You're not a bad person for saving yourself

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I'm an older lady. I met a man with one leg and a prosthesis and he's grand. He just doesn't think he is. How do I convince him? I am getting fed up praising him and building him up. If I move on, he'll says it's about his leg and he knew I would do this all the time. -- Losing Energy, Downtown

Dear Losing: Let him say what he wants. His thoughts are the problem, not his leg. Look, there are energy-stealing people in the world and energy givers. No one should knowingly stay with a person who takes their good feelings away. He probably enjoys the praise and attention he gets to try to convince him he's grand. This man is bringing you down, and nothing you can say will convince him that what he believes about himself is wrong. He needs major therapy. If you give up on him, you're not a bad person -- just saving yourself.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My heart is splintered into a million pieces. I had been seeing this wonderful man from a foreign country going to my university. He said he loved me and I loved him. We did everything except make love because he said that was something, in his country, to be kept for marriage. I thought he meant for me. A month ago he announced he was being forced to go back home immediately by his father because his uncle who lives here reported he has a Canadian girlfriend -- me. Before my man left, he said there was no questioning one's father in his country and he must now go back and marry his betrothed whom he does not love. I have been crying ever since he left. There is no way to change this. Just how do we help me? I knew he had been betrothed, but I thought, when the time came, he would defy his family and stay with me. He said he'd lose his whole family and "standing" if he shamed this girl who has been waiting all her life to marry him. What help is there for me? -- Broken Into Pieces, Winnipeg

Dear Broken: This loss is much like the death of a person -- he's totally gone now from your life. But, think about this: If he had forsaken his entire family and his culture back home, the burden might have fallen on your shoulders to make up for that terrible loss all your life. The risk for conservative foreign cultures in sending their young people off to university is that they're at exactly the right age to fall in love and want out of an arranged marriage. Your mistake was in thinking romantic love would be stronger than anything. Sometimes mothers and siblings aren't allowed to speak to children who shame the family. So keep this in mind: Life as a married couple would have been extremely difficult for him, AND also for you. One of the best healing methods for a person who is broken-hearted, is to fill every waking hour in the first few months with challenges that require courage and focus -- extra courses, a new sport, charity work. That, plus any counselling you can find and afford, will help. Check out counselling through your university ASAP.

lovecoach@hotmail.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 27, 2012 C4