Mom with new man, but dad’s not gone yet

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This article was published 03/08/2017 (3301 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I love my mother but she wanted to be at my house all the time, until recently. My father is an invalid and has round-the-clock caregivers because she’s not into being a nursemaid, so my mom spent a lot of time at my house.

Yesterday she brought a man to our house with her, who is supposedly her friend. I’m no dummy. They were touching each other way too much to be platonic friends and she was making flirty jokes and goo-goo eyes at him.

I know my father is no longer a full partner for her and he is her “child” now, in a way, although his mind still works. I get that she has other needs, but I don’t want to have this guy shoved in my face while my father still lives. Am I being selfish, as my husband has so nastily pointed out? I think not!

— Shocked Daughter, Tuxedo

Dear Shocked Daughter: It’s hard to accept your mother having a new romantic/sexual partner, when your dad is still alive. You don’t have to take part in this. It’s creepy for your mother to try to introduce him to you when your dad is still alive, and creepy for the new man to have gone to meet you, and then participated in touchy-feely-flirty behaviour with your mother in front of you. This affair, if that’s what it is, should have been kept separate and private. Tell your mom pointedly what you’ve told me. Then insist she carry on her romance away from your eyes because it hurts you. That is the word you use.

Also ask her not to neglect your dad by too much absence. Alert your siblings to the situation — that mom appears to have a new man in her life — and that your father needs more of everyone’s attention. I sincerely doubt your mother is going to give up this new man, so try to make things as good for your father as you can, and stop spending so much time with mom, as her new behaviour is painful to you.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I met three people with a vision for me in three days. Is this fate or a spirit sending messages? Each one told me they had pictured me or dreamed about me doing something totally different from my present job.

I have been complaining bitterly about my awful job for quite a few weeks now, and I see these people almost daily. Each one told me of something they foresaw me doing in the near future. How much attention should I give to this? Is something up above, like a family member, trying to talk to me through these people?

— Help From Above? Selkirk

Dear Help From Above: I doubt a spirit is trying to speak to these three people about you and your work life. It is more likely that because you complained so much and so often, and may have directly asked each of these three people to help you figure out what you should do, something happened subconsciously in their brains. It may have started their own sorting mechanisms in the brain — the reticular activation systems — which can work day and night. They sort through “files” in the brain and look for answers to all kinds of things — forgotten names, facts, answers to questions, etc. That’s why some people wake up at 3 a.m. with answers and say, “I got it!” Check this out in detail online.

Be gracious. Take the information and ideas from your friends, and have a good look at them. And, whatever you do, don’t pick apart their possible solutions for you, at least not in front of them. Be thankful they thought of you at all, and look at their ideas with an open mind. There might be part of an idea or a whole idea that is excellent.

Now, get your questions out of their brains! Stop bugging these people with your problem, or pay them a real career consultant’s fee. 

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
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