If wife has left, it’s time to move on

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This article was published 17/10/2017 (3271 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I am living in hell. I went to sleep married one night and woke up to find out I’m going to be divorced by my beloved wife. There was a note on her pillow, saying she’d left me. We are in our early 20s. She said she was sorry but it was a “mistake” and she “couldn’t stand being married” and she was moving back in with her girlfriends. They’re all single and live in a house. I met her there at a party. We fell in love that night — love at first sight — and things just spiralled upwards to the point where we started living together at my apartment. I guess she was “playing house.”

Then her religious parents suggested we “make an honest situation out of this” and get married. So, we had a beautiful medium-sized wedding, with all the expenses paid by her parents and the wedding gifts coming from all our relatives. Now I’m here alone in an apartment full of wedding gifts. I’m heartbroken, throwing up and deeply embarrassed.

What if she wants to come back? I’m so pathetic I’d take her back and try to forget this ever happened. Her girlfriends obviously know and they have big mouths, so soon the whole city will know. I phoned my boss and got two weeks off, because I’m an emotional wreck. My boss went through a hell of a divorce a couple of years ago. All he said was: “Wallow in it for a week or so, and then get back to work. It gets better, way better, and there’s a better woman waiting for you.”

Easy for him to say. He has a new girlfriend, way nicer than his ex-wife, but forgets he was miserable for a year.

I don’t know if my wife has cheated on me yet, but I have some suspicions. I told my family and my closest friends and my old ex-girlfriend from five years ago. She’d take me into her bed in a minute and help me forget. We have been sex buddies in dry times before. But what if this separation was only meant to be temporary? Maybe my wife hasn’t touched anybody else. Maybe she’ll want me back. Not bloody likely.

— Victim of Love, Winnipeg

Dear Victim: You were a victim of infatuation, not lasting love, and a quick wedding.

Infatuation is the initial stage where some couples think the other person is perfect. The sex is fantastic and frequent, your jokes are funny, and habits haven’t had a chance to irritate. Top that with a wedding, which is a bit like starring in your own Hollywood movie for a young bride.

But then daily life settles in.

People start to relax and can’t keep up the highest standards of pleasant behaviour, or housework, or chore-splitting, or wanting to be together all the time.

In your case it may simply be that you were a pretty good match, but this young woman was not ready to be a married woman for life.

What started as a romance ended up feeling like a life sentence.

Too bad the parents got in there and interfered. Living together before marrying is sometimes what’s needed to give young couples time to try things out.

What should you do? She says she wants a divorce.

You’d best believe her. She packed and moved back in with her friends to resume her old lifestyle.

That doesn’t mean you’re “on a break.” Staying home and grieving makes sense at first. Share the pain with a best friend or two or your siblings and pay for counselling, which speeds up the healing and gives the direction you need. (Your work may have group insurance that pays for this).

Ask your ex to go for one session with a relationship counsellor to help end things more amicably.

See somebody else if you darn well feel like it. If your ex-girlfriend from way back wants to comfort you as a sex buddy, so be it. As for work, get back there within the two weeks and really dig in. If anybody asks at work, tell the truth in 10 memorized words.

“She dumped me — says she’s too young to be married.” If they want to get into a discussion of it, just say, “I can’t talk about it more than that.”

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave. Winnipeg R2X 3B6.

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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