BEL MOONEY: Can you help me ease my lonely heart?

Dear Bel,

I’m single and live on my own, so I guess January is not the best time for me.

I’m working, solvent, nice house and car — but even with all these things in place, as the years have passed, I still find myself alone — no woman in sight.

I look OK, keep fairly active with a small but good group of friends, most in relationships. But then there’s always been me — on my own.

The last and only serious relationship I had was about 40 years ago — YES, that long!

I’m ashamed and embarrassed to admit I’ve never had a full and ‘meaningful experience’ with a woman. The only time I told anyone, she decided she didn’t want anything more to do with me.

Opportunities or ‘dalliances’ with the opposite sex have come and gone. I’m not the most charismatic of personalities, a little too shy and quiet at times. But, then again, I don’t think I have an off-putting manner either.

My mother used to say: ‘There’s someone out there for everyone.’ But as the years have passed, I have just tried to accept that if it’s going to happen, then it will; if it doesn’t — so be it. But I crave female attention.

At work my line manager was someone I immediately took a liking to. A few years younger than me, she is extremely attractive, intelligent, funny, full of life — and way out of my league.

She was married once, has two adult children and is currently in a long-standing relationship. I know she and her current partner are very close; almost a married couple without the formal piece of paper.

Recently, I felt I had to express my admiration to her, which I did. She was kind and gracious, but on reflection it was a ludicrous thing to do. I think she probably felt sorry for me, although we have a good working relationship.

She accepted what I said about her and my feelings for her and we have just left it at that. So again, yet another failure, leaving me feeling foolish and wondering: ‘Where am I going wrong?’

What’s wrong with me? Will I ever find the comfort of love and companionship that others seem to fall in and out of so easily?

ADRIAN

From time to time I choose a letter for which I have no answer. So it is this week. That may seem a negative beginning, but bear with me.

I have nothing but sympathy for the lonely disappointment which prompted you to write, Adrian. It’s just that all of us have to, at some stage, come to terms with the fact that there can’t always be solutions to the problems that keep us awake at night.

Confronting that bitter truth was the toughest (and that feels like an understatement) thing I personally had to deal with in 2023. For that reason, I won’t write the usual things about extending your range of acquaintances and interests, nor patronize you with glib ‘answers’. I think you should realize that ‘the comfort of love and companionship that others seem to fall in and out of so easily’ is not nearly as easily won as you appear to think.

Millions of people are as hurt by finding love as by not finding it. Partners prove dishonest and cruel, relationships shatter, disappointment turns into despair, and loss can take many forms, including (of course) death itself.

I assure you, there are those savagely wounded by love who might look at the life you describe and actually envy you. Maybe you are doing nothing at all ‘wrong’. You have just been unlucky, and never in the right place at the right time. You’ve probably been hurt by thoughtless women.

Don’t make it your fault. With the greatest respect to your mother, I don’t believe it is true that ‘there’s someone out there for everyone’. The sheer mathematics of it makes me dizzy.

You’re prompted to write because of the recent painful experience of declaring admiration and affection to the work colleague who can never be ‘yours’. Why did you do that when you knew she was in a steady relationship?

It’s as if you unconsciously self-sabotage in order to gain her attention — even if that showed itself as pity. Such behavior is associated with low self-esteem; as if you bowed your head before somebody who’d have no choice but to turn away, confirming your negativity about your own value.

Now there is no choice but to carry on as normal, cease dwelling on the episode, and trust in her good nature and kindness. Have you ever thought of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? It might be interesting to investigate, on the grounds that there is always something to be done to ‘tweak’ our lives. After that . . . well, we live every day in gentle hope.

I feel guilty about my husband’s funeral

Dear Bel,

People say that hindsight is a wonderful thing, but to me it just brings up feelings of guilt.

I gave my grandchildren, aged two and five, books for Christmas. Looking back, I’m thinking: ‘Why didn’t I sit and read with them when they visited, instead of playing board games with the adults?’ They are so young and will not be so ready to sit with Grandma when they are older.

I feel so guilty that when my husband died in April (not totally unexpected, as he had been ill for many years), I feel I did not give him the send-off he deserved. I very nearly didn’t get flowers for the cremation and left it to the last minute to arrange an order of service.

