logo
‘It makes me sick!' How the likes of the French impressionists went from ‘lunatics' to luminaries

‘It makes me sick!' How the likes of the French impressionists went from ‘lunatics' to luminaries

The Guardian6 hours ago

'Five or six lunatics deranged by ambition – one of them a woman – have chosen to exhibit their works,' French critic Albert Wolff wrote in a review of an art exhibition in Paris in 1876. The lunatics in question were a group of up-and-coming artists: Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Edgar Degas.
Almost 150 years later, we know now that those lunatics took over the asylum. The impressionists, who rebelled against the old masters by painting lighter, brighter, ephemeral scenes, are today's old masters; what was so shocking then is now all over our calendars, coffee cups and phone cases. But back in 1876, those looking at their works 'are content to laugh at such things,' Wolff wrote sniffily. 'But it makes me sick at heart.'
There were eight impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. From the first, much fuss was made of these paintings that captured quotidian moments like picnics, laundry day and music lessons, rather than the few subjects deemed acceptable by the establishment (the big three: biblical, mythological or historical). The impressionists – a derogatory label they would later adopt with pride – saw worth and beauty everywhere: a garlic seller or a ballet dancer or a baby nephew deserved immortalising as much as Jesus or Napoleon.
Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning
But newspapers recorded the public gasping, hooting and even fainting over such art. There was a shared suspicion that these sloppy rebels weren't bothered to paint properly, or perhaps simply couldn't. After the very first show in 1874, one critic accused Monet of having 'declared war on beauty', while Morisot's own tutor wrote to her mother with his damning verdict of her new gang: 'All of these people are more or less touched in the head.'
A huge collection of French impressionism has arrived at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, which is mostly on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – a gallery founded in 1870, just four years before the first impressionists were shocking France. 'Making everyday reality the subject of art – it seems so obvious today, but it's a wonderful thing to remember that it wasn't inevitable,' says Katie Hanson, a curator at MFA Boston. 'It took courage, and a village, to make impressionism a reality.'
French Impressionism opens on a room for a literal village: Barbizon, a small town located about 50km from Paris, to which many artists flocked due to its proximity to the very paintable Forest of Fontainebleau – and for being conveniently on a train line. The School of Barbizon inspired many of the impressionists who followed 30 years later. There are even direct links to be found – take Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña, who followed Theodore Rousseau around the forest watching him paint; 30 years later, Diaz was in the forest when he ran into a young Renoir at work and gave him the career-changing advice to lighten up his palette.
'When you start peeling back the onion you find all these points of connection and mutual support underneath,' says Hanson.
MFA Boston is home to more than 500,000 works, which means it can send off this many masterpieces without a second thought. It can even do it twice: French Impressionism was first staged at the NGV in 2021, before it was closed prematurely due to Covid lockdowns. It is what Julian Barnes once called a 'masterpieces-on-a-washing-line approach'; you may find you struggle to appreciate every single painting on display.
