He used your column to dump me, Bel

DEAR BEL AFTER five wonderful years I’ve been dumped by my partner by text. The day before we were due to go away he sent me a copy of a letter published on your page on September 24, from a woman called Serena.

The headline said: ‘I adore him, so why has he left me?’ I cannot understand what has gone wrong. It’s as though he read that letter and thought: ‘That’s me, just like Serena’s boyfriend. So why not take a photo of it on my phone and send it to her, so she knows why I’m ending it?’

He’s been hurt in the past, had a difficult childhood and finds it hard to show emotion. I’ve always known he didn’t want commitment, it was clear from the start.

I was okay with that situation, as I’d been hurt, too. I retired in April and moved into a cottage at the seaside.

He was excited by this move and did a lot to help me with the home. Surprisingly enough, he brought clothes down and his medicines and seemed happy when he visited. But clearly he was not. Bel, what should I do? Please help me.

VICKY

You can probably imagine how grieved I am that one of my columns was used as a weapon. Naturally I went to my cupboard, found the original and read, ‘He says he needs to be on his own, he can’t move on from the past, it isn’t me it’s him and he would rather be on his own than continue.’

Those words clearly resonated with your boyfriend, leaving you just as bewildered as ‘Serena’, who ended her letter: ‘Why, when he has a woman who loves him and has never asked more than he felt able to give and has never let him down, would he end a beautiful relationship?’

I had no answers for her nor do I for you. The truth is this: all of us have to come to terms with the fact that there are no answers to all life’s problems.

At the centre of a troubled world full of shrieking opinions and fanatical certainties there are many central puzzles — and a key one is that it’s very hard to truly know another human being.

of course, we think we do, but even someone like me, surrounded by those I love, can sometimes feel lonely and long to be (truly, deeply) understood. Isn’t that the case for most of you, reading this? At least … sometimes?

I once heard of a woman who was dumped by email after more than 20 years with the husband who had fallen head-over-heels with a woman he met on a job in Hong Kong.

And years ago I counselled a friend whose husband of 13 years had dumped her six weeks after their first baby was born — for a woman he’d known for about six weeks in the States.

There is a lot of this madness about, always has been and always will be, for (in the wise words of Shakespeare’s mischievous Puck): ‘Lord what fools these mortals be.’ All I can say to you, Vicky, is that great pain, like the deepest grief, does lessen in time.

These feelings will change and you will be able to proceed with your life, finding consolation (I hope) in daily routines and new interests.

There is no other solution. I just hope you will not feel bitter and assume that all men behave like this one: weak and cowardly in the extreme.

He should have had the courage to talk to you, to explain things, to work out whether friendship might be possible – and the fact that he lacked such basic respect and humanity, might indicate to you that he was not the person with whom you could tiptoe into older age.

I hope you can find the courage to hold your head up, make your home comfortable, and go out and meet people.

You have to do this. And who knows...a new love might also be waiting?