive action!

It got better. I nagged him privately by email after his letter was published, because I truly felt he would benefit from counselling and knew he was reluctant to try.

So finally he went to the library to look up local counselling services — an excellent move, because at a computer you have no human interaction.

For there at the library he got talking to a lady and now they are in a relationship.

‘I count my blessings that we met,’ Adrian said. ‘ I’m eating proper food again. Before I wrote to you my kitchen cupboard con- tained one tin of baked beans and the entire stock of the off-licence.

‘now I have cut my alcohol intake to a fraction of what it was.’

he cooks with his new lady and is trying to give up smoking because she doesn’t like it.

Adrian wants people to know that ‘things CAn change and sometimes do so very quickly’.

‘Writing to you was a big step and a positive one and helped me get things moving.’

Dear Bel

THE letter is from a 60-year-old woman whose husband was unsuccessful in business — with the result that they had to downsize dramatically, leaving her miserable: ‘I did not choose this lifestyle and I feel trapped and very unhappy here. I’m too old and too poor to do anything about it so feel I’m just waiting to die. Do you have any advice to give me?’

Reply

AS somebody for whom ‘home’ (a big idea far more than the sum of china and chairs) is hugely important, I have nothing but sympathy as I read how much you miss your old house.

You feel that your life has shrunk, and within the smaller space you are forced to confront the terrible inadequacies of your marriage. That is the real problem.

Your letter raises many questions. Why you sensed nothing of your husband’s debts. Why he decided to move without your consent and bought this flat you so dislike.

At what point in your marriage did you and he give up on talking to each other and considering the other’s feelings? Does your husband go to bed so early, worn down by failure — and the knowledge that you despise and resent him for it? Do you know if he misses your former home, but doesn’t dare articulate it?

Since I am a year older than you, I will not hear of this ‘too old’ business! God willing, you have time ahead and so I think you should realise that your husband and you will need each other as a shelter in the years to come.

Plenty of people have less than perfect marriages but rub along in a companionable sort of way, realising that when death does come (as it will) being left alone may be the worst thing.

So please — try to talk to your husband about where you are, what you might do.

Stop turning your back on him; wake him up. Get that sewing machine out and create a cushion for this man, because he surely needs it as much as you do.

You are blessed with family and friends so I think you should talk to them, too. Do they know how you feel? Or have they been put off by your (understandable) anger?

The first thing you can do is make this hated flat as pretty a home as possible. In a sunless room a yellow wall works wonders. There’s always room for a little IKeA bookcase filled with second-hand books. Get a window-box (or two) to cram with bedding plants.

Perhaps persuade your husband to look for a ground-floor flat with a patio or garden. You need to do things together. Tell him.

You have wept enough for what’s lost. now is the time to lift your head and work towards a new way of life, in the knowledge that the only thing that truly matters is the proximity of two people who look out for each other. It’s not too late to work on that, the real home.

Bel Mooney’s lifelines by Bel Mooney is published by Robson Books, priced £9.99. To order a copy for the special offer price of £7.49 visit www.mailbookshop.co.uk, or phone 0808 272 0808. p&p is free on orders over £12. offer valid until october 30.