Not sure I'd frame the question thusly

[oursin]

Bad events knocked the joy out of my life. How do I get it back?

The question I feel as though, over the years, I’ve allowed setbacks to knock down all my pillars of happiness and now feel I just live among the ruins.When I was young, I read books where naive anti-heroes had funny experiences and I thought if I was open-minded, funny things would happen to me, too. I now realise it’s probably not how people experience life.Twenty years ago, I ended up on an art MA, but the main tutor hated me and refused to let me on to the second year. I’d been doing fun stuff that lots of people liked, but she managed to annihilate all my enthusiasm for art.Then one of my best friends just stopped talking to me and never told me why. It shook my feeling that friendship was a strong bond and since then people can be in my life, but I don’t hold on to them very well for long.A relationship ended after a lengthy court case and, since then, more than a decade ago, I have struggled to enjoy anything. Then I accepted a job where I was given minimal training, but was constantly berated for getting stuff wrong and after six months had a breakdown.

I know there’s a thing about not allowing people to have power over you, but it’s felt like a series of knockout blows. I want more out of life and I thought if I waited something would grow, like weeds do after you clear some ground, but nothing really has. How do I find my way to enjoyment?

( Philippa’s answer, seems to be missing the point )

Well, this is at least a bit, er, unusual

[oursin]

I am falling for an amazing woman who is a flat-earther. Can I reconcile my diminishing respect?

I am a divorced man, raising two sons alone and getting back into the dating world at 43 years old. I am a few months into dating this absolutely amazing woman and I’ve enjoyed it very much. She seems to be the total package in many, many ways! She is kind, thoughtful, empathetic, soft, genuine, intuitive, honest and many more beautiful characteristics. I truly am falling for her and I feel we could have a long, beautiful future, but I just recently found out she is a flat-earther. I was absolutely shocked. At first, I thought she was kidding. After some discussion, she deeply believes flat earth conspiracies, suggests that I’m just following what I’ve been told, and does not seem very receptive to learning more about it.

I cannot eloquently explain how disappointed I am, or why! It defies all logic, observable facts, and is absolutely absurd. I feel like I’ve lost so much respect for her and I cannot seem to reconcile that feeling with how I care about everything else she is. And to make matters worse, she is teaching her kids to believe the same thing. I am a very mathematical and science-oriented man and I could even sit her down and show her some basic maths, but I doubt that would go well!

How should I handle this? She seems annoyed when I bring it up, and I probably didn’t handle it very well at first. I seriously care for her but I also am struggling with respecting anyone who believes such a nonsense conspiracy theory they learned about on YouTube. Please help!

( Eleanor says: actually not run like hell, what? )