Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I work part time and make my husband and I a nice home. He is a medical doctor and we are a gay couple. I always thought we were a great couple, but then he came home late. Still, I’d keep dinner warm for him.
Now there are nights when he doesn’t come home until 10pm or later. At first I accepted his stories about being overwhelmed due to COVID. Then, a few weeks ago, he showed up even later, smelling of booze and in a belligerent mood. He was never a big drinker. I am seriously upset. Do you think he’s secretly dating someone else?
– Deeply angry and suspicious, Winnipeg
Dear suspect: Don’t think it’s an affair. If he was secretly dating someone, he would probably be more discreet. It could be a different kind of affair gone wrong.
Sometimes people who used to be in love with their careers despise what their work life has become, especially with the COVID hours and stress. If you can listen to your husband without taking it personally when he expresses anger and frustration, you will ease some of his emotional distress and hopefully get closer.
It’s possible he found some drinking buddies from work going through the same thing. Many people in the medical world these days get on the nerves at work – and then their shifts are sometimes extended. Encourage your partner to speak up about anything that upsets them and don’t hold back.
Angry people may think they are being friendly and protective of their buddies if they keep work issues to themselves. Then they can start sharing deep feelings with work friends. You can start by just having a few drinks together to relax. Then they stay longer and are ashamed to go home. When they get home – hours later – they’re tensed and ready to explode.
Encourage your partner to seek professional advice on stress at work and also to see their GP. People who start blistering are prone to all sorts of medical problems caused by stress.
Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: To be honest, I can’t stand my 19-year-old daughter right now. I don’t know who she thinks she is, but she acts like she’s too good for our working-class family.
We have saved and saved so that she can go to university and I admit that so far she is getting good grades. But she has been dealing with this group, who only have to work for their grades during the eight-month school year. All they have to do is take a summer job to pay their rent and they share it with other friends.
My daughter has to have a part-time job during the school year to help pay the tuition and she has to live at home and share a room with her younger sister. Now Miss Fancy Pants is talking about moving out this summer to live with her new friends!
Shelley Cook | raise
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All her friends have to do is stay afloat. My daughter has to save every penny she works for. I told her that and she gave me a look that screamed, “Mom, you’re just too stupid to understand.” I’m the one who gets it and this girl doesn’t. Help please!
– Not so stupid mother, Weston
Dear mum: It seems you both need a year or more off this college finance deal. In other words, just stop doing more of what isn’t working. Your daughter doesn’t want to live like she did in high school for a few more years, and you can’t afford to fund a young woman who wants to live with her well-heeled friends.
Why not take a break from that stress – and she may need to do the same? Many students take years off here and there and then work full-time to continue their studies.
When your daughter moves in with her buddies, you need to break the motherly habit of getting upset and just welcome her home for Sunday lunch. If you put too much pressure on mostly adult “kids”, you can lose them longer than you ever wanted.
Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6.
Miss Lonely Hearts
Council columnist
Each year, the Free Press publishes more than 1,000 letters to Miss Lonelyhearts and her answers to the life and relationship issues she faces.
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