Sometimes divorce is the solution

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/10/2019 (2530 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I would just like to express gratitude for part of your advice to Furious Beyond Words (the wife who had just discovered “irrefutable evidence” her husband was sneaking off to a Caribbean island with another person in the middle of a business trip). You suggested counselling and I agree.

I did not, however, appreciate your advice for her to start thinking about ending the marriage. These days, people are too focused on the here-and-now. They’re either not careful about who they pick to wed, or they are not careful about deciding to end a marriage.

The proper advice is to go to a relationship counsellor, period. Or, perhaps the writer can look inward and think about how she can improve her approach to their marriage. 

Many cultures used to do (or still do) arranged marriages and, to my knowledge, divorce rates are much lower in these marriages. A happy marriage isn’t about finding the right partner, or being sexually compatible. People change, and so do their sex drives. Happy marriages require communication, compromise and compassion.

I think as long as people share the same general beliefs like having a family and a particular type of lifestyle, and there is some sort of attraction, people can make any marriage work. 

Divorce is usually destructive and devastating to one or both, expensive, and causes collateral damage to innocent members of the family. It should only be an option where there are safety concerns involved.

Otherwise, sticking with your mate, through thick and thin, can ensure that when you are old and out of the dating pool, you’ll have a partner with whom you’ve built a deep bond and know better than anyone else — and who knows you the same way. — Irritated by Divorce, Winnipeg   

Dear Irritated: Easy for you to say! That’s the cold, decades-old “You made your bed, now lie in it” dictum.

Did you skip the part of this upset woman’s letter where she said the marriage had gone cold, they’d had little or no sex for the last year, and her husband told her he’d tried male-on-male sex in the past? Now that he’s off on a secret holiday with someone, buried in the middle of a business trip, she’s beyond upset. 

Thank goodness women don’t have to put up with this colossal disrespect and pain anymore, and “look to themselves for a different approach” to the marriages.

Divorce is difficult, but it’s better than a life sentence in a cold marriage with a cheating partner.  

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m writing in response to Wanting a Woman, the 350-pound guy who says he has a lot of money. He’s angry with slim women for not wanting him and he doesn’t want the “chubbies.”

I was a chubby child, a tubby teenager, and a very obese adult. But I was still lovely to look at, funny as hell, talented, creative and, yes, I too made a ton of money. 

Obesity was a crisis in our family. I knew that if I didn’t change my life, I’d be dead at an early age. I chose to have a gastric bypass early in my life. This is a life-altering surgery and, yes, I lost half my body weight.

I’m still all of the good things above, and more. I no longer worry about hygiene issues, blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease, and lead a very active life.

My advice? Get your game on, man! — Changed Lovely Lady, Winnipeg   

Dear Changed: Congratulations to you for changing what was destructive in your life. As well as losing his obesity factor, I suggested to Wanting a Woman that he needed to lose his angry and resentful attitude towards women.

Thanks for your personal story and the challenge to Wanting at the end. Being furious every day of his life is as much a danger to his life, in terms of blood pressure, as the other effects of being seriously overweight.  

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

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

   Read full biography