Our agony aunt doles out wisdom and answers to our readers' questions
Prodigal daughter
Q: Our 25-year-old daughter’s been living with us for a year now, out of work, and I have finally put my foot down. I’ve said she has got to get a job, even unpaid charity work, because sitting around here all day doing nothing but watch television is no good for her – or for my husband or me. She is, to be honest, a very depressing presence.
She has now told us that she has a plan. She is going to write a bestseller. Failing that, she will become either an actress or a model. Or, she says, she will train as a therapist or an artist.
We think these are ridiculous ideas. She’s never shown any interest in these subjects and we fear she is living in a fantasy land.
What can we do?
Desperate parents, Reigate, Surrey
A: You will have to say you need proper money, not some fantasy career. She must get a job. Otherwise you must insist she see her doctor and find out whether or not she can get on benefits – all of which she has to give to you. If she’s successful.
Would antidepressants help? Has she applied for jobs? If so, which ones? Insist she gets up every morning at a certain time – and gets dressed. And give her some chores to do before you give her any meals: washing, mending, cleaning…
Ask for evidence she has applied to drama school, or at least started writing her novel.
Obviously you wouldn’t let her starve, but you can make her life uncomfortable until she produces some evidence she’s making an effort to become self-sufficient.
Ironing vs having a life
Q: Can you solve an argument for me? My old friend keeps telling me she is too busy to see me, but when I ask what she’s doing, she always says she’s ironing the sheets, cleaning the silver or something equally pointless. She says her mother always ironed the sheets and she feels she must. And her husband refuses to sleep in unironed sheets. I feel she has got her priorities wrong. Who is right?
Name and address supplied
A: It’s true most of us have weird priorities that our friends may find irritating. Personally I find friendship and conversation far more important than ironing sheets – as long as they’re clean, of course. Have you asked why her husband can’t iron his own sheets? And shirts and trousers, come to that? It’s probably just a habit they’ve got into, but it seems a shame to waste time on these unnecessary tasks instead of relating to another human being.
Ancient infidelity
Q: My best friend has just told me, gleefully, that my husband confided to her that he was once unfaithful to me, in our first year of marriage – with another close friend. She finds this very amusing and when I get upset, she says it was over 40 years ago and I’m being very silly.
Should I tell my husband I know? It’s had a terrible effect on our relationship and I’m just obsessed by it.
B G, Brighton
A: I bet you are. I’d be spitting tacks. How pathetic of your husband to have told this friend this unpleasant fact. Perhaps he thinks it’ll make him sound sexy, but he just sounds like an insecure bragging teenager.
Of course tell your husband what she’s told you. But remember, it may be that she has just invented it to get at you in some way. The person to blame in all this is your insensitive friend, not your husband.
Get a new knee now!
Q: My brother has had worsening arthritis in his knee for years – and now he can hardly walk. He’s talking of getting a wheelchair. But I know that these days knee replacements can be incredibly successful. He has enough money to have it done privately, but for some reason he just refuses. His wife is being driven mad: she has to do everything in the house because basically he refuses to walk. I think he’s frightened a replacement wouldn’t work and he’d be completely crippled. How can I persuade him to take the plunge?
Name and address supplied
A: I wish I could have a word with him and show him my new knee. I could apply for the Folies Bergère and get offered a job straight away. Friends gasp as I bend down to pick things up effortlessly from the floor. Even my surgeon was astonished.
Of course, this may just be down to luck in the way I’m made, but as long as your brother does his exercises after the operation – hydrotherapy is blissful and very effective – he will be fine. And doing nothing is guaranteed to make everything even worse.
