Pillow talk

Graham Norton advises readers as Weekend's agony aunt

Dear Graham

My wife had our first child this summer. Anxious not to be one of those selfish, unreconstructed males who goes to the pub while his wife is in labour, I stayed with her throughout the birth. It was ghastly. She howled like a banshee, there was blood everywhere and I felt completely useless. Now I know why Gordon Ramsay said that ''childbirth was like being stuck in a room with a thousand skinned rabbits".

My problem is that the experience was so traumatic it seems to have killed my libido. I just can't face the idea of sex. It's not that she's not a beautiful woman, it's the memory of that awful night.

Our baby is now six months old and we're living like brother and sister. Any advice? Olly D, London

Dear Olly

I can relate to what you are going through. I once went to a factory where they made sausages and it put me off my breakfast for weeks. Some things should probably remain a mystery, but it's too late for that.

You have opened Pandora's box, so let's consider how to proceed. Time obviously will help and heal, but not if you allow this sexless situation to continue.

Make sure you treat your wife as a sexual being. This doesn't have to mean penetrative sex, but could simply be a matter of fondling or stroking as you pass each other in the kitchen. Surprise her with a passionate kiss just after the baby has gone to sleep. For a while, you will both be faking it, but there is nothing wrong with that.

To come back from the offal brink will require work, but in the end it will be worth it. If you deal with this correctly, it will be a phase, not your entire future. Oh, and next time just stay in the waiting room with some flowers and a stuffed stork.

Dear Graham

My girfriend's attitude to money drives me crazy. She comes from an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family whose members have always lived way beyond their means. As a result, she has a very cavalier approach to money.

We're both academics and trying to save up the money to buy a flat together, but she's always buying shoes and clothes she doesn't need and finds that she has nothing left in the pot at the end of the month. What's really weird is that she isn't actually that into fashion. Sometimes she doesn't even open her shopping bags.

My parents are textbook working-class (I was the first person in my family to go to university) and, when I was growing up in Leeds, things were pretty tight. I've always been cautious about money, partly because I've never really had much of it and partly because I'm terrified of ending up like my parents. But whenever I bring up the subject, my girlfriend gets really upset - and when she's upset she goes shopping.

What would you advise? Gary B, Hastings, East Sussex

Dear Gary

Relationships can overcome all sorts of differences - politics, religion, age, even gender - but I'm afraid there is no way around money unless one of you has lots of it. You may love your girlfriend but the person you describe in your letter is someone you really don't seem to like at all.

This relationship may have drifted along quite happily, but now that you have reached the big important things, such as buying a house, it is the Titanic.

It would be lovely to think that your girlfriend could change, but we both know that isn't going to happen. Leaving her may make you sad for a while, but just imagine how happy it will make your parents.

As with old towels and stem glassware, sometimes we just have to let go.

Dear Graham

My ex-boyfriend keeps begging me to forgive him and take him back. We broke up because he said I was ''possessive" and ''stifling" (among other awful things) and that I ''cramped his style".

We were in the Seychelles at the time and it was the most miserable holiday I've ever had in my life. When we landed at Gatwick he charged ahead of me in Customs without even saying goodbye. I truly never expected to see him again. Now, six months on, he appears to have changed his mind.

The problem is that I don't feel I can trust him again. And I still feel angry about his behaviour. What would you do in my place?

We are both in our late twenties, by the way. Claudia S, Hertfordshire

Dear Claudia

Deep breaths. Stop worrying that people might spot that your Christmas party frock is from Next. Put down your triple grande skinny latte and think. You seem to have pressed your emotional brakes, but skidded right past the real problem.

Your concern shouldn't be whether or not you can trust this man again, but the very fact that you are considering taking this man back at all.

The guy sounds like a nasty piece of work. We can all survive being abandoned in the Seychelles, but for him to walk away at Gatwick… well, that is very cold indeed. I understand that you would like to have a boyfriend, but why not try a new one? There is a horrible attraction in the familiar, but focus on how unhappy this man made you and resist it.

You mention that you are in your late twenties, as if you were both dancing around the Last Chance Saloon.

Claudia, trust me: by the time you are my age you will have had so many terrible holidays with lovers you will need to be reminded that you were ever in the Seychelles.