A woman fears she'll never be happy in a relationship, as she's locked into a cycle of meaningless sexual liaisons. Mariella Frostrup urges her to seek counselling.
If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk
The dilemma I am 29 years old and I've recently left the UK to live abroad. I've only ever had one relationship, between the ages of 18 and 21; he was my first love and this relationship came at a difficult point when my mother was terminally ill and died. Though I've always got on well with men, I've struggled to form any relationships since my first love and, until recently, I struggled to let him go. Now I'm living abroad, I find myself willing to go with any man that shows the slightest ounce of interest. Worse still, it's always men who aren't available that catch my eye, even if they are in another relationship, live in a different city or plain-out don't fancy me. I know it sounds silly but I can't help fear I'm becoming a woman I don't like and that I'll never settle down with someone who actually likes me and is genuinely a good match.
Mariella replies We are contrary creatures, that's for sure. Here you are in one sentence saying you've only ever had one relationship and in the next admitting to quite a number. It's all down to definition, isn't it?
Latterly you've not been allowing anybody the chance to get within a mile of you. Making yourself sexual booty, available to be picked up and dropped at will, certainly doesn't increase your chances of meeting a like-minded lover. No sensible human being is going to commit to someone who places such low value on themselves and I think you know that.
So why are you so profligate with your physical charms while denying your true ambitions for love? I'm thinking that if you opened the gate to your emotional self, there'd be a flash flood. Sorry about the watery metaphors, but living in Somerset it's hard to escape visions of apocalyptic deluge at the moment!
What your letter suggests is that during an emotionally devastating passage in your life, while saying a final farewell to your mum, you were lucky enough to find a kindred spirit to help keep you afloat. It was a lucky break. You probably needed all the support and love you could grasp hold of to stop yourself slipping into the abyss. Romance doesn't occur in isolation and I daresay that first love of yours will have been as much defined by the misery of losing your mother as it was by youthful passion.
Most relationships struggle under the weight of intense emotional passages and many are subsequently doomed to failure. Whether it's a health crisis, bereavement, redundancy or other hardships, when we're under extreme pressure it exacts a price from bystanders, too. No wonder it's taking you a long time to recover and you are not in the clear by any means. Your mother's demise will have been intricately caught up in the same emotional web, making it difficult to separate one level of mourning from another. Now that you are still struggling with both losses, I imagine you're testing how low you can go, making devil-may-care choices just to compound your self-punishment.
I'm not sure if grief counselling is available in your adopted home, but I'd recommend it. You're like a rudderless ship at present, blowing from one encounter to another and lacking the essential equipment to choose your own direction. Your dysfunctional approach to love – confusing sex with emotional connection – is, as you well know, not the road to happiness at all. You're in the grip of a persistent psychological demon, urging you to continue to treat yourself as flotsam and pushing you in the direction of those who value you least.
Sorting this out on your own is entirely possible, but professional help would definitely speed the journey time back to a less crippling level of self-esteem. I'd be tempted to step back from any form of dating until you can trust yourself to make less masochistic choices. Enticing though it may be, the brief sense of intimacy you get from such sexual encounters won't fill the void left by losing your mum.
I recognise all too well your instinctive response to the emptiness you are left with after such a loss. Scrabbling around for such scraps of affection after my father died in my mid-teens never came close to replacing him and I doubt will do any better for you. Healthy future relationships, which I have no doubt you will enjoy, depend on our ability to separate meaningless gymnastics from emotional intimacy. Developing skills to opt for healthy instead of hurtful dalliances may not be easy at first (the devil is quite the seducer), but once you master the art, the future is full of real romantic potential.
If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow Mariella on Twitter @mariellaf1