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Some counselling is in order before you tie the knot

By: Miss Lonelyhearts

Posted: 03/14/2012 9:21 AM | Comments: 0

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My fiancée has already invited two of her old boyfriends and their partners to our wedding. I told her I was p-o’d and she told me to stop being so paranoid. To prove my point, I added two old girlfriends to the wedding, with their significant others and now my fiancée has the nerve to be jealous and is demanding their removal. She says they were added in retaliation, and are not ‘sincere’ invitations. You may well wonder if we are kids in our 20s. No, we are half way into our 30s with lots of old romantic history behind us. We are in love with each other and want to marry and have children together and get old with one another. The exes were never on this level of love and commitment. So why are we both so freakin’ upset and what should we do? Should we un-invite four couples? — Downward Spiral, Winnipeg Dear

Downward: This wedding is about you two being deeply involved and committed, not about barring the door to certain people, so your eyes won’t be wandering. Both of you are going to have to get used to the business of other attractive people in your spheres. The bad news, if you’re insecure about each other, is the whole world is full of attractive people — workplaces, sports, hobbies, people you meet on trips (even your honeymoon!) and then there’s old loves. If you haven’t forged a deep and special bond between you that allows other attractive people to be around, there’s no point in getting married. Both of you need to be well over these exes and fine with them now they have moved on to other people they will be bringing to the wedding. A few trips to a relationship counsellor to work out these trust issues would be advisable before you get any further into the planning of this wedding.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I work in a business that’s isolating and I don’t want to lose my group of friends, but most of them have gotten into karaoke. If I want to see them, I have to go with them. I can’t stand to hear people caterwauling. They ask me to sing, but I don’t have a voice. These are my only friends — and I am losing my mind going with them to karaoke nights at bars just to be with them. How can I get them steered onto something else, so I can stay friends? — Rock and a Hard Place, Winnipeg

Dear Rock: You don’t need to criticize your group’s beloved karaoke to their faces. Instead, fill your own need for their company by being the one to invite them out to other things. Most people like to go out to do a variety of things, they just don’t show much imagination. So start reading up on everything happening in town in The Tab, and then invite friends to things YOU want to do. Also, have them over to your place for dinner and boardgames or a movie on Sunday nights. Rather than being negative, you build up a second level of social life with them, and make more fun for yourself and everybody else.

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

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