We didn’t talk together much about how we wanted our funerals to be, other than cremation. But, even then, I chose a crematorium that was more convenient to me and the mourners — not the one he had said he would be happy with. I chose the music I liked, not thinking of what he might have wanted.

I wake at night and think of all the things I didn’t do. He was such a kind and gentle man. We had been married for almost 50 years.

Yes, we had our disagreements over the years, but I feel that I let him down so badly at the end and find it hard to forgive myself for what I see as disloyalty to his memory.

I don’t know whether you have any thoughts on the matter — I do feel a little better putting this down on paper. I know that in your column you often suggest people should put their thoughts in writing, so maybe this will work for me.

PAM

Setting down thoughts in a proper letter or email can, indeed, be helpful — especially these days, when too many people think texts and messages on social media count as real communication.

Since we’re still in January I’d love everybody to make a 2024 resolution that they’ll telephone and/or write letters (which can be emails, too) and act on that old BT motto: ‘It’s good to talk.’

Anyway, here you are talking to me, and surely not alone in feeling weighed down by regret after a bereavement. It hasn’t even been a year, so it’s vital to understand that grief can break over you in waves, even many years after a loss.

Never mind that your husband had been ill for a long time; it’s quite likely you were still in denial about the inevitable. Perhaps you were simply too tired at the end to face the thoughtful organization of the ‘right’ cremation. I think you can — and should — make excuses for yourself. Surely he would hate it that you are so consumed with pointless guilt?

You nudge me to make an important point. How many of us set down, in a considered document, how we would like our final rites of passage to be conducted?

Ritual is important and even the simplest cremation service can serve as a meaningful transition from death to the continuation of life. The right piece of music, a passage or poem the dead person loved: such things matter. That’s why it’s a wise decision for all of us to write down our preferences while we are living.

Save your loved ones the agony of trying to think of details while grieving your loss. I know people who have mapped out their own funerals — and they were very beautiful. The truth is, I’m writing this as a stern memorandum to myself.

One way of coping with the sort of fruitless guilt you describe is to devise a small private ritual to make up for what you now feel was a lack of care.

You could set up your husband’s photograph in a corner, put a lit candle before it, play music he loved and just sit for a while and talk to him. Take it slow — and repeat when the intrusive thoughts occur.

Strange magic can happen through such mindful actions, so why not give it a try?

Far more significant, it seems to me, is your regret about not paying enough attention to your grandchildren. That is something that can be acted upon.

Why did you stay with the adults? Perhaps because they wanted you to, because it was fun, or because the kids were absorbed with their presents. Why make it into a Big Thing?

Just be sure to see plenty of them in the coming months, and play with and read to them as much as they want. There’s quite a few years ahead before they want to do their own thing, so don’t let the past ruin the present. And don’t let pointless self-flagellation become self-absorption.

How to wise up to the right choice

Sometimes you realize that an important life lesson can be learned by accident.

So it was when I gave my granddaughter (11 now) an art lesson. It was last October. We’d gone out with the easel so she could try painting from nature.

Back indoors, I stood with her, making suggestions about color, scooting off to grab a book on the Impressionists so she could see what can be done with the brush, encouraging her to be bold. Such fun.

I had to leave the room to take a phone call and when I returned she was cross and upset. There’s ivy on the willow tree by the river, she could see it on the photo on my phone, but trying to paint it over the beautiful bark-effect she’d already achieved . . . oh dear. Not good.

And she knew it. Hence the tears: ‘It’s all spoiled!’

Nothing I could say could shift her mood and her frustration threatened to ruin the lovely day. So I thought I’d try some tough love.

‘Look, you’re right that the ivy spoils it,’ I said matter-of-factly, ‘So you have three choices now. You can leave it as it is. Or you can paint over it, putting your lovely bark back . . . ‘

At that point, she waited that she couldn’t do either of those things. ‘OK,’ I said briskly, ‘then the third choice is to rip the picture up. So what’s it to be?’ A pause. “I’ll paint over it,” she sniffed. ‘Good girl,’ I said.

And so, still upset, she did — with a beautiful result.

That little episode left me with an unexpected lesson for life. You see, you’re sloppy, make a bad mistake, mess something up — what to do?

Leave it as it is, so the mess remains?

Or take a deep breath, make a huge effort — even though you really don’t want to — and put the mistake right?

Or — slam dunk — make it wholly bad by destroying any possible chance of improvement?

Our wise little girl chose correctly.