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BEL MOONEY: My new man is wonderful, so why am I dogged by fear that our love will fail?

/li> DEAR BEL

Since I find your advice very compassionate and positive, I’m writing for a message of optimism.

Although I’m in a relatively new relationship with a lovely man, I’m filled with anxiety about it.

Every day I hear about celebrity divorces and fear for the success of my relationship — desperately wondering how love thrives and worrying what heartache the future may hold.

My job is stressful and demanding. Add these anxieties and I’m exhausting myself.

Be an optimist and feed your 'good wolf'

The world is so dark. I’m constantly bombarded by the negative; the horrific rape and death of the Indian student, the shootings in America, and even the fact that Britain isn’t thought a desirable country to live in.

Let’s talk about a stagnant education system, increasing unemployment, train fare rises and dropping standard of living. It all worries me.

At Christmas I was relaxed and happy. My parents have a wonderful marriage that’s lasted more than 40 years, and my sister is overjoyed by her engagement.

But back at work now, my joy is being replaced again by anxiety, pessimism and a feeling that I won’t cope with what life may bring — a relationship that will fail, children who’ll exhaust me, health worries the ailing NHS won’t address or requiring treatment it can’t pay for.

My anxiety can become so consuming (causing palpitations and vomiting) that my doctor has referred me to a well-being service, which I hope will help.

I feel so vulnerable. What messages of joy are there? Where lies happiness? I feel so far from being the optimistic woman I was.

I love your quotations and think you’ll like this: A grandfather said to his grandson: ‘My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside each one of us. One is evil: anger, fear, jealousy, greed, resentment, anxiety, lies and ego. The other is good: joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and trust.’

The boy asked: ‘Grandfather, which wolf wins?’ Quietly, the old man replied: ‘The one you feed.’

I’m trying to take that to heart, but, tired and overwhelmed, I’m struggling to know what I have to look forward to.

How can I believe in my own ability to enjoy life?LIZA

The day I read your letter is known as Blue Monday — allegedly the most depressing day of the year.  There is no scientific basis to that theory, but no matter — late January is a testing time, with festivities over and summer far away.

But isn’t it the same in February and chilly March? April and May offer promises they often break, while June, July and August are so often rainy disappointments.

Do you see what I mean? There is always a reason to feel ‘down’ — if you allow it.

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At such moments I tend to turn to writers for spiritual uplift — Primo Levi, for example (see above). In 1943, the 25-year-old chemist was deported to Auschwitz.

His experiences are set down in a remarkable set of books (start with, If This Is A Man, also called Survival In Auschwitz), which should be required reading for all those inclined to indulge in the notion of a Blue Monday or to wear out the spirit worrying about things which have not happened.

This may seem an odd way to begin a ‘message of optimism’ — when you are already afflicted by an awareness of pain. But sometimes you need to confront real darkness before you can see the light.

In truth, few can open a daily newspaper or listen to broadcast news without feeling temporarily blighted by the world we live in. Surely that is normal, at least in anybody with a brain and an imagination.

What isn’t ‘normal’ is to let feelings of doom have such a negative effect on your life. So I’m glad you’ve consulted your doctor and urge you to take any measures to restore balance. Since so much in your life is good, you perhaps need to break it down a little, to discover the origin of the worm in the bud.

The only thing to do, when convulsed with horror at the evil people do, is to remember that it is always balanced by the good. Yes — always.

Once again, the word ‘balance’ is key. Somebody suggested to me that three-pronged connectivity is the source of happiness. You have to connect with yourself, by taking care and making time for what you love.

Connect with others, by working on meaningful relationships. And connect with the larger world or society, by doing things, either through work or otherwise, which bring satisfaction.

If one or other of those three levels is out of balance — or disconnected — it is very easy to topple into a black hole of despair. With all that in mind, it sounds to me as if you might be in the wrong job. Certainly being so tired and stressed by your work will have a detrimental effect on everything else you experience.

I suggest that your angst about the world might be a displacement, because your real fear is about an inability to form relationships.

Try to focus on this new one positively without weighing it down with absurd worries about things that haven’t happened.

How does love thrive? By being added to daily. And while thinking about adding to the sum total of who you are, why not consider whether you can channel all your concerns in a useful way, perhaps by volunteering?  Here are two nuggets of wisdom (given to me privately) from wonderful writers I know, each of whom has experienced great sorrow, enough to test the strongest soul.

One offers what I might call the Primo Levi corrective: ‘It sometimes really does help to make a list of things you are NOT. Not in prison, not on death row, not with news of your terminal illness, not penniless, not sleeping on the street, not . . .

‘The list is endless, but I find imagining being in one of these situations and then knowing I am not, after all, does put things into perspective.’

And the other: ‘When we are in a low state we need techniques: practical habits, even tiny ones, to work up from. Start each day asking for the strength to accept what it brings; end each day writing down three things about it you’re grateful for. Even if it’s your breath, your bed, and the knowledge that things change.

‘And, trite though it can seem to people who don’t need it, the famous Serenity Prayer.’

