Be careful exploring mom’s romantic past

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This article was published 10/02/2020 (2380 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My mother made me do a new year’s cleaning of the whole house as punishment for something I did which was admittedly really bad. It’s a big house and it has taken four weekends.

I wasn’t looking for anything special as I cleaned everywhere, but on week No. 4, I cleaned my mom’s bedroom, and hit pay dirt. Inside her box spring which I propped up to dust under, there was a sewn-up pocket with something in it. I clipped the stitches and got in.

Inside, she had hidden a packet of letters, massively taped with wide, packing tape. She was out for the day and I had the time to go after the contents. It took me half an hour to get all the tape off.

Inside were love letters from a previous lover — a woman — and they were over a period of five years towards the end of my parents’ marriage. A mystery was partly solved for me. My mom and dad got along fine, and us kids thought they loved each other a lot. We never knew why they broke up. Dad left broken-hearted, and mom was sad and depressed for a year or so. That’s all I knew.

So where is the “other woman” now? I’m dying to know, but there are no addresses and no last names. I think the first name may be a fake, as it is so dramatic. She also called my mother names of heroines from history, but then sometimes by her own name. Should I ask my mother about this? It’s going to drive me crazy if I don’t! But what will happen to my relationship with her, which is pretty shaky at the moment?

If I ask her, what do I say? I lie in bed and wonder: “What happened between them?” The letters break off at around the same time my parents split up, but there is no mention of that split. They are just happy love letters and pretty sexy too. Please help me figure this out.

— Curiosity Kills the Cat? Winnipeg

Dear Cat: Do you understand it’s possible your mother loved your father dearly — her husband and the father of her children — but also fell in love with a woman? This can happen. To try and keep him from leaving, your mother may have sworn off her female lover, but your dad felt too hurt and betrayed to stay.

She obviously couldn’t bear to destroy the letters. Sometimes, when there’s a shake-up like this, it ruins the marriage, the betrayed partner leaves and the affair is ruined as well. Everything goes up in smoke.

Because you got in so much trouble recently, you may want to tape up and re-sew that packet, and let it go for awhile. You could ask your dad first about what happened that broke he and your mom up. He might think you’re old enough to level with, at this point. Don’t tell him about the letters you found. Just ask him why he and your mom broke up, and ask him if there was someone else. See what he says.

Now for your mom. If you start behaving well at home, and and stabilize your relationship with your mother, you may want to ask her then why she and your dad broke up, and if there was another person involved, male or female. That might open things up. Her first questions to you will be, “Why do you ask? Did you see or hear something?”

You have to know beforehand if you’re going to confess about finding her love letters and reading them. That’s such an invasion of privacy, you might want to pare down how much you read to one page or so. Please write back and tell me what you do and how it goes.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I met a very sweet man at a nightclub, and he asked me out for coffee afterwards. We went to a late-night place and talked for hours. We really liked each other, but belong to “opposing religions.”

He says he really wants to see me again, and I want to see him, but his parents, in particular, would freak if they knew we were getting together for any reason. He is “betrothed” to somebody back home in his country, who was a child when he left there years ago to come to Canada. Now she is not. He showed me her picture. She is beautiful, but a stranger to him, he explained. Now that he’s become more Canadian, he wants to make his own choice of a mate. Should I see him again?

— Really Like Him, Downtown

Dear Really Like Him: Sometimes you see an attractive person from another culture, and you love how they speak and act and you just want to jump right in. But they come from a culture that would frown on your relationship and make things very difficult, at least while they think they can stop it from heading to marriage.

The greatest pain is suffered by the person who is expected to marry (let’s just say) the daughter of a longtime family friend of their parents, back home.

It is painfully embarrassing for the parents in Canada if their son backs out. After years of planning, this marriage would unite the two families, so they would come down hard on their son if it was called off. It’s also difficult for the Canadian bride who has come into the picture and “wrecked everything.”

Why not be friends with this guy, if you can keep that distance? Don’t pursue romance unless you two are both very strong and prepared to be treated coldly, and even ostracized, by at least one set of parents for a time.

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

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