Dear Bel,
I've thought about this problem a lot and never seem to come up with any answers. It's a very old issue (and I don't expect you to have an answer) but I find it very hard to get over being hurt by friends, relatives and others.
I remember things that happened years ago, such as hearing that a friend had said unpleasant things about me, when I honestly thought she loved me. Then what about the other friend who so kindly relayed the information to me?
I still see these women but in my heart I wonder whether they are lying with every smile.
Then, it's the hurt I still feel after many years of how I was treated by someone I treasured as a true friend. She had an affair with my husband and told me to my face she was not going to stop.
In spite of knowing I had two children she wanted her own way - and she got it.
He left me and they got married in the end. Why would she think that acceptable behaviour?
I will never understand the level of that betrayal – and, in a funny way, it’s worse because I sort of expect it from men. But what about sisterhood?
Unfortunately, I still have to see this woman from time to time because of my now grown-up children. I absolutely hate it.
Now I have a young colleague confiding in me her heartbreak at suddenly being dropped by one of her dearest friends for no apparent reason.
She just doesn't understand and asked me what I think.
All I could do was mumble words that I know were rubbish. Words that were useless and bland.
How can I possibly help her with words when I still carry so much of my old hurt in my heart?
What words of comfort can I bring when people can be so cruel and unkind and I can't explain it to myself?
Janine
Bel Mooney replies: It is something of a staple of advice columns to counsel 'moving on' - even if that phrase is not actually used.
'Get over it' is another bit of advice designed to shut down further conversation when there doesn't seem to be anything useful to say to the person who is hurting or angry, or both.
I can't blame anybody for saying such things when they are, of course, true.
Your tone is despairing, as if you blame yourself for not having the answer to these profound questions. But why should you?
...the yards around us blooming with flowers, the air touched with salt and the smell of firecrackers, I thought perhaps the world was more than just a fine place, that perhaps it was a domed cathedral and we only had to recognise and accept that simple fact to enjoy all the gifts of both Heaven and Earth
From Last Car To Elysian Fields by James Lee Burke (American novelist, b. 1936)
I tell you (as one who knows), writers can usually quote you the most withering put-downs in bad reviews of years ago, but forget the good.
You remember that incident which made you look at two friends in a new light because it left a scar which will never fully heal. The trouble is, it called into question your own judgment and found it lacking.
Similarly, you trusted the female 'friend' who was breaking up your marriage. So another massive wound which will always be with you - and about which you can do nothing.
'Sisterhood' meant nothing, and when you see the woman 'from time to time' that wound has some salt rubbed in, doesn't it?
Suppose you try to flip these negative feelings? What if you tell yourself that, far from disfiguring you, these scars form an essential pattern of experience?
What if you see them as a map upon your psyche, one which (even though it might be painful) leads you towards an understanding that you would never have had before.
There are some lines in T.S. Eliot I quote to make this point: 'We had the experience but missed the meaning / And approach to the meaning restores the experience / In a different form, beyond any meaning / We can assign to happiness.' Do you see?
You realise at last that if achieving some wisdom brings with it pain, then that's the price you pay for understanding how the world works. Happiness? No - rejoice in knowing enough not to be disappointed any more.
If you have to say 'Hello' to your hurts every day of your life, bravely decide to make them welcome.
As for what you can say to your young colleague, be honest and tell her what you have learnt. That sadly friends can let you down and you may never understand why. That coming to terms with that very fact, that very bewilderment, is itself a step forward - part of an accumulation of experience which lasts a lifetime.
I'm not saying that any of this is easy. But, believe me, it's a way to survive.
So, my advice? Try the flip.
'If you have to say "Hello" to your hurts every day of your life, bravely decide to make them welcome,' Bel Mooney writes
I fear my fiancé will visit a strip club
Dear Bel,
My problem is jealousy. It leaves me in turmoil - even when there's nothing specific to cause it.
I imagine things that might happen - and it's currently ruining all the excitement I should feel at getting married this year.
My fiancé's best man is organising the stag do and I told him quietly I didn't want them visiting a strip club. He laughed at me, winked and said, 'What happens on stag nights stays on stag nights!'
