Ms Cyprah

No one should stay in a bad relationship for four main reasons:

First, whatever you are experiencing in that marriage will make you worse in anxiety, stress and ill health over time. We are not meant to be constantly unhappy. We are here to be happy so that when there is a crisis, we can then react with more confidence and skill. When our bodies are constantly up in adrenalin and negativity, it erodes our capabilities and gradually makes us stressed. Eventually, stress can kill.

Second, a relationship is supposed to make you happy, not sad. Two people do not get together to make each other unhappy, to argue all day long, or to be nasty to each other. The purpose of any relationship is love, affection, communication, respect and enhancing the quality of each other’s lives. By pooling resources, people get a better existence. If your relationship is not serving that purpose, then it is not a relationship at all. It is just two people living together for convenience, and at the expense of each other. That is no way to live.

Third, the longer you stay in that state, the more unhappy you will get, the more you will lose your own ability to love as you gradually get bitter, angry and resentful and the more you will be like your partner. You are not getting the results you desire in the relationship because you are waiting for him to change (as you say ‘he refuses to fix it’). But the only person who can ever change satisfactorily is yourself. No one else. Once you change your behaviour, the other person will change too. Why should he change if you are treating him the same, accepting his attitude and reinforcing that bad behaviour too? There is no payoff for him, in his eyes, so he will just make you promises and keep doing what he has always done, just as you are doing what you have always done too. But in such a situation you will only both keep getting what you’ve always got. Your future matters the most. It is not about him. It is about you and your child, so it is up to YOU to make decisions about your life, whatever the consequences are, and do them. He would have to change too because you wouldn’t be acting the same way anymore!

Finally, the bad relationship you are experiencing will also affect the emotional well being of your child. Your daughter is learning by your actions and is not being exposed to a lot of love just now because kids are more sensitive to parental unhappiness and conflict, no matter how you might try to hide it. It is best to be in a loving situation by yourself than a constantly conflicting one with someone else which your child has to be part of. It will gradually damage her own development too if all she has to see is your unhappiness and his bad behaviour.

If you are unhappy, your mind is trying to tell you something: that you are ready for a new start and a new life. Once you have talked a lot and there is no change, it is time to act. Nothing else will give you what you want except action on your part. We all deserve happiness and if you stay in that relationship, everything will deteriorate around you rapidly because nothing can get better in such a situation. Furthermore, you will merely be fighting against yourself by ignoring your own needs. Leaving a bad marriage takes courage and is certainly not easy to do when one thinks of all the practicalities and where children are involved. But as one who had to leave a bad marriage after 33 years, I can guarantee you that once you make the decision, the doors will open for you and it won’t be half as bad as remaining where you are, believe me.

However, only you can make that decision and in your own time. Good luck in whatever you do, but you will be fine.

No, I couldn’t do it at all, no matter how guilty they were and even if they had harmed a love one. I wouldn’t want to do it either, because I am one of those who do not believe that evil cures evil. I believe that love and positivity affect people’s actions far more than revenge or cruelty. We tend to treat behaviour as the actual personality,solid and unchanging. But though one’s personality tends to be fixed, a person can always change their behaviour with education, experience, empathy, compassion, understanding and, above all, being treated with value.

Sometimes if we channel their energies into other aspects of life, we can also get the positive results we seek. The reason why we have so much crime and re-offending is because the emphasis is on punishment in society instead of educating and rehabilitating. Of course, once the term is served, the prisoner is then back out in society, disjointed from family, friends and job, with nothing worthwhile to do, perhaps nowhere to live and, more likely, with very little money, then expected to pick up where they left off and lead a decent life. But that is very difficult in many cases where people lack the basic emotional, physical and material resources to help themselves.

For long-term prisoners, getting their life back on an even keel must be so hard, after years of being at the state’s disposal and having everything provided for them in a secure environment. No wonder the temptation is there to re-offend so as to get things as they were.

I think in certain murder cases, especially where it has been deliberate and planned, the person should be executed too. And I would probably be prepared to push the switch, even if it were for a woman. So gender wouldn’t make any difference. But I have to say that many people who bay for the blood of others would baulk at carrying out the sentence themselves if they were required to do it because it is obviously better for someone else to do the messy work.

In the end, I guess if someone did something to our loved one, we could be barbaric in our reaction towards them. However, I guess if, like jury service, we all had to do that gruesome punishment we are calling for, at some time in our lives, it might make us think twice about what we wish to happen to others in our justice system and might even lead to more effective long-term solutions.