There's a great article here on a successful songwriter (you probably don't recognise her name - I certainly didn't) that made me laugh out loud.

Famous for her teary ballads, she herself has no time for the idea of a relationship and thinks the whole idea of romantic love is bunk. Earning $20 million a year in royalties alone, she describes herself as thriving on squalor and as a real East-Coast New York Jew who's not nice enough for LA.

'She has never felt the need to be close to another human being? "If I do feel the need, it passes - thank God. Why do I want to wake up with someone and talk to them? Yeuch. It's like when I wrote for Aerosmith, 'I could stay awake just to hear you breathing ... '" She makes a disgusted face. "If someone was listening to me breathing all night, I'd throw them out the window. Preferably a high-rise...'

Worth a read for the cynics among us.

I found a family snapshot the other day, when we were swapping our office and our bedroom around.

It's a nice picture, but it made me remember why I don't keep family photographs on display, because it made me feel unutterably depressed.

I suppose it's different if you come from a happy, well-adjusted family, but I don't. In fact, even this picture's survival was a bone of contention. My mother, some years, ago, binned all the family pictures without telling us, and my sister rescued a few boxes of slides out of the rubbish and sent them to me. My husband scanned this one and printed it out for me, and I'd forgotten all about it since.

It's a bit out of focus, but is of us all on the beach, and I'm guessing it dates from about 1972, which would make me nine years old. Because I'm small and skinny, though, I look a lot younger. I'm sprawling in my father's lap in the sand, unaware of all the family tensions around me.

1972 would make my parents in this photo 45 years old, the same age I am now, which is something of a shock.

Dad looks happy and fit and well, in his army swimming shorts and his clip-on sunglasses. He was a miner and did hard physical labour all his life, and you can see he's well-muscled with no fat on him. And yet, 16 years from this picture, he would be dead - struck down by a massive coronary at only 61. Afterwards, the family would split apart and never fully recover. 

My mother also looks pretty happy, but you can't tell she has a bad back in this picture. It would be the bane of her existence, and the painkillers would distance her from her family. She's wearing a swimming costume, which is strange, because I don't remember her doing that at this age. When I was four, she stopped going in the water, saying it was bad for her insides. Actually, she may have had a point. We took our holidays on the east coast and bathing in the North Sea requires the constitution of an ox.  

Next to her is my eldest brother, aged maybe 22. He left home when I was three and never came back much, so we were virtual strangers until my father's death in 1987. Our relationship was never strong and since my mother's death last year, when we disagreed about most things, he has severed all ties. His wife - at this point still his girlfriend - is probably behind the camera, taking the picture. 

The last person in the photo is my middle brother at far left, who in this shot must be about 15. He's giving my mother a 'dead leg' - one of his favourite occupations: he was always tickling her and making her squeal. The most naturally affectionate of us all, a year after this picture was taken, he would leave home at the age of 16, then ask to come back and my parents would refuse. They would leave his things in the garden, and I'd rejoice because I was so sick of him bullying me on a daily basis. We haven't seen each other in 20 years. 

Only later would I realise how unusual my family was, because when you grow up in a dysfunctional family, weird behaviour is quite normal. My eldest brother left at 15, and my sister at 17 - my parents keen to 'get them off our hands'. I would hang on a bit longer, until I was 18, but when I left, like the others, I scarcely went back again. My mother had a breakdown after I left, and my father had to give up night work to keep her company, which was no fun for either of them. Grindingly unhappy for decades, they were not of the class or educational background to even consider divorce. 

There is one other person not in this photo - my sister, the eldest of us and already, at 25, a mother of two children aged five and six.

She and I, at least, these 36 years later, are still speaking - as far as I know, the only two people in the family who are. Maybe it is because of our characters (though I don't think so) or maybe it's because, despite our differences, we are women and therefore try that much harder to maintain a relationship.

Psychologists tell you not to hang on to residue from failed relationships, and for most people that means romance. But for me it means family, and there's no point in crying over spilt milk. So no, I don't keep out family photographs. I have boxes of them tucked away, of course, labelled for other people to make use of in the future, but I confine myself to those from the 1950s and earlier, before I was born, and where I can regard them with disinterest.

1 Like yourself

If you don't like yourself, you won't believe that others do either. In other words, everyone requires self-esteem to be in a successful relationship.

Having self-esteem is easy for people who were brought up by loving, balanced parents, but it can be harder for others. If your family background or subsequent experience has left you lacking confidence, it is well worth getting professional counselling so that you can understand how this has affected you and may be, in turn, affecting your relationships.

Having self-esteem means not leaning too hard on your partner and relying too much on them for reassurance - the stronger you are as an individual, the stronger and more equal your relationship will be.

2 Like your partner

Love - and being in love - comes and goes, but if you really like your partner then you've got a sound basis for a relationship. Friendship is the key to a successful partnership - you need to enjoy being together, agree (by and large) with how each other thinks and behaves, and share roughly the same goals. If you don't, your differences will pull you apart, no matter how much you love each other.

3 Be nice

Let your partner know that you like and love them. Be encouraging and supportive - and complimentary when you can. That will increase their trust and respect for you, and also boost their self-esteem, which makes people easier to live with. With any luck, they'll come right back at you, but if they don't, take it on the chin - loving someone only exactly as much as they love you back only leads to less love overall.

