For as long as I can remember, I have had an overpowering longing for love and a family of my own. I grew up in a dysfunctional household and was an introverted kid, then a troubled teenager. Although I believe I have managed to grow into a pretty decent 35-year-old despite the odds, I still have not got a partner and children.

The concept of relationships is alien to me. I have never been in a functional one - I have only been with two men - and it has dawned on me that I have idealised the concept due to my lack of experience, which in turn is the result of my fear of rejection and heartbreak.

More to the point, I am terrified of ending up with a man like my father, who is emotionally detached. He drove my mother to extremes, psychologically. I have always been fiercely independent and remain so, but, at the same time, I lack confidence and feel I am an underachiever, despite doing well academically and in some other areas of my life too. Am I wrong in thinking that it is a mistake on my part to want a family when clearly it is not meant to happen? How does one overcome fear and start living life? How can I start believing in myself, so that others will too?

Concentrate on yourself first

My childhood was similar to yours and I, too, felt an overpowering longing for love. However, I decided not to have children and focused on finding a loving relationship.

I married late in life and have found the closeness and affection that was lacking in my childhood. I am happier now than I have ever been and have no regrets about not having children.

Overcoming my earlier difficulties has been a long and difficult process, and therapy was helpful. I realised that the lack of parental support in childhood had made me very self-contained and incapable of expressing my feelings and needs in the way that normal people do. At your age, I was in so much inner turmoil that I was incapable of really loving another person.

Concentrate on your own emotional development first - those of us who struggle to achieve healthy and satisfying relationships are often more appreciative of love when we finally receive it.
HS, Carmarthenshire, Wales

Change your outlook

You still have time on your side. I suggest that you try to think less. Be brazen, selective and assertive about who you want as your partner and potential father for your children. You sound as if you are successful and independent in your professional life, so draw on these strengths in your personal life.

I understand that you have hang-ups - I did too, which is why I write to you from the heart and urge you to be proactive in your quest for happiness. Don't resign yourself to a fate you don't want - change your outlook and the way you operate. You need to open up like a flower in bloom!
KB, Wales

Therapy might help you

Have you sought help for your feelings of fear and lack of self-confidence? You may benefit from talking things through with someone. At 29, I have just completed a course of eight sessions (on the NHS) with a cognitive behavioural therapist for help with my own feelings of anxiety and low self-esteem. It has been life-changing. I can't recommend it highly enough as a means of changing how you think about yourself and your future.

Furthermore, please don't think that love and a family are "not meant to be" for you. Why wouldn't they be? You've come so far in breaking free from your difficult background - don't give up now.
CR, London

Improve your social skills first

You are not wrong in longing for a family or a healthy, loving relationship with a man.

But please don't try to have the former without first mastering the latter or you will create a miserable and complicated situation for everyone involved.

Improving your social skills will help you to feel more confident and to become a better judge of other people to ensure you make the right choice of partner. Don't overlook powerful tools such as hypnotherapy sessions and neuro-linguistic programming lessons, which can help you to become a fearless new you, ready for a relationship and equipped to handle a family of your own.
LS, London

Examine your motives carefully

At an early age, I decided I wanted to have children, whether or not I found a partner. I came to this realisation after caring for my younger sister, who was born when I was 14. A child is the most wonderful gift, but should you decide to have one, it is your responsibility to provide a loving, caring, functional home. Make sure that you want a child for the right reasons - it sounds as if you want to create a perfect family to make up for what you didn't have as a child, so examine your motives carefully.

No one is an expert at relationships: we all struggle with what life throws us, but the important thing to recognise is that you need to get over your fear of what might be, and just live. You know what kind of man your father was, so don't go out with men like him. I didn't want to be with someone like my father, and my partner is nothing like him. Beware of self-fulfilling prophecies and be proactive in getting what you want out of life.

Are you a good friend? If you are, that is a great basis on which to become a good parent and partner.
T, Hong Kong

What the expert thinks - Linda Blair

You have told us a great deal about your fears, self-doubt and lack of positive experiences. These are all part of you, but they are not the sum total of what makes you the person you are. Dwelling only on what's holding you back will do just that - hold you back. You say that the concept of relationships is "alien" to you, yet you grew up in a family that - whether dysfunctional or not - provided you with a number of relationships and you have also had two partners. I imagine you also have friends and work colleagues. These interactions can all help you to understand more about other people, and allow you to discover what effects other people have on you. If you reflect on your experiences, you will become aware of what it is within each relationship that fulfils you - as well as what causes you distress. It is not the number or type of experiences we have that determines how much we learn - it is whether we make use of them.

You also suggest that because you grew up in a dysfunctional household, it is surprising that you are now "pretty decent". Yet dreadful experiences are precisely what make some individuals determined to become decent and generous. Finding such life events hurtful, they use them as examples of what not to do. You have done this already, in that you say you don't wish to end up in a relationship with someone like your father.

However, those individuals who are most likely to live fulfilling lives despite an unhappy past use that past only as a starting point. They decide what they do want in life, and identify what must be done to realise their dreams. To help them figure out how to behave more adaptively, they look for inspiring role models to provide examples of how to create positive beliefs and how to behave constructively.

Look around you. Who has ideals you admire? Who seeks to achieve their dreams, however difficult, and how do they do so? Start changing your own beliefs and behaviours so that they resemble those of your chosen role model more than those you dislike.

I doubt that any of these people would articulate a dream and then say that it is "not meant to happen".

The only way to overcome your fear of living life is through taking action. You can only conquer a fear by defying it - by pushing aside self-doubt and trying. This is also the only way to start believing in yourself, because you can't know for sure what you are capable of until you put yourself to the test.

You already know how you don't want to live, and what you do want. Now you must start trying to achieve your aspirations. Start small. What can you do today that will be a step in the right direction? Of course, you will make mistakes - everyone does. However, the only people who realise their dreams are those who learn from their mistakes when they "fail", adjust their beliefs and behaviours accordingly, and then try again, and again, and again. They truly "live life" and end up believing in themselves.

Next week: Should I return to the wife I left?

Five years ago I had an affair and, as a result, I left my marriage of 15 years. After all this time, my wife and I have come through the pain of our respective feelings of betrayal and loss. We have also stopped fighting over access to our four children and money; we conduct our relationship on a fairly congenial basis, but rarely stray into emotional territory. Before the affair, our marriage was seemingly safe and secure, although it could not be described as sexually or emotionally rich; it was more akin to a much-loved cardigan than a flashy new top. The affair became a very loving and highly sexual relationship for me, but stuttered to an end this year, because I could not psychologically move on from the family I had left behind. Now my wife has told me that she still loves me and wants me to come home.

We are both struggling financially and it seems the most practical thing to do.

However, when we talk, I am only partially listening; the other part of me is thinking, "I admire and respect you, and feel responsible for you but I feel nothing more for you than that." In two years, our eldest child will leave for university and within five years the others will also have left home, so there would be just the two of us living together.

Should I go home, as I have failed to create a happy alternative and put on the cardigan again - even if it is not as loved as it once was?

· Private Lives appears every Thursday. You are invited to respond to next week's main problem. If you would like fellow readers and Linda Blair to answer a dilemma of yours, send us an outline of the situation of around 250 words. For advice from Pamela Stephenson Connolly on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns. All correspondence should reach us by Tuesday morning: email private.lives@theguardian.com (please don't send attachments) or write to Private Lives, The Guardian, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER.