Dear Bel,
Jen is my wife of seven years, with both of us married for the second time. Suddenly last month she announced she wanted us to separate and get a divorce. I didn’t see it coming – not at all.
We both have adult children, by our previous marriages, who are established and have partners and careers, and we all get along fine. Parties, Christmases, family weddings – all no problem and a lot of fun.
Maybe because we were both divorced when we found each other on a dating site, our families were glad to see us happy again. But now I’m truly lost and don’t know what to do next.
When we were married, Jen had just inherited some family money, but I didn’t have much to bring to the marriage financially. However, I’m good at DIY so we decided to invest in property.
Jen funded and I did all the renovations. We ended up with three places, which brought us a decent income and we enjoyed a very good lifestyle, fantastic holidays and so on.
Then came the bombshell. Jen wants to sell up everything and separate. We have no children together and there’s no other party involved.
I have written her lovely letters telling her why she is so wonderful – to no avail. I am lost on what to do next.
Financially, I’ll be fine as Jen and I have reached an amicable settlement. But I am still in love with her, and I would rather have no money and a wife.
She’s become so remote. She says she doesn’t know what she wants, but it’s not me any more. Sometimes she’s like a stranger.
We used to have a wonderful sex life – the best I’ve ever known. But now nothing. If I try to reach for her to give a hug it’s like touching a piece of wood.
I need hugs so much. I would rather go on living with her in a platonic way than separate, as we are about to do. How can I try to win her back?
– Lawrence
Bel writes: Your longer letter was sad, full of confusion, and very lonely. That feeling was compounded by your addition of two or three private emails between you and your estranged wife.
That’s a new one for me – and, to be honest, I felt I should not have read them, even though you wanted me to.
But the insight those exchanges gave into your marriage was revealing. And almost unbearably poignant.
Because of Jen’s privacy, and to protect you, I have changed many details on the page. Yet the core facts are as you wrote them. And the situation mirrors so many others, as readers will recognise.
Stories of unrequited and lost love have inspired countless poems and songs for centuries. I’ve read so many, and within your letter I hear the same unmistakable note of despair – because I think you already know that you are very unlikely to win your wife back.
You and she have moved beyond a bunch of flowers and deep conversation, even though I always suggest to other couples that they do try loving attention and talking.
Another suggestion would be counselling, but I am certainly not going to suggest it in this case –although I know it can be very helpful and often recommend it as a useful stage in trying to keep a marriage together, especially when there are children involved.
No, when I read your wife’s private words to you I felt convinced that she is now on another planet, and you can only see her at a distance.
The perennial question is: what can you do when your partner says it’s over but you are as much in love as ever? What is the point at which you just have to give up? Does the injured one ever truly come to terms with the fact that the marriage is over?
Or will the hurt of rejection last for a lifetime?
Interestingly, your letter has something in common with today’s second letter, from a mother estranged from her son.
You both seem to deny any sort of subtext to the problem. You allowed me to read things Jen wrote to you which make it clear that she saw many problems in the relationship, and yet when I re-read your sad letter it sounds as if no such problems exist.
Your subject line used the phrase ‘out of the blue’, yet it seems clear to me that this break up has been building for some time, to the point where it became inevitable. It was in plain sight, but you chose not to see.
Many people exist in states of denial. It’s hardly surprising, because life is so complicated and human emotions so fraught it feels easier to tell lies to yourself about what’s going on.
The trouble is, Lawrence, that unless you stand tall with dignity and accept that your marriage has run its course you will be making yourself unnecessarily unhappy in the long run. Please stop begging her.
It’s positive that Jen states very clearly that she wants to go on being your friend. She just doesn’t want to be your wife and looks forward to an independent life.
It’s time to accept that – and gain her respect by creating the best possible life for yourself.
My son’s cut me out of his life for ever
Dear Bel,
I’m feeling devastated. Two years ago, my adult son cut off all contact.
There was no argument — just a carefully worded letter saying he needed ‘space’ to process his childhood and that staying in touch with me was ‘not healthy’ for him.
I always got on with his wife (or thought I did) but can’t help but wonder if it’s something to do with her. She has also stopped communicating.
I don’t claim to have been a perfect parent.