4 Be grateful

Gratitude, according to studies by psychologist Martin Seligman and others, is the absolute KEY to being happy. Grateful people are happy people - their glass is always half full. When it comes to relationships, count your blessings, and be grateful you've found someone in life that you're even half-way compatible with.

5 Make time for one another

In a busy life, especially if you work and have children, spending time alone together can slip down your list of priorities, but the amount of time we give to things is a measure of how important we think they are. Making time for each other is an investment in your future happiness, even if it means sacrificing other things, such as time off with the girls. For many couples, setting aside one night a week is plenty - make this an evening where you go out (if you can) or eat a nice meal together (if you're stuck at home). And don't talk about the kids - this is about the two of you as people, not as parents.

6 Communicate

Good communication is essential in a healthy relationship - telling your partner honestly and openly how you feel about things, and listening in return. It is the only way to really get to know one another. Don't assume you know how your partner is feeling about something - ask. And don't assume he knows how you're feeling - tell him. Men are notoriously rubbish at empathy, compared with women - don't expect him to read your mind.

7 Argue

Arguments are a normal part of a relationship and arguing well means not worrying about it. You don't have to always agree with one another - having differences is to be expected , as you are not clones of one another. Arguing is really just way of flexing your individual personalities.

But arguing well means setting certain boundaries, such as: don't get physical, don't stomp out and slam the door, and don't burst into tears at the first harsh word - that's passive-aggressive behaviour. Show respect for your partner, even during a slanging match.

8 Touch

Human beings die without touch - it's absolutely critical to our happiness. Being caressed also lowers blood pressure and releases oxytocin - the bonding chemical that helps people stay together.

Sexual desire comes and goes but our need for physical affection remains the same, so whether your sex life is red hot or moribund, make the time to hug, stroke and cuddle every day.

9 Roll with the punches

Everyone and everything changes over a period of time, and that is something you have to learn to deal with. Sometimes change is good, and then it's easy, but sometimes life changes in ways we don't want - we lose a job or become sick or make a move that was a mistake, and that's when we need to learn to adjust.

In successful relationships, couples face challenges like this together, not separately. They accept that change is an inevitable part of human life and support each other, for better for worse.

10 Accept that you can't solve everything

You cannot solve every problem in a partnership. Some things are not solvable - one partner's disability that places a burden on the other partner; one partner's hopeless inability to handle money; differing levels of sociability that leave you wanting to go out while your other half wants to stay at home. Realising that there are some things that you can't change is key to being an adult, never mind being in successful relationship.

I am an atheist.

It's probably best to get that out of the way up front because for some reason it shocks American readers (though not British, as we're a godless lot). In other words, I don't believe in a deity, nor that 'God' that has a purpose for us all, nor that we were put on earth for a 'reason' ('walking petri dishes for our genes' is more like it, as a friend of mine once said).

But that doesn't mean that I think my own life lacks purpose. I believe that our lives are what we make of them - but that finding the right path can sometimes be difficult.

Mid-life is often a time when you're floundering slightly and aren't sure in which way your life should be headed. Chances are, if you're reading this blog, you've got most of your material needs sorted out (house, car, internet access yadda yadda). You're probably old enough to have done a bunch of things in your life, some of which were good and others which you regret, and you had a number of plans for yourself, some of which have worked out, while others haven't. So what now?

The person you are may or may not be the person you thought you would be, and here you are, half way through. However, midlife is a great time to take charge - knowing that there is more sand in the bottom of that hourglass than there is left in the top can focus your mind wonderfully. Try these ten tips to help you focus on how to be happy.

1 Write down what your strengths are. Are you using those strengths? If not, set about using them. Happiness largely depends on focusing on our strengths rather than regretting our weaknesses.

2 Write an advert about yourself as if it was for a personal column. Are those glowing adjectives about yourself really the way you live your life at the moment? If not, why not? Set about becoming the person you secretly know you are inside.

3 Write down the things you do in your life and note which things leave you feeling good about yourself and which leave you feeling down. Now work out ways to do more of the former and less of the latter - don't waste precious time on things you hate (I'll tell you for nothing that after doing this exercise, I jacked in a job that I hated and have never regretted it for an instant).

4 Ask yourself: If I won the lottery tomorrow what would I do differently in my life? Now find ways to do those things without actually winning. If you can't go and live in the south of France, could you decorate your house in the Provencal style? Buy daylight bulbs so the house is full of light? Take a holiday there?

5 Ask yourself: What would really make me happy in life? Now find ways to do it.

6 Ask yourself: If I only had two more years to live, what would I most want to do? Now find ways to do it now. Don't keep putting off the important things in life.

7 Ask your friends and family what things they think you're really good at. Keep a list, then look at your life and work out whether you are using your strengths. I you're not, work out how to do it. You may be surprised at how glowing your references are from the people around you.

8 What did you always dream of doing as a child, when you about six or seven. Have you done those things? If not, can you still do them?

9 What values did you support when you were a young adult? Were you active in a political party or a social group: did you want to do VSO? Did you continue to support those values? If not, would they still be important now? Many of us get cynical and twisted as we get older, and lose our idealism.

10 Imagine your epitaph/headstone/obituary. Decide what you'd like those to say and set about making it happen!