Dear Zelda: Our agony aunt offers advice on multiple marriages, age gap relationships and how jealousy can leave you anxious
She poisoned our daughters against me
My wife and I divorced in 1982 after 14 years of marriage. Sadly she subsequently died but her legacy lives on. Two of our daughters refuse to have anything to do with me because she turned them against me. My third daughter made sporadic efforts to keep in touch but recently she has gone ex-directory. Being blackballed by one’s children seems to be a common plight for divorced men, not helped by opposing lawyers deliberately dishing the dirt on feuding couples to the ultimate detriment of the children caught in the middle. I now hear that my daughter’s 11-year-old son would like to see me. I am still angry with the injustice of it all. This all sounds so painful. But let go of your anger; it’s only you that it hurts.
This is finally a chance for you to open the door to having a relationship with your children again.
Write to your grandson saying that you would really love to see him and do the same with your daughter, his mother.
If you build a good relationship with your grandson, your daughters may start to see that you are not the monster they thought you were.
It is incredibly sad if a woman (or a man) is so angry and bitter with their ex-spouse that they turn the children against them. Couples should always put the children first.
It can really reduce the acrimony if they have mediation and choose a solicitor who specialises in collaborative law – which encourages couples to continue to be loving parents to their children.
See resolution.org.uk. I am sorry that did not happen in your case. Also contact grandparents-association.org.uk.
His jealousy has left me anxious
From the beginning of our marriage, I couldn’t look at another man without my husband being jealous or accusing me of having an affair. I stopped socialising because of his relentless interrogation. Eventually he admitted he was wrong. Recently, the name of one of his colleagues kept popping up in conversation. I asked him if anything was going on. He told me they just chatted, that she was extremely popular and I would like her. By chance, we met her and her husband in a restaurant and she was friendly towards my husband, suggesting the four of us meet for a drink. I know it’s not an affair, so why do I feel anxious? He said I’m overreacting.Your husband being friendly with this woman has brought back all those years when his jealousy made your life hell if you even looked at another man.
So it feels particularly irritating that it’s all right for him to be friendly with someone of the opposite sex.
Explain this, and ask him to be more understanding, rather than just dismissing your feelings.
If he responds positively and you liked her, then why not meet for a drink?
But first your husband needs to be more reassuring and make you feel wanted and loved.
Is our age gap a problem?I have been seeing a guy for two months. I am 19 and he is 28, but he worries a little about the age gap. He says he likes me and has considered dating me, but hasn’t told any of his family or friends because of what they might think. He takes me out and we hang out together every week. We have just started having sex, but he won’t show any physical affection in public, and says he doesn’t want to rush into a relationship yet. Should I hope he decides to commit or should I move on?If you’re just a girl he wants to have sex with, this is not the relationship for you.
The age gap is nothing to be worried about. You’re 19, a grown-up. If he is not special to you I would let this relationship go.
But if he is important then explain to him that you still want to be with him, but you don’t want to continue a sexual relationship unless he treats you as a proper girlfriend and introduces you to family and friends.
He should also want to take you out for a meal on Valentine’s Day, and to be affectionate in public.
Relationship clinic: Serial spouses: will it be third time lucky for Kate Winslet? Will it be third time lucky for serial wedder Kate Winslet and her new husband, Ned Rocknroll?Twice divorced already and only 37, Kate Winslet recently got married for a third time, to Ned RocknRoll, 34-year-old nephew of Sir Richard Branson.
In 2001, three years after her wedding to film director Jim Threapleton, and with a new baby, Mia, she told a magazine, ‘My husband is one in a million.’ By the time the article came out, she had dumped him. Just a year later, she was engaged to theatre and film director Sam Mendes.
They married in May 2003 and their son Joe was born later that year. In 2009, she gushed: ‘I am so lucky to have a wonderful husband and two beautiful children who let me do what I love, and love me just the way I am.’ The couple parted the following year.
The mystery is why Kate keeps falling in and out of love.
'Perhaps Kate is in love with being in love'Perhaps she adores the dizzy heights of new romance (she’s had several relationships between marriages) but finds it difficult to move on to the deeper, more enduring love that sustains a marriage.
Serial monogamists can become addicted to the ‘madly-in-love’ stage of a relationship.
So when the marriage runs into problems, rather than trying to resolve the issues, they end the relationship and often rush headlong into a new romance. It’s only when they recognise this pattern that they can make changes.
Ned is a charming, fun-loving party boy who was briefly married to Eliza Pearson, daughter of Viscount Cowdray.
So why did he and Kate marry in secret in New York just before Christmas without telling even close family?
The usual reason for this is when both partners know that their parents have grave doubts.
For Ned, taking on a fantastically successful wife with two children by different fathers will be a huge challenge. Let’s hope it works out well for all concerned this time round.
Zelda West-Meads
Contact ZeldaIf you have a problem, write to Zelda West-Meads at: YOU, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS, or email z.west-meads@you.co.ukZelda reads all your letters but regrets that she cannot answer them all personally
