Move on from the porn; fix the rift in your family

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: It’ll be a year in January since my 16-year-old stepdaughter moved out. The relationship hit a massive divide after I found no less than five homemade porn videos and stills of her boyfriend on the phone we bought her for a birthday present. By absolute fluke I stumbled across them. I was just playing with her Blackberry to see if that’s something I might want to pick up for myself. Lo and behold, she sent porn videos. Later, she claimed peer pressure. After all that, they broke up and she’s gone to live with her biological sperm-donor. He started his own family and has kids and she is way down his list, which makes her sad. She left our home over words she thought she heard through a closed door. Though not as bad as she thought, I could have chosen better language, which I have apologized for, PROFUSELY. Anyhow, fast-forward, grad is coming up and the cyberporn ex is to be seated at the same table as us. He is a notorious s--- talker. To say this evening will go smoothly, is so far-fetched I might as well believe in unicorns and dragons. I would just as soon remove myself from the entire festivities as I well know this pervert she wants escorting her — in all her beauty and brilliance.

She’s most likely a multiple scholarship recipient! I just can’t see myself holding back when he inevitably begins with the loud-mouth routine. What should I do? I don’t want to ruin such a special day for the stepdaughter I love so dearly.

Please Help! Any Suggestions? — Parental Conundrum, central Manitoba town

Dear Conundrum: This graduation is not about you, and if you absent yourself, you will make it about you — a sad memory for her. So, get on your best clothes and go to this graduation wearing your best face as well. You are an adult and you can control yourself. This guy may be acting to the standard of his dress-up clothing as well. If you don’t like sitting next to him, move seats often or get up and circulate.

As for continuing to make a fuss about the porn photos these two exchanged, you are hanging onto the past, and for what reason? To be right? Your stepdaughter moved out over what you she heard you saying about her and, by your own report, it was negative and vulgar. If you have received an invitation to this special graduation, you are lucky. Act that way and help repair this family rift.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My husband has recently made a request for me to dominate him. To that end he purchased some books and kinky equipment from a sex store in Toronto, which he visits when he goes there for business. He has bought us other sex toys there before and they were fun.

This time he wanted something from me, which I did not want to give. I left the outfit and the boots and the instruments in their boxes and went to sleep in the guest room to think for a night. In the morning I had made up my mind I would give it a try for his sake. But in the morning all the stuff was gone — vanished — nowhere to be found even after a hunt. He had gone to work. I doubt you can return that stuff, so I asked him where it went when he came home and he said, "Never mind. We will never speak of it again." And we haven’t, and it’s been 2½ weeks, but who’s counting?

We have not had anything but maintenance sex since then, which hardly counts in my world. Please help. — Slow To Get on Board, Westwood

Dear Slow: So tell him you are ready to play, and want to know where he stashed all the goods! They’re probably in the basement or the trunk of his car. Your moving to the second bedroom to make up your mind would naturally have been interpreted as rejection of the gifts and of his vulnerable request. Apologize for hurting him and then get on the bandwagon, and be adventurous about it. Don’t make this thing any more awkward than it already is. By the way, you might want to read a book or two on your own, but don’t delay the makeup as the chasm is getting wider each day you don’t talk about this.

Questions or comments? Write Miss Lonelyhearts c/o Winnipeg Free Press 1355 Mountain Ave. R2X 3B6 or email lovecoach@hotmail.com