Since I've known him some time, I thought that was very unfriendly - as well as being not at all helpful.
Why didn't he make an effort to understand how I felt? The thought of my fiancé getting off at staring at a naked woman drives me crazy.
I love my partner Dave but he does like to look at a pretty girl in the street and I can’t stand it. In the past, I’ve told him this.
I dread summer because we see pretty girls with their flat tummies on display, and wearing spaghetti straps and shorts. They look sexy and I know I don’t.
I’m not overweight but I can’t wear clothes like that and worry that he would like me to. If we go to a pub garden, I watch to see if he is looking (or should that be leering?) at attractive women. I can’t help it.
I’ve told him I understood that men will always look at good-looking women but that it’s disrespectful to me if he makes it obvious.
He has done nothing to make me feel like this, and he pays me lovely compliments. So why can I not believe them? Should I tell him that I dread them doing anything seedy on his stag?
Lianne
Bel Mooney replies: Believe me, I can understand your revulsion at the thought of your fiancé visiting a sleazy strip joint with his friends.
Your uncut letter even mentioned (horror) the possibility of a lap dance - although, of course, these fears might say more about your imagination than the stag night plans.
You don’t think you are ‘a prude’, but I suspect most women would be equally uneasy, even if it were a matter of wishing men had better taste.
I confess an ‘icky’ feeling when I see hen parties wandering about waving paraphernalia of men’s privates, or hear about vulgar male excess on the streets of ‘stag’ meccas such as Prague.
Having said that, you’re on a path to conflict and unhappiness if you carry on like this. You know that, don’t you?
It was a mistake to approach your husband’s best man in that way. You could have made a joke of it, but you didn’t. You were serious, and that’s bound to have been relayed.
Tough though it can be, some things are better left unsaid. So do I think you should embark on this discussion with your fiancé? No I don’t.
You’ve confessed your feelings of jealousy; he has reassured you; those talks will continue. But please forget the stag night and instead spend time planning a civilised hen do with your own friends.
Dave has done nothing to deserve your mistrust. To give a pretty person of the opposite sex a passing glance is not a crime. If it were, I plead guilty!
What you do need to do, and with some urgency, is address the serious issue of your low self-esteem.
I suspect some counselling would be useful: look up Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, then a site such as Welldoing to find a practitioner near you.
This is about changing the way you think about yourself and, hopefully, professional intervention would help.
Since you are planning the wedding, make sure you are eating well; getting in shape if it makes you feel better; and have hair and make-up plans.
Why not have a jar ready; plus a notebook; and each day note down one thing you like about yourself and put it in? Even if you just jot down that your hands felt softer.
Then on a day when you feel low, you dip in a hand and see what comes out. These are small steps at the first stage of a journey. You have no choice but to take them all now. Because, of course, you want to be happy in your marriage; and I wish you that determination.
And finally... Forgive sins - and forgive others
Two weeks ago, my lead letter came from 'Alison'. She was full of regret about the mutual infidelities of her first marriage and how they have fed her gloom at the way sexuality dominates our society.
Afterwards I heard, through social media, from other women who agree and feel damaged by the 1970s.
But what I want to highlight is three emails from Christian readers telling me I should have advised Alison to pray for God's forgiveness.
One said she was 'shocked' by this omission on my part. So I'll explain.
For a start, I'd consider it mightily presumptive to assume any knowledge of somebody's beliefs,
let alone tell them what to do with them.
How do we know Alison hasn't already said prayers? How do we know whether her current sadness at the past isn't in fact some sort of answer to those prayers? What if she is an atheist?
Second, even though I am Christian, I have to tell those well-meaning readers I believe in the primary importance of forgiving yourself.
Alison is full of regret, expressed as shame - and my final advice to her was not to dwell on this, at the risk of spoiling a happy life with her second husband.
I just don't see the point. I want her to forgive herself because she has said how sorry she is and remorse is essential.
When Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to go away and sin no more, it was the best advice.
And it was clear from Alison's letter that she has - most certainly - taken it.
So thank you to those readers for making me think some more about it.
Each Sunday, in church, we all ask forgiveness for sins, as we should forgive others. It is the best teaching.