Why won’t he move north when we wed?

QTWO YEARS ago, I moved from Manchester to London to be with my boyfriend. He’s now my fiancé and, while I love the life we have together, I miss my family and close friends desperately. While discussing our wedding plans recently, I raised the topic of kids and where we’d raise them. I want to be closer to my support network when I become a mother, but he’s adamant he’d never move to my part of the world. I’m crushed, but wonder if I’m making too much of the problem; after all, we’re not even married yet. On the other hand, if we’re committing to a marriage, a family seems like the next step and I’m keen to keep our options open. How can I make him understand how important this is to me?

AYOU’RE NOT making too much of this problem at all. It’s much more sensible to work out issues like this before you’re married, than after. In fact, if more couples thought through their plans for the future and ironed out the differences between them before they headed up the aisle, the divorce rate would be a lot lower.

You clearly love your fiancé dearly. You’ve made sacrifices to be with him — you moved down south for him. All you’re asking is that he is prepared to do the same for you.

You need to sort this out now or resentment will start to grow. Your fiancé has to understand that successful relationships require compromise, give and take from both partners. He’s had it all his own way so far, and his intransigence about this suggests that’s how he plans to continue having it. That’s not fair.

Talk to him. Ask him why he feels so strongly about not moving to be nearer your family. Does he realise how much this is upsetting you? It’s possible that the real problem is that he’s not ready to have kids, so the idea of both this and having to uproot his life is scaring him.

Make it clear you’re not asking him to move tomorrow, just to be open to the possibility when the time is right. Believe me, when you do eventually have kids and he realises how helpful it is to have a grandparent on hand to baby-sit, he’ll probably move like a shot.

You may find it really helpful to get the help of an outside party. Why not contact the relationship counselling organisation, Relate (www.relate.org.uk)? They provide premarital counselling services which are a great idea for any couple about to tie the knot, especially with important issues to discuss.

QMY BARMITZVAH is coming up and my parents won’t stop arguing about everything — the service (Mum wants egalitarian, Dad wants traditional), the party, the menu, who to invite — everything. I just want them to stop! Nobody has asked what I want and, to be honest, I don’t care anymore. I feel like saying that I won’t go through with the whole thing. I’m stressed enough about my barmitzvah as it is without Mum and Dad making it worse. What can I do?

AHAVE YOU ever seen the film Big, in which Tom Hanks plays a 12-year-old boy who wishes he was bigger and wakes up to find he’s been transformed into a 30-year-old man? That’s what came to mind when I read your letter. You may only be on the cusp of turning 13, but you are the one being the mature, sensible grownup here, while it’s your parents who are acting like kids — and spoilt brats at that.

We both know that they’re doing this because they’re proud of you and want the best for you — to give you the perfect barmitzvah of each of their dreams — but they’re going about it entirely the wrong way, and they should not have put you under this extra stress. It is your day, not theirs, and they’d do well to remember that.

The chances are they have no idea how you upset you’re feeling about this. Perhaps if they realised that they risk turning you off your barmitzvah altogether, they would start behaving like rational adults. You need to let them know. Bringing up an issue like this can be awkward and scary, but you’ll feel so much better once you’ve got your feelings out into the open, I promise.

Why not call a house meeting, so you’ve got them both together at the same time. Sit down around a table and calmly tell them how you feel, and ask them to stop their bickering. Make them re-focus on what’s important. They will probably feel very stupid and upset with themselves. Good luck.

Contact Hilary via email at agony@ thejc.com, anonymously or not. Or write to her at 28 St Albans Lane, London NW11 7QF

IAM PERCHED on my young son’s bed, reading him a story about a little boy who searches for a pot of glue to stick his mummy and daddy’s marriage back together. The message of the book is that even though his parents may be broken, their love for him is not. Luke sits very still. He is only seven, but he is drinking in every syllable, connecting the words on the page with what I know is the defining event of his young life: the breakdown of my and his father’s relationship when he was just two years and nine months old.

My tear ducts are welling, and a lump is growing in my throat. But I carry on reading because I know I am doing the right thing. This story is helping to mend my child’s splintered heart, helping to explain why he cannot have the one thing he wants so much: for the two people who brought him into the world to live under the same roof, with him and his sister.

And then he asks the killer question. “But why don’t you and daddy love each any more? You loved each other when I was little.”

“Well, erm, sometimes,” I fumble, “mummies and daddies argue a lot. Grown-ups’ feelings can change, darling…” And I trail off, because my words sound inadequate, inappropriate even: it feels cruel to tell an innocent child that adult promises can turn to dust, their love vanish like morning mist. As a parent, your instinct is to protect your little one.

That conversation took place two years ago, and even though I have revisited it countless times since, I’m not sure I’d manage any better if Luke asked me the same question this evening. And I am hardly alone in my post-separation parenting struggles, not least in the Jewish community where, according to the last census, divorce increased by nearly 4 per cent from 2001 to 2011.

This equates to around 17,000 divorcees among Britain’s estimated 284,000 Jews, but the statistic doesn’t include Jews who have been divorced in the past and who are now remarried, although the emotional effects of separation on their children remain, of course, the same.

In fact, other surveys indicate that an additional 24,000 people fall into this category, which means that nearly one in five British Jews has been divorced at least once.

And that’s not the whole story either, in that not all Jewish parents walk down the aisle. Like an increasing number of Jewish women, I co-habited with the father of my children,

As did Rabbi Charley Baginsky who serves South Bucks Jewish community. Two years ago she and her former partner separated after which their children, now four, six and eight, went to live with her.

“I was clear from the outset that this was what I wanted — for them to live with me, and visit their father.” Visits are important

She was also clear that she wanted a clean break from her former life, and when she left her partner she also said to goodbye to her job as the rabbi of Kingston Liberal Synagogue. “In many ways, I grew up there, had my children there and I felt we needed a fresh start, to be part of a synagogue where the kids were not constantly asked: ‘Where’s Dad?’ We moved house too, which meant they changed schools. In short, we created a new reality, and for us this has worked. I don’t parent well when I feel in limbo. And I think things are also easier for children when they are black and white.”

After our separation, my children’s father returned to his native Italy, so in that sense I guess our lives are black and white, too. Geography dictates that the children live with me full-time. Money, work pressures and a new web of relationships means his visits to the UK are sporadic and ad hoc. Although my daughter who is 15, is fine with this, and with our separation generally, Luke finds it highly unsettling. After his father’s visits, Luke’s behaviour becomes testing, both at home and in the classroom. It is as if each visit re-triggers the trauma of our separation afresh for Luke.

Were there some more predictability to his dad’s London trips, some regularity of contact, I feel it would help our son enormously.

Psychologist Una Archer, who specialises in supporting families after separation, agrees. “Routine is important for all children, but especially for those whose parents have separated.

“Predictability helps them make sense of their world, it is emotionally reassuring. Your son wants to live with his dad, and not only can he not do so, he doesn’t even know when he will see him