Slacker son needs a new school

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This article was published 15/07/2019 (2611 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My lazy son is in summer school this year and boy, am I ever one PO’d mother. I was looking forward to the break from driving him back to school Monday to Friday, but here we are. The more important part is he’s not wanting to do these classes. How can this summer be “positively transformative” for him as they say in the brochures? Another ugly complication? The other kids in his summer classes are bad seeds and I don’t want him learning worse behaviour from them.

— No Summer Holiday for Me, Winnipeg

Dear No Summer: There’s something more to this and you have to dig it out. Maybe he doesn’t want to be back with the same classmates next year; maybe he hates them and that’s why he’s dragging his feet. Perhaps you should let him quit summer school and enjoy your own summer and he can go back to his old grade and repeat it with people in a different school where he’d feel more comfortable.

This could work out for both of you. Students who are embarrassed by failing and possibly losing their old friends don’t behave the way your son is — they take the opportunity to pull up their grades and rejoin their friends from last year.

A whole change of school might help him start next fall in the same grade he just tried, making a fresh start away from “bad seeds.”

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My husband has always been a flirt. I fell for him because he made me feel so good about myself, and we got married before living together, or anything else.

We got married and life settled. I noticed he started talking to other women the way he’d talk to me. It’s hard to quantify, as he’s not saying overtly sexual things, but he rubs their backs, compliments them until he’s blue in the face and sits too close, thighs right up against theirs. This was how he acted around me when I met him. I am boiling over now!

— Ready to Blow, Selkirk

Dear Ready to Blow: Life with a flirting husband who comes on to women other than his wife is very hard on a woman’s self-confidence. This behaviour will erode a marriage quickly.

He’ll try to tell you that you’re “just a jealous woman.”

And, he’ll end up looking repugnant to you, not more attractive. Other people will see his flirting as disrespectful behaviour toward his wife and you will feel their eyes of pity on you.

This is nothing new for him! You know that. This is how he acted when he was hustling you. It’s the way he is, and he’s continuing. So, you can either join him in this behaviour or leave him before you have any children with him. Find out if he’d be okay if you did these overt flirting moves with other men now that you’re actually married to him.

Be very specific about what’s OK. Find out if he’d be fine with you rubbing guys’ backs. How about sitting so close you’re touching others’ legs? Ask him, too, how he’d feel about your giving lavish compliments to other guys, the way he does to women. Really lay it out specifically.

Then, let him know if he wants to keep you, he’s going to have to stop or you’ll have to leave — before you have children with him. Frankly, it sounds like you got married too quickly to this mover.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Communication with my daughter is at an all-time low. Her mom and I split up about a year and a half ago, and I have my daughter on weekends. She is mad at me, just like her mom, but she doesn’t know how rough things were before we separated. It was a sexless, loveless marriage that probably shouldn’t have lasted as long as it did.

My ex is still mad at me for being the one who broke it off, but I know she knows it needed to happen. She is saying immature things to my daughter during the week, and by the time I see my girl, she is just miserable, and I don’t know what to do. How can I reach out to her and show her I’m still the same dad who loves her?

— Feeling Sick About This, Brandon

Dear Feeling Sick: It’s time for family counselling, including the daughter, you and your ex-wife together and also individually. It’s time to end this vicious triangle and you can’t do it by begging your wife to be reasonable. She is clearly angry and bent on keeping everyone upset and not allowing a renewed closeness to grow between you and your daughter.

Your wife has found a way to punish you, but she is also messing with her daughter’s emotional well-being. Find someone to do the counselling, not chosen by your wife. If your ex won’t go, go on your own for a time, and then work on bringing your daughter into the circle. Good luck! A girl needs her dad, too.

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave. Winnipeg R2X 3B6.

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

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