But you can navigate French Impressionism by playing who-knows-who. There are the mentors like Eugène Boudin who, despite not being an impressionist, gets a whole room to himself for having spotted teenage Monet's talent and encouraged him to work 'en plein air', as he did; and a few works by Diaz, who supported Renoir and even bought him paint when he couldn't make ends meet. Then there are the friends who didn't quite make it into the gang – like Norwegian impressionist Frits Thaulow, French realist Henri Fantin-Latour and, of course, Édouard Manet, who was so close to the impressionists that he was widely regarded as their leader, despite his choice to never exhibit with them.
Sign up to Saved for Later
Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips
after newsletter promotion
There are also the admirers, like Vincent Van Gogh, who was painting in France at the same time but noted he was not 'one of the club', and even a spot for the admired: Victorine Meurent, who was Manet's favourite model and also a painter, whose fabulously haughty self-portrait was found in a Parisian flea market in 2010 and acquired by MFA Boston in 2021. The four-year delay in this exhibition returning to Melbourne means Meurent now gets to share the spotlight with Manet's flirtier view of her – though the exhibition remains an undeniable sausage fest; in the four years since the first attempt to stage it, the number of Morisot paintings has gone from one to two.
Pleasure lies in discovering the impressionists' relationships with one another. Misanthropic Paul Cézanne and argumentative Degas; the social butterflies Monet and Renoir; Morisot, the rare woman among men and a dab hand at dealing with their moods and egos; and Pissarro, the cheerful link between everyone, affectionately dubbed 'Papa'. They painted each other's wives, brothers, children, servants, crushes. Not that they always got along – 'they were artists, after all,' Hanson says.
So why Boston? Why did a US city take such a shine to the impressionists when Paris was falling over itself to laugh at them? French gallerist Paul Durand-Ruel, the impressionists' greatest cheerleader, was already selling Barbizon landscapes to eager Americans when impressionism arrived. When he first exhibited the impressionists in Manhattan in 1886, both the public and press were more curious and impressed than the French had been a decade before. Durand-Ruel opened a permanent gallery in New York in 1888, selling impressionist masterpieces to wealthy east coast collectors, including Bostonians.
'Boston was prepared to like impressionism because they already liked French painters and unidealised landscapes,' says Hanson. 'Bostonians had a real love of nature and naturalism – think of Whitman or Thoreau. People in the Boston area were really focusing on nature's many splendours, so impressionism wasn't a step too far for them.'
If you saw the aborted version of French Impressionism in 2021, it is much more maximalist this time around, with the NGV styling the interiors to look like an opulent Bostonian mansion. The plush lounges scattered around don't make for good vantage points on busy days – but there are enough instantly pleasing sights on any horizon to keep up morale if you get frustrated by the crowds: the fizzy pastels of Monet's view of Venice, an unexpected Van Gogh, Renoir's instantly recognisable Dance at Bougival. So while you're dodging prams or queueing for a look, think back to those first exhibitions in Paris – at least you are not peering past angry Parisians in top hats. Probably.
French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is open at the NGV until 5 October.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Love Island viewers grow tired of Shakira joke minutes into launch episode as they complain 'we're going to hear it all series!'
Love Island viewers grow tired of Shakira joke minutes into launch episode as they complain 'we're going to hear it all series!'

