In this weekly self-help series, mental health and life coach Anu Krishna tells you how to take control of your life.
Is your relationship causing you stress?
Are you feeling lonely, helpless, indecisive?
You are not alone!
Mind/life coach, NLP trainer and mental health guru Anu Krishna wants you to talk about your problems.
Every week, Anu will answer your queries, address your concerns and offer expert advice on how you can take control of your life.
Dear readers, if you have a question for Anu, please e-mail it to getahead@rediff.co.in (Subject: Ask ANU) for her advice.
Meanwhile, here's the unedited excerpt from Anu's latest offline session with readers:
SSV: Dear Anu
Myself is widow. But I am in a physical relationship with a guy who is a divorcee.
He made me feel that he will marry me after a few years. He never expressed his love but was good in bed.
I like another guy who is married but not happy. Daily we chat till 3 am. He too likes me. He doesn’t want any physical intimacy from but likes to touch my hands.
I am confused what to do.
Please help.
Dear SSV,
I guess you need to ask yourself: What is it that I want in my life?
Marriage or a casual relationship? Both require mindsets that involves different priorities and a different set of behaviours.
Honestly, it is quite possible that you might find someone who is not just interested in a physical relationship but also might be willing to progress into marriage if that’s what you want as well.
So, please clear your mind before complicating your life any further.
There are a lot of dating apps for you to find someone interesting, attractive and with a similar mindset once you know what you truly want.
Best wishes!
JG: Dear Anu Madam
I have a brother, he is married, 38 years old and his is wife is 34.
Since 2 and half years they do not have any physical relationship but they have a 3-year-old child.
My brother is also suffering from depression and the cause is failing intimacy between his wife and him. He is not interested in her at all and now applied for divorce. But his wife for the sake of child wants to continue to remain married as child needs both parents for upbringing and refusing to give divorce. We also want to treat his depression for which he is not supportive. This is causing pain in the lives of all family members and his little child.
Please suggest what we can do for the wellbeing of all.
Dear JG,
How can you help someone who possibly doesn’t even realise that he needs help and that he needs it NOW?
Your intent to see him and his family is noble and out of care and concern. But if he is unwilling to recognise (possibly his mental state) that he needs professional help and that it will ease his situation and save his marriage, what is it that you can do?
For the sake of his wife and child, kindly ask an authoritative yet caring elder in the family to drive some sense into him.
Untreated mental condition isn’t a joyful experience for him or those around him.
Also, take him out on long walks in Nature. Nature is known to be very soothing and healing. Maybe it might help calm his nerves and he might seek help.
All the best!
PP: HI ANU
Nice to contact you. I need your advice. Hope you can help me.
We have been married for 22 years (arranged marriage).
For the last 10 years we have some family dispute between my mother and wife.
She used to hate me for the same. Moreover she didn’t have any interest in love and sex. She used to sleep in another bedroom. We live together with my son. She is housewife and completely involved in upbringing of my son. Six years back I was attracted and had affair with one of my colleagues. Once my wife come to know about our affair, she created too many problems. She became mad. She abused me verbally and physically. I stopped the affair, changed my job and location. I apologised and changed. I obeyed her. You can say I was a slave to her. In the meantime we never used to sleep together. I was afraid of her abuse so I never asked her for sex or love. She never asked me too.
We live together but no love, no sex. Two years ago she told me that she has an affair with a guy from Facebook and they both had sex. That friend used her physically and financially. He had multiple affairs along with my wife. Now he forces her for the relationship. I talked to him and asked him to stay away. At the same time, I was shocked. My wife who completely hated sex and love had an affair with unknown guy. Again we had problems and arguments.
If only she’d loved me neither of us would have had an affair.
Problem is I can't digest this. I can't sleep at night. I was not physical with my friend. But my wife suspected in her mind and ruined our life.
What to do? Shall I seek divorce? Should I consult a therapist to forget everything?
Please guide me.
Dear PP,
If life were that simple enough, why would we be facing challenges at all?
You think if she had loved you, none of this would have happened. You choose to see it from your point of view which is understandable.
What if you take the effort to find out what made her lose interest in you and the marriage?
Women are wired differently from men when it comes to sex. It can be enveloped in emotions and when she is going through an emotionally challenging time (with your mother), it might have been hard for her to be physically close with you.
Did you consider ever resolving the situation between them?
Did you ever ask your wife: “What can I do to help your situation?”
Did you ever find out from her what made her distant from you?
It may sound harsh, but we are talking about much water under the bridge.
If you go on to blame her for cheating on you, when you could and you didn’t, well, it’s not a string place to start if you want to save your marriage.
Do you both want to reconcile and rebuild the marriage?
Communicate, as that’s something that has broken down between the two of you.
It takes two to build a marriage and two to break one. So, time to reflect and look ahead as to what can be done based on what the two of you choose to do.
As far as you not being able to reconcile with the thoughts of her being involved with another man, I suggest before you approach your wife to remedy the situation, kindly settle this thought else tempers are going to fly and things will go from bad to worse. So BREATHE and NOW sit calmly to reflect and act.
All the best!
AP: Hello mam!
Let me get straight into my story... I have 3 best friends. We were very close.
