A little modern heating could facilitate happier fall

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/09/2022 (1408 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My husband loves the brisk, fresh air at the lake in the fall. I don’t! I lose all my enthusiasm when the sun starts going down. While my husband is happily starting the fire in the cabin for the evening, I’m grumpy and anxious — not happy, by any means. I’m shivering and muttering to myself, wrapped up in a blanket.

He tries to ignore me, because he loves cabin life so much. Last weekend I suggested he take our two boys up to the lake with him and leave me at home. Everybody started protesting, because I’m by far the best cook. OK, I’m the only cook, and the boys don’t want to live on sandwiches.

The truth is, the only one who really wants to go to the lake is my husband. Don’t get me wrong, I love him and want to please him, but when it’s getting toward October, I’ve had enough! Got any suggestions?

— Cabin Spoilsport, West Kildonan

Dear Spoilsport: Feeling extremely chilly is an anxious experience, as your body instinctively warns you something is not right, and possibly dangerous.

If you were assured of a toasty-warm cabin beyond lighting a fire and waiting to feel a bit of heat, perhaps you could be happy there in the fall.

You and your husband need to talk about better heating for the cabin. Some modern wall-mounted systems will heat the main room of your cabin enough for early-winter temperatures. Some will also cool the room — acting as an air conditioner in the summer.

In the meantime, you have my deepest sympathy. Yours truly once owned a ski-hill trailer at Holiday Mountain with a pot-bellied stove and baseboard heaters. It was not very comfortable at 3 a.m. when the fire usually went out, and needed a chilly re-build!

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I have a problem most people think they’d like to have. My new bride wants sex all the time. She’s my second wife and great sex is part of the reason I married her — and she married me. We were both sex-starved in our first marriages.

We should have waited until we’d both had enough “loving,” and then thought about how we’d fit together in a May-December marriage. We are very different people at more than 20 years apart in age. We turned out to have no common interests outside the bedroom. Quite frankly, she bores me intellectually, and I know she probably thinks I’m an old fogey, although she’s too nice and polite to say so.

The novelty of our sex life is wearing off, and I’ve started working too much. I sense she feels trapped, and that’s becoming my feeling too.

She doesn’t work anymore because I’m well-off, and lately, she’s taken to gambling.

Help! How do you gently end a relationship without too much hurt and embarrassment — one that should have lasted six months instead of promising a lifetime to each other?

— Need Help Quickly, Bridgwater

Dear Need Help: It’s likely she’s feeling the same way and doesn’t know how to bring it up. You’ve noticed the gambling, which could develop into something tragic very soon, and you don’t want that for her — or you! It’s time to make some changes.

Start talking to your younger wife as a friend, letting her know you want the best for her in life, something that could involve regaining her freedom from the marriage.

What would she like to do, if she could have anything she wanted? Is she attracted by a different career, travel, having a family with a younger fellow?

Tell her you have the advantage of having money and can help make some of her dreams come true — with no strings attached. Talk about setting up a comfortable life for her, and freedom for both of you from the present marriage. Hopefully you can have an amicable split and remain respectful, but distant, friends.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m a bisexual man, and my two major relationships have been with men. No surprise then that I was labelled gay, but I always knew the whole truth.

Recently, after being alone for a spell, I fell for a woman. It’s as big a passion as I experienced with my earlier male loves.

My close friends are open-minded, but this switch is making my old-fashioned family scratch their heads. How do I explain it to them? We are a close-knit French-Canadian family, and everybody’s always up in each other’s business.

My grandmother thinks the Good Lord must have intervened! How much do I have to explain, and to whom?

— Centre of Discussion, St. Boniface

Dear Centre: Here is a simple way to explain it to Grandma, and the rest of the gang: “I’m attracted by someone’s personality and character, not their sex.”

If they persist with questions, just shrug and say, “It’s the way I was born, and I’m happy to be this way. I hope you will be happy for me, too.”

More questioning? You can add, “Life is a mystery, is it not?” and then change the subject, or drift off into another room. If possible, don’t let this become an emotional debate, because nobody wins.

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.

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

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