Daily Mail​

time10 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Love Island viewers grow tired of Shakira joke minutes into launch episode as they complain 'we're going to hear it all series!'

Love Island viewers have revealed they are 'already annoyed' after two jokes were made about a contestant's name. Construction project manager Shakira, 26, was one of the first Islanders to make her way into the villa as the new series kicked off on Monday. But quick off the mark a joke was made about her name, as a fellow Islander referenced iconic popstar Shakira. While introducing herself to one of the girls, Shakira revealed her name and Sophie Lee replied: 'Oo and your hips don't lie.' Just minutes later another similar joke was made again - and fans of the show were left rolling their eyes at the prospect of it continuing all series. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the Daily Mail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. They wrote on X, formerly Twitter: 'Are they gonna sing "shakira shakira" all the time,'; 'Gonna be hearing the Shakira references the whole season aren't we,'; '"hips don't lie shakira shakira" STOP,'; 'They're 1000% gonna wear out the Shakira jokes i can feel it,'; 'I'm already annoyed by how many times they are going to make the Shakira joke,'; '"them hips don't lie" "shakira shakira" i know she's tired,'; 'We are gonna hear Shakira Shakira all season aren't we,'; 'The Shakira references are going to get old let's stop that now,'; '"My name is Shakira" ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY "oooo them hips don't lie",'; 'Can we get some new material or is it just gonna be Shakira Shakira my hips don't lie all summer.' The latest installment of the reality dating show begins on Monday night with host Maya Jama set to introduce a new batch of sexy singletons looking for love. The ladies - Shakira, Meg, Alima, Sophie, Megan and Helena - are first to enter the villa with talk soon turning to the boys they could potentially couple up with. However, in contrast to recent series, it won't be the viewers that will be picking the couples, but instead the girls will be tasked with choosing their boys based on their dating profiles. Explaining the huge change, Maya tells the girls: 'This year things are slightly different. You've told me what your type on paper is, but does that match your ideal man in reality? Come and join me by the pool.' As the girls line up, she continues: 'Girls, in front of you there are six love hearts and each boy has given me their dating profile which is written on each of these hearts - shall we have a look at what these boys have to offer?' The girls then check out the descriptions of the island's boys - Ben, Dejon, Harry, Conor, Blu and Tommy. They then have to decide to who they'd like to pair up with based on key stats with the boys' name, age, job and a headline. Headlines includes lines such as: 'I like to play hard and work harder! I love to play, so I work very hard...' in order to help the girls make their big decisions. After discussing the boys' profiles and attempting to figure out which lad could be right for them, Maya then forces them to make their choice. Counting to three, the stunner informs the ladies that they must run to their chosen heart, with only one girl allowed to stand next to each heart. With mere seconds to make their choice, it remains to be seen whether they get the man of their choice or will be left to beg for a swap. Meanwhile, following the decisions, the boys then enter the villa and meet their matches one-by-one. NAME: Sophie Lee AGE: 29 FROM: Manchester OCCUPATION: Motivational Speaker and Author WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who is fun, spontaneous, who has a lot of jokes and who is attentive. At the moment I'm only finding ones draped in red flags and 'do not cross' signs IF YOU WERE THE CEO OF SOMETHING, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I'm the CEO of empowerment. I want women to feel beautiful and validated in themselves and feel their best self. NAME: Dejon Noel Williams AGE: 26 FROM: London OCCUPATION: Semi-pro footballer and personal trainer WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who is beautiful on the inside and out, looks after themselves and is healthy CLAIM TO FAME? My dad being an ex-professional footballer. I've met all kinds of famous people through him. When I was younger it was weird because he was just my dad, but we'd go to a game and fans were asking for photos. I've met David Beckham, he was really nice. Megan Moore NAME: Megan Moore AGE: 25 FROM: Southampton OCCUPATION: Payroll specialist WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? I'd like to meet someone who is tall, with a nice tan, nice eyes and a nice smile. He needs to have a good fashion sense and a really good, funny personality that I can get on with HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR LOVE LIFE? Bankrupt, right now. But we're going to make sales and get on that corporate ladder and be booming. Profits, profits, profits! NAME: Tommy Bradley AGE: 22 FROM: Hertfordshire OCCUPATION: Landscape Gardener WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? A girl who is very ambitious, with a big personality, caring, but