Dear Bel,
I have a problem that affects me deeply and I don’t know what to do.
My daughter is in college, far away from home. One Saturday last year she called me and during the conversation I asked, “Are you going to a party tonight?” She told me she never goes to college parties.
But last month we were going to move her into the shared house for the next semester. While she was cleaning out her closet, I saw her trying to hide a rather sexy piece of clothing. When I asked about it, she told me she wears it for parties. So she had lied to me about parties and is clearly dressing for a good time.
Since I discovered this deception I have had trouble eating and sleeping. I wonder what else she lied about.
She has a history of being frugal with the truth about what she’s done, and I once caught her texting guys to come over to the house at night. How many times has she told us she’s studying for an exam when she’s already dressed to go out?
She’s already said that she won’t be coming home as much next year, because the second year is really intense… I don’t believe that at all. She’s going to live with seven other girls, and I don’t think she’ll be coming home as much, because Friday and Saturday nights are for clubbing and who knows what else?
I haven’t told my wife what’s going on, but because the worry is affecting my sleep and appetite, she knows something is wrong. She says I’m depressed. I think I’m grieving the loss of a daughter I knew and loved, who has now been replaced by a young woman I don’t recognize.
She has never talked about her experiences at university. The dilemma is that because she will be so far away, I can’t do anything about what she did last year and what she will do next year.
Please give me advice. I don’t know whether to talk to her or keep my mouth shut and live with it.
NICHOLAS
Bel Mooney responds: It’s almost August and many teenagers are already excited about the next step in their lives: university or college.
Meanwhile, many of their parents will be worried, because they know how dangerous the world out there can be, in so many ways.
After this email you sent a second one, asking me not to publish it because you suspected yourself of overreacting. Then, at my request, you gave permission — and I am grateful, because many fathers find this phase in their daughters’ lives very difficult.
While all the attention (understandably) is on the young people stepping out into the world, their poor parents all too often discover the truth of that moving country song by Suzy Bogguss: ‘It’s never easy… letting go.’
Your letter is earnest, sincere, honest—and wrong. Let me share a silent, contrite smile. In 1966, my mother cried all the way home from dropping me off at University College London, while my father could only express himself by becoming enraged (actually a bit mean) at my short skirts and black eye makeup.
Jump to 1998, I was helping my own daughter unpack in her room in Warwick. I picked up a horrible, cheap, pink, sparkly, sexy dress that I had never seen before, rowed with her about it, and cried all the way home because my little girl was gone.
Parents, right? Your daughter didn’t “lie” to you, she probably thought it was better — for you — that you didn’t know she was going to party that night. She probably also decided it wasn’t Daddy’s business. And of course, she was right on both counts.
When I read your email, I said out loud, “Wow, sir, you have it all wrong!”
A sense of loss is normal, but you are getting too excited about this rite of passage. It is natural and normal for any parent to worry about the well-being of a child when he or she leaves home, but don’t think that you can control their life anymore.
You’ve been honest with me, but there’s absolutely no reason to be so honest with your daughter. There’s no need to talk to her about sexy clothes, clubbing, boys, etc. No, no, no. It comes out all wrong and you sound almost jealous. Not good at all.
Yes, you can remind her to be very, very careful about accepting drinks in clubs and to make an agreement with her friends never, ever to get separated.
But sensible warnings should be given in the same tone in which she says she is never late with her assignments.
If you turn into a gloomy and nagging father instead of a loving father who wants her to enjoy her studies, then you can be sure that she will not want to come home anymore, let alone ever confide in you.
Teenagers, right? They worry us so much and then — believe me — they get to their 20s and 30s and they’re still worrying us, and it just keeps going.
We love them, with all their faults, but still we often wish they would change, because our children (and adults too) can be difficult and hurt or disappoint us.
Family life is always complicated and so (please listen to someone who has been through it all) you just have to find a way to deal with your own rite of passage. You need to sleep, so talk to your doctor and be honest with your wife.
The most important thing is that you realize that you still love your daughter very much (not that you ever did!), but that you have no choice but to let her go.
I feel so guilty about my married lover
I am having an affair with a married man and I know this is wrong but I am in love with him…he says he loves me and that he will leave his wife when his parents die.
Since they are now in their 90s, his wife helps them with the care.
I go from wanting to be with him and then trying to stop myself from doing it. Of course there’s guilt about his wife — and then there’s the issue of my four children…
I am a widow (my wonderful husband died 14 years ago at the age of 50) and my children would not accept the situation I am in. I know that for sure.
Am I putting myself first or am I doing the right thing? I would appreciate your opinion.
ENGELA
Bel answers: Even though I have added a few words (for clarification), this is still the shortest and simplest letter I have ever received on a subject so terribly complicated that it has caused indescribable pain, conflict, anger, guilt and deep sorrow for centuries.
Believe me, I know what I’m talking about, from personal experience, but also from the pain and anger that people I know well have endured recently, and (of course) from the years I’ve spent writing this column. These stories always involve lots of tears — and grief, I think, is the essence of the human condition.
To make it short: I am now haunted by the image of a grown married woman who, after years of helping her husband with the loving care of his ninety-year-old parents, is dumped by him for his secret mistress once the old people are in their graves. Doesn’t sound very nice, does it? No — and it isn’t.
Please don’t think I’m writing this to make you feel even more guilty than you already do. The only reason I can think of for you to mention your own four adult children is because all you have to do is imagine how they would judge your affair to make you feel even more guilty.
Shame is useful. It can keep us from becoming — even on the edge — the worst part of ourselves.
But – and let’s leave his wife and your own family out of this – the question we have to ask ourselves at this stage is whether continuing this affair will make you happy?
You know what it’s like to be in a happy marriage (with that “great husband”) and now you understand the tension of a forbidden relationship, but I wonder if the former can give you some insight into the meaning of the latter. You’ve “fallen for” a man who constantly lies to his wife and exploits her kindness. Is he someone you would call “great”? Think about that.
Married men who are unfaithful to their wives have a habit of promising their needy lovers that they will leave their wives if anything happens in the bright future.
It is a good ruse, a ruse that works again and again, as the poor old husbands continue their domestic lives in ignorance and the misguided mistresses find themselves sad and lonely for another weekend or Christmas.
These aren’t necessarily “bad men”; they’re just fallible people who want everything and justify their behavior in all sorts of ways, from “My wife doesn’t understand me” and “You’re the first person who makes me feel as happy as I am when I’m with you” to “If only we had met years ago.”
I think your question, “Am I putting myself first or doing the right thing?” is a false alternative. What if I suggested that “doing the right thing” might actually be the most effective way to “put yourself first”?
By that I mean that by deciding that you will no longer conspire with your lover to cruelly cheat on his wife (and family?), you will save yourself a lot of unhappiness in the future – the day when he tells you with a tear in his eye that he cannot possibly leave her now because she would be lost without him, especially after all her years of self-sacrifice.
Yes, these kinds of stories are always accompanied by tears.
Bel answers readers’ questions about emotional and relationship issues every week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names have been changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets that she is unable to enter into personal correspondence.