The Confessions

"I read my teenage daughters diary. I found nothing alarming but I violated her trust completely. She is twenty six now and we are close. I have never told her. I think about it whenever she tells me something in confidence."

"I told my family I could not make it home for Christmas one year because of work. I stayed home alone by choice. I just needed to not perform happiness for one year. Nobody knows that. They think I was miserable being away. I was the most peaceful I had been in years."

"I was jealous of my sister her whole life. Better grades, more friends, prettier, funnier. I never told her I was proud of her even when I was. She moved abroad five years ago and we barely speak. I think my jealousy drove that distance and I have only recently been able to admit it."

"I was a terrible older brother. Dismissive, unkind, always too busy. My brother idolised me and I treated his admiration like an inconvenience. He is one of the finest people I know and I spent his childhood making him feel small. I am trying to make up for it now but some things cannot be undone."

"I have always been my parents favourite and my brother knows it. I never did anything to change that dynamic. I just quietly accepted the better treatment and told myself it was not my fault. He grew up feeling second. That was partly my fault."

"My teenage son thinks I never struggled in school. I struggled enormously. I was too proud to tell him when he was finding it hard and instead I pushed him harder. I watched him cry over his results one night and said nothing useful. I wish I had just told him the truth about my own failures."

"I missed my niece first birthday because I had an argument with my brother and was too stubborn to back down. She will never know I was not there. But I know. And my brother knows. We have never spoken about it."

"I uninvited my brother from my wedding because my in-laws did not approve of him. I told him it was a venue capacity issue. He believed me. He gave me a card and a generous gift anyway. I have never felt smaller in my life than I did opening that envelope."

"I told my children their grandfather was a good man when he was not. I wanted to protect them from a complicated truth. Now they are adults and I wonder if I should have let them form their own view. I took that from them."

"My father worked two jobs my entire childhood so I could have opportunities he never had. I took those opportunities completely for granted and never once thanked him properly. He died of a heart attack at sixty two. I never got to say what I should have said every single day."