also someone that doesn't take themselves too seriously. I don't know if that's asking for too much, but I want a bit of everything. I haven't got a specific type in terms of looks, though. WHAT WOULD YOU BE CEO OF? Taking hours to do my hair NAME: Alima Gagio AGE: 23 FROM: Glasgow OCCUPATION: Wealth Management Client Services Executive WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? A tall man with a handsome face. You know when you just look at a guy and they have that Disney prince look to them? That's it WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? I think she'd hire me because I'm a good flirt. I always ask guys on a night out to guess which country I'm originally from. If they get it right, they can get my number. But they never guess correctly so it works really well if you don't want to give a guy your number. I'm originally from Guinea Bissau. If they're close and I really fancy them, I'll give them my number anyway. NAME: Ben Holbrough AGE: 23 FROM: Gloucester OCCUPATION: Private Hire Taxi driver WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone sexy, good looking, good chat, good vibes, nice teeth and good eye contact - they're all the traits I look for. Oh, and also a cute smile, I just look at you and know I can be around you all day, every day. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR LOVE LIFE? Bankrupt. I'd have been out of business a long time ago. That's exactly why I'm here. NAME: Helena Ford AGE: 29 FROM: London OCCUPATION: Cabin Crew WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Somebody funny or Northern. I feel like Northern people have much more banter than Southerners. If you look through my previous dating history, you'll see I clearly go for personality. You can pretty much laugh me into bed. WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? I would say hire but then quickly fire soon after. It would only be a temporary contract. NAME: Megan Forte Clarke AGE: 24 FROM: Dublin OCCUPATION: Musical theatre performer and energy broker WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously and has a sense of humour. If they're not bad looking, that's always a plus. I love a boy that's a bit pasty, like Timothée Chalamet. I don't mind scrawny, or a bit of a 'dad bod'. I'm 5ft1 so any height really. CLAIM TO FAME? Me and my friends made a Derry Girls TikTok for Halloween and it went a bit viral around Brighton. Sometimes I get stopped in the street about it. I've also done Panto. NAME: Blu Chegini AGE: 26 FROM: London OCCUPATION: Construction Project Manager WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who is family oriented, has a lot of love to give and a lot of love to receive. Personality goes a long way. WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? She'd fire me, but I've got the charm to smooth things over with a girl. The fact I speak fluent Spanish comes in handy when it comes to flirting! NAME: Shakira Khan AGE: 26 FROM: London OCCUPATION: Construction Project Manager WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone who is tall, charming, witty, with big arms, a good smile and just really funny. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR LOVE LIFE? Booming, but they're all frogs. It's a busy love life but I've not found 'the husband', I'm looking for 'the one'. I'm looking for the ring. NAME: Harry Cooksley AGE: 30 FROM: Guildford OCCUPATION: Gold trader, semi-professional footballer and model WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? The girl next door that makes me laugh and can hold eye contact with me. I don't think I'd go for the most obvious girl, I like a real sweet girl. CLAIM TO FAME? I'm the body double for Declan Rice. So when he does a shoot, any body close ups will actually be me. You'll never see my face, but you'll see my shoulder or chest, that kind of thing. NAME: Conor Phillips AGE: 23 FROM: Limerick OCCUPATION: Professional rugby player WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?Someone who is really sure of themselves, ambitious, a bit of a go-getter and good craic. I like dark eyes and I don't mind a dominant woman. WOULD MAYA HIRE YOU FOR YOUR FLIRTING SKILLS? Definitely hire. I ask girls if they want to go halves on a baby. It doesn't work, but it gets them laughing. It's an ice-breaker, not a serious question of course! NAME: Toni Laites AGE: 24 FROM: Connecticut OCCUPATION: Las Vegas Pool Cabana Server WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? I'm looking for darker hair, definitely muscular but not too muscular. Super fit. Clean hair cut. Someone that can make me laugh - I'm super outgoing. And someone that's quite active. Maybe one day we could start our own family together. I WANT TO DATE A BRITISH GUY BECAUSE... I've lived in three different states and I'm still single. It's time to try something new! I have some British friends and they're pretty charming. I think all Americans love a good accent. British men are just more polite, with better manners. NAME: Kyle Ashman AGE: 23 FROM: Stafford OCCUPATION: Water operative WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Someone that's fun, confident and just themselves. I'd say I'd be hired. I just go with it, find something to compliment a girl on and go from there.

