40歲的我至今單身,是不是因爲童年不幸所致?
You can meet a partner at any stage of life, says Mariella Frostrup. But to hold onto someone, you need to deal with your insecurities first.
瑪麗拉·弗勒斯楚普（Mariella Frostrup）說：人生的任一階段，你都可能遇到自己的另一半。但和某人長相廝守之前，你需要消除內心的不安全感。I am a 40-year-old single woman. I have had a number of short relationships, but only three lasting more than a year and my longest was three years. I was recently dumped after a few months and it has greatly impacted my self-esteem. One issue was his long stretches of non-communication (four-day periods of non-response). Having experienced childhood abandonment (which I told him about), I could not accept this.
我是位40歲的單身女性。曾經有過幾次短暫的戀情，但只有三段戀情維持了1年以上，最長的一段戀情談了3年。前不久，我被人甩了（談了幾個月），這極大地影響了我的自尊心。我們倆的主要問題在於：他可以很長時間不和你說話（4天沒有消息）。小時候，我被人拋棄過（我告訴過他這一點），所以我無法接受他的杳無音信。Do I have to be perfect and ask for nothing to find a partner? Are my communication needs really too much? I am positive and celebrate others and their happiness. But if loneliness is my fate, how do I learn to be OK with it? I have begun planning for a life alone. I've bought an apartment and contributed to a retirement plan. I have accepted I will never be a mother. Yet, I am ashamed of how much the lack of a partner still saddens me.
我必須完美無瑕，尋找另一半的時候別無所求？我對溝通的需求是不是太高了？我樂觀向上，也爲別人的幸福而開心。我買了所公寓，做了退休計劃。我承認我永遠不會生小孩兒。但是，一想到沒有另一半我還是會感到傷心。
Mariella replies
瑪麗拉回復到：At last a subject I'm qualified in. First, be careful what you wish for. I know plenty of women in the opposite situation who'd be delighted to find themselves unfettered again. I was just a year younger than you when, at 39, after a similar dating history, I met my now husband and went on to have two children in my early 40s. It's information I offer you to assuage the cloud of impending doom that you're currently engulfed by.
終於有一個適合我的話題了。首先，好好想想你究竟想要什麼。我知道，很多戀愛中的女性會爲自己不再受約束而感到高興。我39歲，只比你小1歲。我的戀愛史也和你差不多，現在我遇到了我的丈夫，計劃在40歲出頭生兩個小孩。我希望我所提供的這些信息能緩解你目前陷入的困境。
Meeting a partner with whom your future collides, can and does happen at any age. While it's worth making contingency plans for what might be irrevocably lost in the interim (fertility being an example). You are "chronically" single only in so far as you are recurrently so. You're definitely a catastrophist, though! Buying your own apartment and investing in your retirement shouldn't be deemed acts of desperation, but sensible investments towards your own security and comfort. Hooking up with a fellow human doesn't normally have an impact on securing your finances, unless you marry a millionaire.
找一位和你志同道合的伴侶吧，這是人生中任一階段都可能發生的事。但是爲過渡期不可避免將要失去的一些東西做出應急計劃（比如生育能力）也是值得的。你經常這樣，所以你纔會"長期"單身。但是，你肯定難逃這一劫。買公寓、爲退休後的生活投資不應該被視作絕望之舉，而應被認作是對安全感和舒適感的合理投資。通常，和某人在一起並不會對你的財務造成太大的影響，當然，嫁給百萬富翁是個例外。
