Georgina Sturmer is acounsellor and member of BACP.
She helps women to understand what is holding them back from being happier and more confident, making them resilient in their life and relationships. Please visit: georginasturmer.co.uk
No kissing allowed!
Q My mother-in-law insists on kissing my newborn baby. I’ve told her to stop but she won’t listen. How can I get through to her?
A Having a baby is a time of change and transformation for all our relationships. This means navigating and balancing a new set of needs, demands and decisions, too.
In this case, it sounds like you have made your choice clear to your mother-in-law, and she is refusing to adhere to your requests.
Can you enlist the help of someone else to ensure that you get your point across?
You might want to consider how you express your decision, and the concerns that are motivating you, too.
The ideal situation would be for this to be amicable.
But if this isn’t an option, you might need to think about what boundaries you need to have in place so that your parenting choices are respected at all times.
Love or lust?
Q After chasing my partner for over five years, I was able to secure a relationship. But now the rose-tinted glasses have come off and I’ve realised it was all lust. We have nothing in common. How can I leave?
A Sometimes we are so focused on chasing a goal that we become blinkered. It sounds like you have spent so long in pursuit of your partner, that you created an idealised version of them in your mind. And now you are feeling stuck and concerned about how to leave.
You’ve started by being honest to yourself and tuning into your feelings. If you ignore these feelings, it’s unlikely that they will simply disappear.
The next step is to find a way to explore this with your partner. Use ‘I’ statements to explain why you want to end it all.
This way, you can show how you are feeling, without putting blame on the other person. If you’re feeling uncomfortabl