One of them, say A, was in a relationship with a girl named B. We kind of set it up in 2019 but soon he lost interest. But she was into him. She begged him but he didn't respect her feelings. This went on for a year then she slowly began to move on.
Meanwhile, the girl and I got close. When he didn’t respond to her, she would cry to me and I pacified her. We became good friends but it escalated and we got into a relationship. I didn't discuss it with my friends. I informed them only after we became serious. It broke our friendship. I had asked my friend A many times about her and he’d said it’s all over so I never thought of discussing. I wasn’t aware that he was thinking about patching up with her. Now none of my close friends talk to me. Since most of my other friends are common to both of us, my entire school friends’ circle is lost. I feel very lonely. I know it’s my mistake. I shouldn't have done it. I never expected him to consider reuniting with her. Now I feel guilty for cheating my best friend. I feel like I abducted his girlfriend from him. What should I do now?
Should I break up my relationship? I know this won’t change anything now. But at least after a few years I can hope my friends will accept me. At the same time, I am into her so much and so is she but I feel terribly guilty and miss my friends. I am totally confused.
Would like to know your thoughts on my situation!!
Dear AP,
I don’t know how old you are, but it seems to me that you have broken some unwritten Bro Code.
But honestly, from your story all I can fathom is that you are choosing to feel guilty simply because your ‘close’ friends as you call them, ignore you.
Isn’t it immature of you to actually not be able to make a decision in life that involves you and your relationships, or do you need the blessings of your so-called friends for it?
As far as you are concerned, things were over between your friend and the girl.
So, did you need to take their permission to date her?
Also, what about your other friends? Did they not bother to even hear from you once and choose to see things your way and patch thing between you and your friend?
Instead, they decided to play the judge and pronounce you guilty for an act that doesn’t seem to need that verdict.
So, do you still want to swim in the sea of guilt and see your relationship with the girl wash away with time OR do you want to go surf that tide and take charge of your decision? Get the drift here?
Step Up; all the best!
AJ: Hi Anu mam, I want to share with you my life story because it now killing me everyday.
I am 23 years old now and third (unwanted) child of my parents. I have two elder sisters, 2nd sister was adopted by my father's sister and now I have one elder sister only.
If I talk about my childhood, I have no good memories, not a single picture of mine.
My father has always been busy at our family shop, only source of our income with my bade papa.
He never took any interest in my studies, school admissions, parents teacher meeting etc... He was always like a strict father without any strict responsibility on him. And my mother is a very simple and innocent Jain lady who believes in Jainism and God. So in my childhood we were not a united family, we were more like small scattered pieces of a family who were living with no hope and no future planning or future expectations.
As a kid, I spent most of the time watching tv or playing cricket. I have feared to ask my dad to buy me a cricket bat due to which I stole money from his wallet and buy my things for which i’d be brutally beaten if caught
I studied in a Hindi medium school which was in front of my house. I studied there till 3rd class and then my mother did some efforts to get admission in English medium school but she didn't succeed. I took admission in another Hindi medium school.
I worked hard at my level but never received any support from my parents especially from my father.
I passed my senior secondary in the year of 2015 in Math stream with 69% and want to pursue Engineering but my father does not want me to pursue that he wanted me to pursue Law so I took admission at local university and completed my graduation in 2020.
During my 1st year of graduation I realised that my father has an affair with someone. This caused serious trauma for my mother and me. We felt this was the reason for him not being interested in our life at all time. In my 3rd year of graduation I founded that my elder sister was in a serious relationship with someone which added to our trauma because we were also facing financial problems that time.
The problem arose when 3-4 years ago I came to know that I have knock knee problem in my both legs since childhood. I couldn't tell about this to my family.
So now I am unemployed, facing knee problem and depression. I don't know what to do. Should I leave my father for life and look forward to any small job and live my life, make my new family?
I want you to give me advice according to my current situation.
I will wait for your advice.
Dear AJ,
I can only imagine what it must be like for you. But I am not going to feel sorry for you as life presents challenges as opportunities.
You have had the opportunity to learn from each of your challenge, academically, personally, and professionally.
Focus on yourself now. What happened or didn’t happen in your childhood or the past only makes you feel like a victim and that isn’t useful when you are trying to solve a problem.
Focus on how you can better your quality of life despite your physiological issue.
Sit down with the doctor and ask:
How can I get treated?
Does it involve any surgery?
Will physiotherapy help in easing my condition?
You depression (which I imagine is self-diagnosed) is on account of you treating yourself as a victim, will change once you move into a positive mode where you treat yourself with respect and love.
Only you can better your situation and it is possible for you if you choose to look at all the things that are possible by you once you become mentally stronger. Then your academic or personal or professional challenges will not come in the way.
So Take Charge and NOW. All the best to you!
Anu Krishna is a mind coach, author and co-founder, Unfear Changemakers LLP and Soulful Exploration LLP. She's an NLP Trainer (National Federation of Neuro Linguistic Programming, NFNLP, USA), Energy Work Specialist (Institute for Inner Studies, Manila), Executive Member of Indian Association of Adolescent Health (M.I.A.A.H) and Member of Quality Circle Forum of India (QCFI). She has authored the self-coaching book: The Secret of Life – Decoding Happiness.
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