Frederick Forsyth obituary
Frederick Forsyth obituary

The Guardian

time43 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

Frederick Forsyth obituary

Frederick Forsyth always claimed that when, in early 1970, as an unemployed foreign correspondent, he sat down at a portable typewriter and 'bashed out' The Day of the Jackal, he 'never had the slightest intention of becoming a novelist'. Forsyth, who has died aged 86, also became well known as a political and social commentator, often with acerbic views on the European Union, international terrorism, security matters and the status of Britain's armed forces, but it is for his thrillers that he will be best remembered. Forsyth's manuscript for The Day of the Jackal was rejected by three publishers and withdrawn from a fourth before being taken up by Hutchinson in a three-book deal in 1971. Even then there were doubts, as half the publisher's sales force were said to have expressed no confidence in a book that plotted the assassination of the French president General Charles de Gaulle – an event that everyone knew did not happen. The skill of the book was that its pace and seemingly forensic detail encouraged readers to suspend disbelief and accept that not only was the plot real, but that the Jackal – an anonymous English assassin – almost pulled it off. In fact, at certain points, the reader's sympathy lies with the Jackal rather than with his victim. It was a publishing tour de force, winning the Mystery Writers' of America Edgar award for best first novel, attracting a record paperback deal at the Frankfurt book fair and being quickly filmed by the US director Fred Zinnemann, with Edward Fox as the ruthless Jackal. Forsyth was offered a flat fee for the film rights (£20,000) or a fee plus a percentage of the profits – he took the flat fee, later admitting that he was 'pathetic at money'. The 1972 paperback edition of The Day of the Jackal was reprinted 33 times in 18 years and is still in print, but while readers were happy to be taken in by Forsyth's painstakingly researched details (about everything from faked passports to assembling a sniper's rifle), the critics and the crime-writing establishment were far from impressed. Whodunit? A Guide to Crime, Spy and Suspense Stories, published in 1982, by which time Forsyth's sales were well into the millions, declared rather loftily that 'authenticity is to Forsyth what imagination is to many other writers', and the critic Julian Symons dismissed Forsyth as having 'no pretension to anything more than journalistic expertise'. It was a formula that readers clearly approved of, with the subsequent novels in that original three-book deal, The Odessa File (1972) and The Dogs of War (1974), being both bestsellers and successful films. Novellas, collections of short stories and more novels were to follow. These included The Fourth Protocol (1984), which had a cameo role for the British spy-in-exile Kim Philby and was also successfully filmed, with a screenplay by Forsyth and starring Michael Caine and a pre-Bond Pierce Brosnan and, against type, The Phantom of Manhattan (1999), a sequel to Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera. Nothing, however, was to match the impact of The Day of the Jackal and when a Guardian journalist spotted a copy in a London flat used by the world's most wanted terrorist, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, or 'Carlos', in 1975, the British press dubbed him Carlos the Jackal, with no need to explain the reference. Born in Ashford, Kent, Frederick was the son of Phyllis and Frederick Sr, shopkeepers at 4 North Street – his mother's dress business operated on the ground floor and his father sold furs on the first floor. He was educated at Tonbridge school, where supportive teachers and summer holidays abroad ensured that Frederick excelled at French, German and Russian. At the age of 16, he enrolled on an RAF flying scholarship course that brought him a pilot's licence by the age of 17 and eased his way into the RAF proper for his national service, where he obtained his pilot's 'wings' and flew Vampire jets as the youngest pilot in the service. However, when he failed in his ambition to be posted to a frontline squadron, he opted for a change of career and in 1958 entered journalism as a trainee with the Eastern Daily Press in their King's Lynn office. In the autumn of 1961 he set his sights on Fleet Street, and his fluency with languages (which now included Spanish) got him a job with Reuters press agency. In May 1962, he was posted to Reuters' office in Paris, where De Gaulle was the target of numerous assassination attempts by disaffected Algerians. The experience was not lost on Forsyth, but before he could put it to good use in The Day of the Jackal, there were other journalistic postings, a war to survive and a non-fiction book to