I, too, love that prayer and also your story about the grandfather and the wolves.

So feed that good wolf. Take him on a walk into the garden today, to see the wonder of fresh green shoots pushing up through frozen soil, as they always do.

Let their unassailable promise of spring push into your heart, too.

 Being unfaithful makes me feel sexy

DEAR BEL

I'm 23 and have been with my boyfriend for five years.

Our relationship began early at university and we’ve been together ever since. I was his first girlfriend; from the beginning his feelings were much stronger.

We moved in together at the end of uni. I’m not sure if I’m very physically attracted to him; he’s gained a lot of weight recently.

I love him, I think. But I have cheated on him — not slept with anyone else, but have kissed other men. I didn’t even really like any of them, but I loved the attention. I want to feel wanted, to feel sexy.

My boyfriend tells me I’m pretty, but our sex life has started to fade.

He doesn’t make me feel special any more. When we have sex I always imagine someone else. I’ve recently joined an online dating site and started talking to a few men. They make me feel special and I like it.

I don’t have any family (my parents both died when I was a teenager) and his family has been very welcoming.

Without him and them I’d be quite alone as I don’t have any close friends. I know it’s no reason to stay, but I’m not sure what else to do.

I could afford to live here on my own, but he’d have to move back home, sacrificing job and friends where we are.

I don’t want to hurt anyone, but the thought of this being ‘it’ for the rest of my life really worries me. ELLI

Liberate him to find somebody who will love him properly - and start afresh yourself. Posed by models

Were you were talking to a qualified therapist, you’d be asked about your childhood, the ‘abandonment’ you felt losing your parents, about self-esteem and this desperate need to feel ‘special’.

I’ve no doubt it would be very useful. Most of us, at some stage, would benefit from such an examination of our feelings and motivations.

Yet therapists are not usually prescriptive; they don’t advise courses of action — while I’m able to do just that.

Most people will agree with me that you must listen to the better part of yourself and end this relationship as soon as possible, before you hurt a blameless man even  more than you will hurt him by being  honest now.

You must know that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have written.

I can easily understand how you found a haven with your boyfriend and also with his family, but that’s all the more reason not to continue with behaviour which will ultimately negate any happiness you have shared and make his family feel betrayed.

Kissing other men you didn’t care for at all, betraying him imaginatively in the very act of making love and joining an online dating site…? You know as well as I that it’s all cheap.

I wonder if the reason for his weight gain is comfort-eating, because he’s unconsciously aware all is not well?

You must waste no more precious time in both lives, but have a frank conversation, confessing to the flirting and the kisses (perhaps not the rest) and saying how sorry you are, but the fact is — you met and fell in love when you were still in your teens and it was too soon to find a life partner.

Of course he will be devastated, which is why this will take courage. In my view, being brave and honest now will act as a counter-balance to your recent acts — in those great Scales of Justice in  the sky.

Why should he have to move away? Surely you could offer to move out, since the decision is yours?

The two of you have so much to discuss, and you yourself need to address many personal issues (why have you no friends? Is it because you have relied on poor Mr Dependable?) but I have no doubt that you have reached the end of the road in this relationship.

Liberate him to find somebody who will love him properly — and start afresh yourself.

  And finally... Counselling even men might try

It’s very common for me to receive heartfelt letters including phrases such as, ‘My husband isn’t the sort of man who’d agree to counselling’ or ‘Please don’t suggest I have counselling because I wouldn’t know where to start’.

I often read the negative verdict at the moment when I had decided to advise just that course of action.

Although I am a firm believer in the benefits of ‘the talking cure’ I know that, for reasons of shyness or because of geographical restrictions or just sheer prejudice against what is seen as a weakness, many people will not avail themselves of the chance to talk with a qualified therapist.

When they really would benefit from that calm outsider’s perspective.

TROUBLED? WRITE TO BEL

Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week.

Write to: Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or e-mail bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk.

A pseudonym will be used if you wish.

Bel reads all letters, but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.

For that reason I want to tell you about a new(ish) service called Mootu (deriving from the word mutuality) which enables you to talk to a therapist you choose yourself, on Skype.

It’s endorsed by the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and sounds an excellent idea. If you click on the website mootu.com you will see how easy it is to ‘audition’ the registered therapists.

Many patients find video therapy preferable to face-to-face treatment because they feel safe and in control at home.

I think the very process of going through, listening to what the therapists have to say, working out who you instinctively like the look of, could be therapeutic in itself.

It seems this is becoming one of the few ways of persuading men to take up counselling — which has to be a good thing. Fees start from about £35.

Mental health problems are on the rise and some of the statistics are disturbing.

Almost half of all working women (44 per cent) take time off in their career due to mental health problems while 13-16 per cent of older people in England have severe depression and a third of all mental health service activity is concerned with treatment of people aged 65 plus.

Demand for counselling is rising. Between June 2011 and June 2012, the charity MIND saw an unprecedented surge in calls. I welcome Mootu as another lifeline for those in need.


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