PROBLEM SHARED with Professor Tanya Byron
Recently, I went on my first girly holiday since my 20s. I went away feeling taken for granted by my partner and grown-up son, especially over household duties. I had a wonderful time and enjoyed some male attention while I was on holiday, but now I feel
TANYA SAYS I am glad that you had a good break, spent time on yourself and had a lot of fun, which has left you feeling invigorated. However, it also sounds as if this experience has reawakened a part of you that has felt neglected, and left you asking some big questions about your life.
It’s easy to get stuck in a rut where life feels predictable and lacking in excitement. While it is possible that this has happened because those around us have stopped thinking about us as a person with needs and desires, we also have to question how we got ourselves into that position.
You feel that you are taken for granted by your partner and son. You describe a midlife crisis and it is clear you have connected back to a time when you felt free, attractive and excited. Now you have to decide what you are going to do with this realisation about the current state of your life. My advice is you think carefully before throwing everything up in the air.
Have you allowed this situation to develop? Others won’t change unless you do, so you should decide how to encourage them to do their share. Often we soldier on, head down, and end up doing so much that others take advantage. A family is a team, and functions best when everyone works together. By being assertive and setting out the boundaries of your role, you will also create an opportunity for others to appreciate you more.
You also need to think how you can invest in yourself. What you felt from the men who gave you attention seems to have rekindled a sense of sexual excitement, and this is an issue that needs to be addressed in your relationship. Has your sex life become tired, predictable – barely existent?
Investing in yourself shouldn’t automatically mean a decision to trade in what you have for something more exciting. There are many steps in the process before making such a life-changing decision.
This new flame burning inside you indicates that you want and need more adventure and challenge in your life. What could that look like? You are young (although where you find yourself may have made you feel old), so what new opportunities can you embrace? What have you always wanted to learn? Is it time to retrain?
By creating new opportunities for yourself you will blossom, and also perhaps breathe life into your relationship, as your partner will see you less as the woman in his life who does for him and more as the woman who is herself. As you spend time feeling positive and growing in your independence, you make yourself more attractive and a woman to notice. Not being noticed is a souldestroying place to be, and I can understand your urge to find the attention from someone else, but before you throw everything you have away, think about how you can improve and enjoy it.
I suggest you sit down with the two men in your life and explain that things need to change. Do this without blame – rather an acknowledgement that everyone has got stuck in a rut. Be assertive but not aggressive, regardless of how angry and stirred up you feel. If this raises issues in your relationship, then perhaps look at finding space and support to talk this through (see relate.org.uk). Also, by being more actively engaged in your own life, others will need to pull their weight and, in doing so, learn to appreciate you more.
My advice is that you think carefully before throwing everything up in the air