Is It Wise To Change Everything For a Loved One?

I’m a big fan of Mariella Frostrup’s agony aunt columns in The Observer, and this Sunday’s was a very interesting example.

What’s so great about the online version is that you get to see the public reaction to the letter as well as Mariella’s response – and very rarely is a consensus met. I have to say, from a personal point of view and with the greatest of respect for a fantastic writer, that although I don’t always agree with her, with Sunday’s offering I was with Mariella from the off, as she cut straight to the heart of the issue with panache.

The letter came from a woman worried about a big change that was coming in her life as she prepared to move to another country on the other side of the world and was worried about leaving behind her family, particularly her ageing father.

In presenting her problem, she treated the sacrifice of moving abroad as a triviality, and made her existing responsibilities the focus. Her father became the problem, so she actually attempted to move the focus from her own decision – or one made by her partner on her behalf – the decision to move away from the life she had created for herself.

Frostrup immediately and wisely seized on this, asking why exactly such a huge change was required. And this is something everyone in a similar situation should probably do, whilst bearing in mind there is no right and wrong answer.

Changing everything when a loved one asks you to is a massive step and can result in you becoming entirely reliant on your partner. If you move away from your life to a new one, you find yourself actively abandoning every support system you had previously constructed for yourself. In a foreign country, away from friends and family, you will never feel the pain of an argument more than when you are alone with only the person your are fighting for company.

As Mariella implies, before these decisions are made it is so important to think them through thoroughly. Keeping this process internal and trying to balance your thoughts in your head on such a massive life-change will only result in sleepless nights and mental anguish. There is no shame in writing lists and weighing up pros and cons on paper. Discuss with friends and get some input from people who genuinely care for you but are objective about the situation itself. And most importantly, don’t simply make your choice before speaking to your relatives. Make them part of your decision-making process. They are as important a factor as any other, and deserve to be on the committee.

Perhaps if everybody took this constructive approach to solving their own personal issues, we wouldn’t need agony aunts like Mariella to solve the problems of others. I’m torn between whether that would be a good thing or not! We’d have a much happier society of people, all making good choices, but we’d also miss out on some killer writing!