Relationships and responsibilities at home and abroad

GIVE ME A BREAK:Writing about matters of the heart can have an unexpected impact on readers' lives, writes KATE HOLMQUIST

YOU HAVE TO be very careful what you write in a newspaper. Last year, I wrote a column about how difficult it is to follow love to a new country and settle there, without family and friends around you. A young man was shown the column by his mother, read it and then sent me an e-mail. We’ll call him John. His girlfriend was insisting that he move to Germany. He was torn.

He outlined all the reasons why he shouldn’t go to Germany with Frau Girlfriend, outlining points I’d made in my column: the world seems a small place now, with cheap air travel and mobile phones, but once you have your own kids it becomes difficult to afford bringing the entire family “home”. You become caught up in your new life, no matter how hard you try to keep in touch.

You miss family births, christenings, weddings, funerals and Christmases, as well as the simple things, such as being there when your mum or dad gets sick, or even just being able to meet for Sunday lunch. When bad things happen, you haven’t got the family supports you would have had. You’re at the mercy of your in-laws and your spouse’s social network. Your dependence on your spouse in a strange culture makes you less independent. A romantic federation of two can be irresistible in the first flush of love, but it can become claustrophobic when it’s all you’ve got, which is why people who marry between countries and cultures have a higher divorce rate than other couples.

Halfway through his e-mail, I was nearly chewing my tongue. I was only sharing my own perceptions. I wasn’t saying don’t marry a foreigner. I was merely pointing out the pitfalls, having been married to one for 25 years. I didn’t intend to stop anyone from running away with their true love. I’m a romantic. “Love will keep us together,” sang Captain and Tennille during my formative years.

I continued reading John’s e-mail, dreading what might come next. Tell me you followed your heart. He told me how much he loved her. He was willing to do anything for her.

So tell me you defied your mother and my column, more to the point, and that you ran away with Frau Makes Me Happy. He continued on with more reasons why his girlfriend made him happy. And yet I could sense the tone of regret. I wasn’t just chewing my tongue now, I was putting chocolate on it. I felt so responsible.

Why hadn't I focused on rants over politics, or platitudes on the economy, or even basic news reporting? John was considering changing the course of his life, and I was responsible. What foolish notion had made me put the "I" into The Irish Times? On he droned about the love of his life. I began to hope that this wasn't a lawsuit in the making.

And then he wrote that, after much consideration – in which my column played only a small part – he had decided not to follow his girlfriend to Germany and they had broken up. Ouch.

I feared the next sentence. He was really going to start in on me now. (If you’re a newspaper columnist, you become immune to angry e-mails from people who think that you’re the devil’s spawn.) I kept reading. And then, John gave me a line of such beauty and insight that I felt the fool.

“I don’t blame you. If it had been meant to be, you could have driven a truck through us and we’d still be together.”

The woman he was meant to be with was still out there, he believed. And when he found her, it wouldn’t matter what column he read or what his mother said. He wrote that if he met the one, he would follow her to Germany or anywhere else.

Dear John, I hope you find the one.

I’m off to the US tomorrow – to “home”. We’re in a packing frenzy, but the main concern is that my Dad is in hospital and I feel guilty that my brothers have had to take the brunt and do the driving back and forth to hospital and deal with the doctors and insurance forms. One of my brothers is an architect with a major project going on in Florida, more than 1,600km from where I’ll be based on Cape Cod.

I’m hoping to see my two beautiful young nieces there. Their father, my other brother, is a Washington lawyer, and they don’t get holidays, they just snatch a Saturday here and there. “We’ll make it work,” one of my brothers said on the phone. We’ll find a way to get everyone together for a reunion. In the midst of it all, I will try to give my kids some fun in the country they adore almost as much as Ireland.

As always, I will be torn between countries, people, loyalties. But that’s just life, isn’t it? (You listening, John?) I’ll keep you posted.