Take your holiday, give wife a staycation

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/01/2023 (1313 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I haven’t been to Mexico since COVID started, and I love it there! I am dying to go back.

My wife works in the health care system, and she has not taken holidays away, in forever.

I got frustrated with this last week, and announced I’d gift us a trip to Mexico — and cover the whole amount for two weeks if she’d take just take some of the holidays she’s owed. She said, “Not happening!” just like that.

Some of her friends have taken holidays now, but she’s a martyr. In frustration, I booked a trip alone in March. My wife is barely talking to me now!

Since my friends found out I was going alone, a few of them have decided to go, and now things are starting to look quite exciting. Two of the wives are going too.

I asked my wife again, and she said she can’t leave her co-workers in the lurch. I think there’s no hope for swaying her, as she’s very stubborn.

I’m still going, but there’s a sour mood between us now. What do you suggest I do?

— Unpopular Husband, south Winnipeg

Dear Unpopular Husband: It doesn’t have to be “all or nothing” in this situation. Find out if your wife could take four days off, because that might just be possible.

If she simply cannot do that work-wise, it’s time to start respecting her “no” answer and to start thinking about what you can do to make her two weeks at home working less stressful, while you’re off in the sun.

Instead of the holiday package to Mexico for her, you could buy her gift certificates for a special massage and spa treatments in Winnipeg, as well as for lunches or dinners for two at her favourite restaurants (so she can take a friend), and maybe even concert tickets if there’s anything she’d enjoy.

That way she can still work, but also do some fun things with her friends over the two weeks you’re away.

If you can accept her decision gracefully, and she can accept your trip in the same manner, you two can reunite after Mexico and share your experiences.

Then, when the coast is “clearer” in the medical world, you two can go travelling together and make up for lost time.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m writing about the man who “slugged” his 19-year-old son for cursing him out and calling him “a big loser.” Now he’s staying at Grandma’s house.

Giving your child a black eye is serious assault. The grandmother was correct to threaten to call the police. He could have blinded his son.

Reading about the assault was frightening enough, but the entire tone of his tirade was shocking. This man obviously has serious anger issues and needs to get some help.

This is not about his being a Christian or coming from a small town. Beating children is wrong no matter what your background is, and cannot be tolerated by a civilized society.

As a volunteer that worked with troubled youth for almost 30 years, I can attest to the fact this type of punishment never helps in any way. Your advice to go for counselling “around this incident and the family’s destructive way of relating” was good. I hope this man reads it and gets some counselling help.

— Freaked Out, Charleswood

Dear Freaked Out: This father also said he felt out of place in the city, and hinted he might like to move back to the country. But things have changed in the country too, and the laws against the old-fashioned physical “discipline” he experienced as a boy and a young man have tightened up.

His violent disciplinary ways are illegal and outdated in cities, small towns and the countryside — though not all parents observe them.

What he really needs is counselling around the way he was disciplined as a boy and young man, by his parents and possibly other adults in control, such as school teachers and principals.

His thinking right now is that he’s finally on top and he’s earned the right to mete out those violent punishments.

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.

   Read full biography