write. The Reuters' office in East Berlin was a plum posting for any journalist in 1963 as the cold war turned distinctly chilly, despite the attentions of the East German security services. However, when he returned to Britain in 1965 for a job as a diplomatic correspondent with the BBC, it was Broadcasting House rather than East Berlin which he found to be 'a nest of vipers'. Forsyth's relationship with the BBC hierarchy was antagonistic from the start and deteriorated rapidly when he was sent to Nigeria in 1967 to cover the civil war then unravelling. Objecting to the unquestioning acceptance of Nigerian communiques that downplayed the situation, by both the Foreign Office and the BBC, Forsyth began to file stories putting the secessionist Biafran side of the story as well as the developing humanitarian crisis. He was recalled to London for an official BBC reprimand but returned to Nigeria as a freelance at his own expense to cover the increasingly bloody war and to write a Penguin special, The Biafra Story (1969). He returned to Britain for Christmas 1969, low on funds, his BBC career in tatters and with nowhere to live. On 2 January 1970, camped out in the flat of a friend, he began to write a novel on a battered portable typewriter. After 35 days The Day of the Jackal was finished, and fame and fortune followed. In 1973 he married Carrie (Carole) Cunningham, and they moved to Spain to avoid the rates of income tax likely to be introduced by an incoming Labour government. In 1974 they relocated to County Wicklow in Ireland, where writers and artists were treated gently when it came to tax, returning to Britain in 1980 once Margaret Thatcher was firmly established in Downing Street. By 1990, Forsyth had undergone an amicable divorce from Carrie, but a far less amicable separation from his investment broker and his life savings, and claimed to have lost more than £2m in a share fraud. To recoup his losses, Forsyth threw himself into writing fiction, producing another string of bestsellers, although none had the impact of his first three novels. He was appointed CBE in 1997 and received the Crime Writers' Association's Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 2012. In 2016 he announced that he would write no more thrillers and that his memoir The Outsider (2015), which revealed that he had worked as an unpaid courier for MI6, or 'The Firm' as he called it, would be his swansong. He acquired a reputation as a rather pungent pundit, both on Radio 4 and in a column in the Daily Express, when it came to such topics as the 'offensive' European Union, the leadership of the Conservative party, the state of Britain's prisons and jihadist volunteers returning from Middle Eastern conflicts. He was an active campaigner on behalf of Sgt Alexander Blackman, 'Marine A', who was jailed for the murder of an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan in 2011. Forsyth maintained that Blackman had been made a scapegoat by the army from the moment of his court martial. In 2017 the conviction was overturned. Often concerned with military charities, Forsyth wrote the lyrics to Fallen Soldier, a lament for military casualties in all wars recorded and released in 2016. Forsyth was not the first foreign correspondent to take up thriller-writing. Ian Fleming had led the way in the 1950s, with Alan Williams and Derek Lambert carrying the torch into the 1960s. The spectacular success of The Day of the Jackal did however encourage a new generation, among them the ITN reporter Gerald Seymour, whose debut novel, Harry's Game, was generously reviewed by Forsyth in the Sunday Express in 1975. Years later, Seymour remembered the impact of Forsyth's debut, The Day of the Jackal: 'That really hit the news rooms. There was a feeling that it should be part of a journalist's knapsack to have a thriller.' Despite having declared Forsyth's retirement from fiction, his publisher Bantam announced the appearance of an 18th novel, The Fox, in 2018. Based on real-life cases of young British hackers, The Fox centres on an 18-year-old schoolboy with Asperger syndrome and the ability to access the computers of government security and defence systems. For Christmas 1973 Disney based the short film The Shepherd, a ghostly evocation of second world war airfields, on a 1975 short story by Forsyth. The following year The Day of the Jackal was reimagined by Ronan Bennett for a TV series with Eddie Redmayne taking the place of Fox. Later this year a sequel to The Odessa File, Revenge of Odessa, written with Tony Kent, is due to appear. Forsyth will be a subject of the BBC TV documentary series In My Own Words. In 1994 he married Sandy Molloy. She died last year. He is survived by his two sons, Stuart and Shane, from his first marriage. Frederick Forsyth, journalist and thriller writer, born 25 August 1938; died 9 June 2025

