Being in love with buddy nets unhealthy obsession

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/02/2018 (3151 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m 36, but have eaten my way up to having an unhealthy older man’s body. My doctor is sending me to a shrink. She says something major is definitely wrong that I would pile on 60 pounds in a year, obsessively eating, but she’s not a psychologist herself. So now I’m being packed off to a person who’s going to dig around until she finds out that I’m in the closet and in love with my best friend.

He doesn’t even know I’m in love with him, although he has admitted to me that he is bisexual. I was very understanding of his confession, but didn’t have the guts to confess my own feelings of love and desire for him, and have kept stuffing my mouth to keep the secret down. My wife is disgusted with me as I sit eating bags of chips and dips and get bigger and bigger. We haven’t had sex in almost a year.

I’m scared this psychologist will squeeze secrets out of me and try to make me face my hidden love, and I’m sick about my kids finding out their father is really gay. I’m afraid my wife will try to make me stay in the family and pretend, because I make a lot of money and she doesn’t have to work. I also suspect she has a lover because she seems relatively happy that we don’t have sex, and she’s a highly sexed woman. What do you suggest?

— Don’t Want to be Shamed, South End

Dear Don’t Want to be Shamed: Save your own life, as your doctor is urging you. Go to the psychologist willingly, and tell your whole story from childhood to now. Discuss the reasons you’re stuffing your mouth to the point where you will become very ill. Confess your love for your male friend; your talks are completely private. Then take a look at your life if you continue down the path you’re on now.

If you come clean about your sexuality and love for your buddy, you can set your wife free and give her a settlement. Be honest with your kids, and keep them loving you, and perhaps you’ll end up with your best friend as your new life partner down the road, and still have the kids in your life. It’s better than killing yourself slowly in front of your family.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I love my girlfriend, but I have grown to dislike my stay-at-home wife. She is a liar, and I never know what is true or not — especially about money and going to the bar with her male friends. My girlfriend started as just a co-worker, but we became close because of our troubled marriages. Another friend took me aside at work and said everybody we work with is gossiping about our affair, and it won’t be long before our partners find out.

Our staff is not big, and we have parties together twice a year at Christmas and during softball season. People know each other’s spouses. Now somebody must be disgusted enough to be talking about outing us.

So now what? I can’t stand my liar of a wife, and my girlfriend can’t stand her rude and ignorant husband. We both have teenagers. We know we’re in trouble now, and time is running out.

— Worried Sick, Winnipeg

Dear Worried Sick: It’s time for you and your affair partner to get this out in the open. The “rude and ignorant” husband didn’t start off that way, I’m betting. He may know about the affair, and be hurting.

Are you two office lovers staying with your mates because of the kids? If so, you need to end the office romance and one of you has to get a job elsewhere. Then both married pairs must get counselling ASAP, and make decent peaceful homes for those teenagers until they move out. Then, if you still want to, you old office lovers could break up with your spouses and be out in the open. Yes, it’s a mess, but not an unusual mess these days.

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

   Read full biography