I worked long hours and I guess didn’t always meet emotional expectations. But my late husband and I gave him and his sister a stable home, security, education, and love — even if not perfectly expressed. The recent stories about celebrity family estrangement – those of Adam Peaty and Brooklyn Beckham in particular – feel very familiar. It seems ordinary parental failings are now seen as deep emotional wounds.
What hurts most is the finality. Messages go unanswered and I’ve never met my youngest grandchild. I’m expected to accept permanent exclusion as the cost of not meeting modern parenting ideals.
My daughter is in touch with both of us but doesn’t want to get involved so won’t explain her brother’s behaviour. What do I do? I really miss him and, of course, my two grandchildren. It breaks my heart.
– Victoria
Bel writes: Sometimes it seems there’s a whole novel – as complex as those written by Dickens or George Eliot – behind a short letter like this. We have the bones of a story but none of the flesh.
Naturally I feel sympathetic and can imagine how sad you are. But yours is, I’m sorry to say, quite a common case.
Parents and grandparents cut off from younger members of their families always express complete bewilderment when they tell me, repeatedly, that no reason was given for the estrangement.
No explanation offered for the cruel way they have been treated. I always wonder what went wrong. Because in most cases, there must be a reason, even if unclear.
Your letter is more helpful in presenting clues. You write: ‘I don’t claim to have been a perfect parent. I worked long hours and I guess didn’t always meet emotional expectations.’
Then later: ‘I’m expected to accept permanent exclusion as the cost of not meeting modern parenting ideals.’
It seems clear to me what you call ‘ordinary parental failings’ have had a profound effect on your son. This is not nothing.
There is an undercurrent of uneasy guilt, as if you are well aware of things that went wrong that you don’t choose to divulge. You claim you and your late husband gave your son and daughter ‘a stable home, security, education, and love – even if not perfectly expressed’. The tone of this suggests serious shortcomings.
How do we express love ‘perfectly’? There is no way of quantifying it, no guidebook.
In my experience, children will forgive their parents any number of failings as long as they feel secure in the knowledge that they have always been loved so much there’s plenty to give right back. It pains me that your own words suggest such a precious transaction was never made.
The fact that your daughter refuses to get involved is also as significant as sad. It suggests to me that your daughter-in-law is not at the core of the problem here. Perhaps your daughter is also part of whatever it was that went wrong. Surely, she is the best way to approach your son?
I know she has refused – but in your place, I would still make a point of having a face-to-face meeting with her, explaining your position and begging her to help.
Explain that your widowhood makes this more urgent and tell her you know you got things wrong but long to put them right. I hope you can make it work.
And I ask other readers to consider that it’s never any good protesting there’s ‘no reason’ for family estrangement.
Because there nearly always is – even if it’s not obvious.
And finally… Compromise and generosity can save lives
Novelist Dorothy L. Sayers opined: ‘There is something about wills which brings out the worst side of human nature.’ Many of you have that experience, which is why you wrote in response to my advice to Linda on May 23.
Linda took care of her ageing parents and later received a bigger share of their estate. Her brothers, who live at a distance, have complained.
My suggestion that for the sake of peace she should give her siblings what is essentially a gift fell on critical ears.
One reader wrote to say she had done just that (‘It took all my moral fibre…’) but now feels that her brothers were not nearly grateful enough – and I can well believe it.
With personal experience of greedy brothers, Jill wrote: ‘I strongly feel you should have advised the brothers – not the sister – that family is more important than money.’
The trouble is, the brothers didn’t write to me!
Ms PE is a member of the legal profession. She wrote: ‘If the two brothers valued family they would have been grateful to the sister for relieving them of the burden of care.
‘If she shared her “bonus” now it will not, in my opinion, make any difference. Sadly, the rot will have set in.’
Surely no law book can have taught Ms PE that such pessimism is true. Neither she nor I have any idea of whether those brothers would be grateful or not.
Mrs CB protests that ‘Linda is entitled to whatever her mother left her’. Yes, indeed, and I said it. But she adds that she will be ‘well shot of the brothers’ if they complain.
But I say NO! Countless family disputes stem from a sense of entitlement, pride and a lack of forgiveness.
Linda stated clearly: ‘I don’t want to lose my brothers.’
That’s precisely why I suggested compromise – and generosity. It saves lives.
