There are worse things than being single, and I have tried quite a few of them. It’s worse to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t love you, and makes you feel insecure. It’s worse to be with someone who adores you and to be fed up with them. It’s worse to be with a non-negotiator — someone who assumes that the relationship will be conducted entirely on his terms, and who couldn ’t care less about being fair to you. Perhaps I should stick an “or her” into that last sentence, so as to be fair to men. For all I know, there may be female non-negotiators too, but my love affairs have all been with persons of the opposite sex.
Although I had a lot of relationships that didn’t work out, I didn’t make the mistake of getting trapped in any of them for very long. I’ve sometimes been puzzled by couples who broke up after ten years or more. How did it take them so long to notice that they didn’t get on with each other? I’ve had flings and romantic involvements that lasted ten days, ten weeks and ten months. My longest failed relationship took just over a year. I discovered at quite a young age that being in a bad relationship is lonelier than being alone. Some of the happiest and most productive times of my life came when I was between relationships.
At a certain point I decided to avoid them altogether for a few years. I knew I had problems that were getting in the way of my finding one that would work. I was seeing a psychoanalyst, and thought it would make sense to wait until I had sorted myself out. At the same time I was influenced by the Women’s Movement (this was in the early 1970s), and considering the possibility that having a man in one’s life might not be such a great idea anyway.
It was around this time that I began to write poems. In fact, one of the first poems I wrote was about the relationship I was in when my analysis began. The man had his view of what was going on between us, and I had been allowing him to impose it on me. One day I understood that I was entitled to my way of seeing it, which was different. I also understood that I didn’t have to have a shouting match with him — I didn’t even need to tell him. I just wrote it down on a piece of paper, and it was safe. We broke up not long afterwards.
Deciding to give up on men for a while was a huge relief. It provided the space I needed to concentrate on reading and writing poems. I had a full-time job as a teacher and it was difficult to fit in the job and a man and the writing. Still in my twenties, I hadn’t given up on the idea of settling down and having children eventually. Many years later I laughed a lot when I read the New Year resolutions at the beginning of Bridget Jones’s Diary: “. . . develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance, complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend”. I recognised that there had been an element of that in my quest to develop my writing.
By the time my first book was published, I was 40. The “no relationships” phase was over well before that. If you like sex, things happen. And, of course, I was worrying about the biological clock. Quite a few of the poems in Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis are about love affairs. The book got a lot of attention, my literary career took off, and that was when being single became really difficult. I gave up my job to be a freelance writer. Any anxiety I had about doing that was focused on money. What I didn’t foresee was how much I would miss the daily contact with my colleagues and pupils.
As a self-employed writer living alone in London, I was very isolated. I had two close relatives still living and I didn’t get on with either of them. My friends were busy with work and children, and many of them lived in distant parts of the metropolis. During this period, I was away from home quite a bit, doing poetry readings in this country and abroad. When I was in London I was often out at literary parties. The trips and the parties were good but I hated going back to my silent, empty flat.
My second book, Serious Concerns, was written during those years. Although much of it is humorous, it is an unhappy book. The most perceptive review of it (by Robert Nye in The Times) said that it was written “out of deep despair”. When it was published, I had to give interviews and make a big effort not to come over as sad. The truth was I had got to a point where I couldn’t see how I was going to go on, if I couldn’t find someone to share my life with. I needed someone to be on my side when I got a bad press and to be pleased for me when good things happened. I needed someone to know what was going on in my life, and talk with me about the little everyday things. You can’t go to a book launch and tell people about your problems with the washing machine (although, at my worst, I probably did).
I felt that I could manage without a partner if I had a relative or friend to share a home with but I couldn’t think of anyone who was likely to fit in with that plan. My friendships were under strain because I needed so much more from my friends than they could reasonably give me, and I was often angry with them. When I read upbeat articles about single women enjoying their freedom and the company of a group of close, supportive friends, I wondered what I was doing wrong. I had plenty of CSFs when I was in my twenties and I suppose I had just got into the wrong age-group. To survive as a single woman in middle age you need to be part of something — a workplace, a church, a village or small-town community. A man can become a regular in his local pub but I can’t see that working for a woman.
In my mid-forties I had a whirlwind romance and got engaged to a man who talked about us having children, which might just about have been possible. It seemed to be the fairytale ending I had longed for, but it turned out to be a big mistake, and lasted only four months. After that, it was hard to pick myself up. I read A Life of One’s Own by the psychoanalyst Marion Milner (writing under the pseudonym Joanna Field). She describes keeping a diary in which she mentioned only the things that gave her pleasure each day. I tried that and found it helped me to live one day at a time and to realise that my life wasn’t all misery. It was an exercise that has proved to be of lasting value because it left me with an improved capacity for enjoying small things — a flower, a meal, a conversation in a shop.
Then, when I had completely given up hope, I met the man I have been living with for the past 12 years. I took one look at him and wanted to make him happy. As it turns out, I can do that, and he can do the same for me. I was 48 when I moved in with him — too old to have children. That is a sadness, but not a tragedy because everyday life with love in it has been like walking into the sunshine from a long, dark tunnel. I am a lucky woman.
Being Boring is from the volume If I Don’t Know, Defining the Problem and A Little Light Verse are from Serious Concerns. Both published by Faber & Faber, £8.99.
Britain in Love - Day 4
According to the exclusive Times/Populus poll, 71 per cent of women and 73 per cent of men believe that finding someone to love and who loves us is the most important thing in life
