Boozy work-nights likely about stress, not infidelity

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This article was published 22/03/2022 (1606 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I work half-time, and also make a beautiful home for my husband and me. He’s a professional in a medical field and we’re a gay couple. I always thought we were a great pair, but then he started coming home late. Still, I’d keep dinner warm for him.

Now there are nights when he doesn’t come home until 10 p.m. or later. At first, I accepted his stories about being uber-busy due to COVID. Then, just a few weeks ago he started showing up even later, smelling of liquor and in a belligerent mood. He was never much of a drinker. I’m seriously upset. Do you think he’s secretly seeing someone else?

— Deeply Upset and Suspicious, Winnipeg

Dear Suspicious: Don’t assume it’s an affair. If he was secretly seeing someone, he’d probably be more discreet than this. It could be a different kind of affair gone bad.

Sometimes people who were formerly in love with their careers end up despising what their work life has become, especially with the COVID hours and stress. If you can listen to your man, without taking it personally when he expresses anger and frustration, you’ll ease some of his emotional burden and hopefully end up becoming close again.

It’s possible he’s found some drinking buddies from work who are going through the same thing. Lots of people in the medical world are on their last nerve at work these days — and then their shifts are sometimes extended. Invite your partner to get everything out that has him all riled up, and not to hold back.

Upset people can think they’re being kind and protective of their mates when they keep work troubles to themselves. Then they may start exchanging deep feelings with work friends. They may start by just having a few drinks together to relax. Then they stay longer, and feel ashamed about going home. By the time they arrive at home — hours later— they’re tense and ready to explode.

Encourage your partner to get some professional counselling around stress at work, and also to see his personal physician. People who are beginning to blow are vulnerable to all kind of medical problems induced by stress.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Frankly speaking, I can’t stand my 19-year-old daughter right now. I don’t know who she thinks she is, but she’s acting like she’s too good for our working-class family.

We scrimped and saved for her to go to university, and I admit she’s getting good grades so far. But, she’s taken up with this group who don’t have to work at anything but their grades during the eight-month school year. They just have to get a summer job to pay their rent, and it’s shared with other friends.

My daughter has to have a part-time job during the school year to contribute to paying for schooling, and she has to live at home and share a room with her younger sister. Now, Miss Fancy Pants is talking about moving out this summer to live with her new friends!

All those friends of hers need to do is keep themselves afloat. My daughter needs to save every cent she works for. I told her this, and she gave me a look that screamed, “Mom, you’re just too dumb to get it.” I am the one who gets it, and that girl doesn’t. Help please!

— Not So Dumb Mom, Weston

Dear Mom: It seems you both need a year or more off from this college finance deal. In other words, just stop doing more of what doesn’t work. Your daughter doesn’t want another couple years of living like she’s in high school, and you can’t afford to finance a young woman who wants live out with her well-heeled friends.

Why not take a break from this stress — and she may have to do the same? Lots of university students take years off here and there, and then work full-time in order to continue going to university.

If your daughter does move in with her buddies, you’ll have to stop the motherly habit of fretting, and just welcome her home for Sunday dinners. If you push too hard on mostly grown “kids,” you can lose them for a longer time than you ever wanted.

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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