BEL MOONEY: Will I ever get over the death of my first true love?
Dear Bel,
In the early 2000s, when I was about sixteen, I met a guy in a chat room – I’ll call him Tom.
Funny and handsome, he lived in Ireland. I’m in England. We started talking all day every day. We talked for hours with our webcams on, emailing, texting and calling each other. It was easier to pour our hearts out in ways we might not have done to our “real” friends. This may not make sense, but I fell with the full force of a ‘first love’.
Tom said he felt the same way and from then on he referred to me as “the fiancé” not only to me but also to his family and friends who I would sometimes talk to during our calls/chats. Our conversations now include the hopes for our future lives of getting married and naming our children. It was the typical teenage certainty that life would just land in our laps.
The inevitable finally happened to two young people living hundreds of miles apart: I was devastated when Tom told me he had slept with someone who became his girlfriend for a while. There were tears on both sides, but we reconnected and talked often online and on the phone over the next few years.
The last time Tom surfaced, we had a nice conversation about where we were in life. A few days later he messaged me again, but I didn’t reply. I was busy in my senior year of college and just starting a new relationship.
Fast forward a little over a year, and I had been thinking about Tom for a while as this was the longest we had gone since we ‘met’ without any form of communication.
When I researched social media, I discovered that he had passed away that same weekend, at the age of 25. Shortly after his last message to me, Tom became ill and was diagnosed with cancer.
This was over ten years ago. Now I’m in my mid-thirties. The weight of carrying this alone and never being able to openly grieve or find closure is like a millstone around my neck.
I now have a sweet, kind fiancée, but how could I ever tell him about Tom and expose my sadness? I don’t think that would be fair to him and I wouldn’t want to risk upsetting him or our relationship.
I feel guilty for not replying to his last message and that he has been through so much. Did he know how much he meant to me?
I think about all the “almost” moments when we talked about meeting up but didn’t. Maybe he thought I would never find out, or maybe he didn’t think about me at all. Am I ridiculous?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how I can put this to rest, or at least carry it with me in a healthier way.
JESSICA
Let me first extend a sympathetic hand and gently reassure you that you are not in the least “ridiculous.”
Your story (raw length three times longer than I can print here) touched me deeply and I understand why part of you remains lost in that dream. Tom was your first love and that deep awakening into adulthood should never be belittled. Who dares to say they aren’t real? In a realistic future you might have crossed the Irish Sea to meet, even move in together, get bored, argue, be unfaithful, cry and break up. Or been happy.
But circumstances dictated that all your many “meetings” remained on the screen and on the phone lines. And tragically, Tom was destined never to grow old. His sweet ghost constantly remains ‘funny and clever’ in your imagination. Isn’t that fantasy a mirror for all the unfulfilled youthful desires and lost loves that so many of us secretly harbor in our hearts?
The question is: what now? Being in love with a ghost can be very destructive; it would be terrible if you allowed the boy you adored to become an evil spirit that poisoned the past, present and future.
You say I’m the only one you’ve talked to about this, which is a shame. Carrying these memories alone – the shock of hearing of his early death and the subsequent grief – is clearly very lonely. You are now engaged to a ‘sweet, friendly’ man and you are going to build a future with him. A mature relationship requires honesty and trust. You almost seem ashamed of your touching first love story, but I can’t believe the man you want to spend your life with won’t understand it.
You write: ‘I don’t think that would be fair to him and I wouldn’t want to risk upsetting him or our relationship’ – but I strongly disagree. Yes, we can all maintain some privacy and not have to share juvenile crimes, but I believe your fiancé has the right to know what affects the woman he loves.
The relatively quick death from cancer of everyone aged 25 is terribly sad and may even challenge our views on life, death and religion. So I think you should talk about it all. There is no need to be lonely anymore.
By telling each other stories about what you were like at sixteen, the choices you made, those early passions and first disillusionments, you and he will help build and strengthen your future life together. And I think it would be healing if poor Tom were part of that process. You can achieve closure and peace by making a pilgrimage.
The time has come for you to take a courageous step forward into the next phase of your life. Tell me you know where your first love is buried. I suggest that you and your fiancé plan a short vacation to Ireland this spring, where you can lay flowers on Tom’s grave and say a prayer for his soul.
It’s a struggle to help my wife lose weight
Dear Bel,
My wife and I have been together for over twenty years and I love her very much.
But the older she gets, the less effort she seems to make to maintain her weight.
She has always had to diet to maintain a healthy weight, but the diets are becoming less and less common and her weight is gradually increasing.
She doesn’t do any exercise and when I suggest she improve her health, she always has a list of excuses ready as to why not.
I am lucky that I am naturally slimmer and exercise a lot.
But instead of motivating her to do the same, she just sees that as my lucky genes and consoles herself with the fact that she could never achieve the same thing even if she tried.
The truth is (and I won’t deny it) that I find her less attractive as she continues to gain weight.
The lack of effort in her care for her appearance bothers me.
I worry that as she gets older, she will continue to put in less effort and that at some point her health will suffer.
I’ve tried many approaches – both supportive and critical – and while she seems to know I’m right, it rarely seems to lead to any action.
How can I help her get back to a healthy weight before it’s too late?
ALAN
These days, mentioning weight opens a can of worms, even though the obesity statistics tell the bleak truth and the NHS is under pressure.
I have a friend who was fired for daring to express the rational view that overweight people could do something about it themselves, instead of always mentioning “mental health” or arrogantly saying that fat is beautiful.
There will be people (probably women) reading this who will be angry at you for articulating your problem so succinctly. But I admire the honesty in identifying two issues here.
First, you are right to be concerned about the future health of a woman who doesn’t care much about her weight. Secondly, as a man you admit that being fat is simply unthinkable for you. Those who say appearance doesn’t matter are idealistic, but not necessarily right.
I suspect that if your wife were sick and taking medication that caused her to gain weight, you would only be sympathetic. What bothers you is that she could be trying to lose weight unhealthily, but she doesn’t care. You’ve tried ‘many approaches’ so I’m not sure what I can add.
As someone who didn’t exercise at all until I was 59, and have now been converted to strength training, I know that one of the crucial benefits is the huge boost in morale as flabbiness is reduced.
That’s a win-win situation. I wish I could give her a pep talk.
I’m afraid you come across as both complacent and bossy every time you try to “sell” diet and exercise. It might be better to make a start by working together rather than nagging her, and then start doing your own thing.
Like a couple I know, you could share weekly sessions with a personal trainer. You should work out healthy biweekly menus and always shop and cook together. You could buy some free weights and exercise bands, put on the music you both loved when you were young, and bounce around at home for an hour a day.
Look up chair yoga exercises and do them with her. If you make her excited that you can have fun together, and that you want to share a healthy future because you love her, then she might just give it a try.