I'm married but fell pregnant with my handsome ex's baby after passionate nights of sex
I'm married but fell pregnant with my handsome ex's baby after passionate nights of sex

The Sun

timean hour ago

  • The Sun

I'm married but fell pregnant with my handsome ex's baby after passionate nights of sex

DEAR DEIDRE: MY gorgeous ex has wormed his way back into my life and now I'm expecting his baby. I've blown up my world for a few hours of passion while my husband was away. After five years of marriage I thought I was happy. We have a daughter of four and my husband recently got a promotion which meant he had to retrain and was out of the country for two whole months. He's not as handsome as my ex but he's a lovely guy. I split up with my ex after he cheated on me with my friend. I was 19 at the time. I'm now 28 and my husband is 32. My ex, who's 30, contacted me through social media saying he had something to tell me. I stupidly thought there would be no harm seeing him so arranged a babysitter and met him in a pub. I recognised him immediately. His dazzling smile and his trendy hair-cut — he was still on-point. He bought me a drink, saying he was sorry for hurting me all those years ago. He asked about my job and what I'd been doing. I didn't tell him I was married. I fancied him all over again. He invited me back to his new apartment overlooking the river and he told me he'd never stopped thinking about me. I've never felt as desirable as when he kissed me passionately that night. We had sex and it was like old times. We met a few times after that and always ended the evening with sex at his place. We used protection so I was horrified last week to discover that I'm pregnant. I don't know how it happened but the condom must have failed. It's definitely his. I'm in a mess. DEIDRE SAYS: This guy was history but your husband and daughter are the family that you love. You're on the edge of jeopardising life as you know it. If you go through with the pregnancy, your ex will be responsible for looking after this child financially and preferably emotionally too. How do you think he'd react to the news? You could choose to forget the dates and try to pass this off as your husband's baby but secrets have a habit of getting out. If the dates are way out, people are going to ask questions. My support pack called Unplanned Pregnancy will show you where to find support in deciding your next steps. I DREAM OF WORLD'S END WHILE I SHUT MYSELF AWAY DEAR DEIDRE: I SEEM to have cut myself off from my family and friends by withdrawing socially. It is not because they have done anything wrong, but more because I don't feel the need for interaction. Given a choice, I'll plump to read or watch TV alone. I am a 42-year-old single woman and I live by myself. Recently, I've had a lack of interest in anything and anyone, and don't want to engage in activities that usually interest me. I've even started fantasising that there will be another world war as I am fed up paying bills and dealing with people. Debts and working are also contributing to my mood. Even if the world ended today, I would be happy and excited. I hate it as it is now, and I am bored. I also keep cleaning my flat in the hope that it will help me focus and be happier, but it never does. Do other people feel the same or is there something wrong with me? DEIDRE SAYS: It can be upsetting to feel apathetic and unmotivated, and it could be a sign of depression, anxiety or being overwhelmed. It is important that you talk to your doctor about how this lack of interest is affecting you. Feeling bored with life at times is normal, especially if faced with monotonous routines or a sense of emptiness. My support pack, Defeat Depression, explains more. FLOP IN BED DUE TO WORK STRESS DEAR DEIDRE: GOING on holiday improves my physical health and then my erections return. As soon as I'm home, they disappear. My job as a police sergeant is stressful. I'm married and I'm 47. We've had some issues with sex in the past couple of years but we've always managed to do things that appeal to both my wife and I. We went to Norfolk earlier in the year and had great sex. Recently we went to Dubai and I had no problems in the bedroom while we were there. But this week, I'm back at work and I don't wake up with that 'morning glory' like I used to. DEIDRE SAYS: When we take a break from our normal day-to-day concerns, holidays do exactly what they are supposed to do – they recharge the batteries as we enjoy a change of scene. If you're waking up when you're away with morning erections, then you know that everything is working as it should be. A lack of erection once or twice can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy; you worry once and it happens again and again. My support pack on Solving Erection Problems will help but in the short-term, do read my pack called Sex Play Therapy, which has exercises recommended by sex therapists. There is no pressure to have full sex for a few weeks but it will help those feelings of arousal to return naturally. SHE MONITORS MY EVERY MOVE DEAR DEIDRE: TECHNICALLY, I cheated on my girlfriend when we first met and now she watches me like a hawk. We weren't official though and my other relationship was petering out. I hardly saw my previous girlfriend and it was only a matter of time before I plucked up the courage to tell her we were over. What I hadn't told her was that I'd found a new love interest at work. My colleague was 24 when she joined our tech desk. My computer was constantly on the blink and she always seemed to be there when I needed help. I'm 29 and I really fancied this girl so I invited her out. We must have had half a dozen dates – and sex – before I asked her to make it official. We've been getting along great and I think she could be the one but one Saturday morning in bed, she was asking about my exes and I got confused with the dates and let it slip that I was seeing her and my ex at the same time. Now she wants to check my phone, she's got me on Find My Friends and won't let me go anywhere without her. It's getting too much. DEIDRE SAYS: Many people still assume you're a free agent if you're dating them or having sex with them, so it's always best to spell it out that you're looking for something casual. Technical details aside, in her eyes you've broken her trust and you're going to have to come clean and ask for forgiveness. Explain that you regret you weren't more open but that you want to fully commit now. Understand that she's feeling insecure and allow her time to realise you're not an unfaithful type. Read through my support pack, How To Look After Your Relationship, to get the best out of what you have together. Things may look different in a few months.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store