Salesman fails to make long-term deal

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/05/2018 (2720 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m a salesman and recently went out to dinner with the executive assistant of one of my best customers in Winnipeg. We had a great time at dinner and spent the night together at my hotel. It was wild! It was so great I asked her if she would like to go on another date when I came back to Winnipeg. She smiled, but didn’t say anything.

I came back two weeks later and stopped by her desk and asked her for dinner. She whispered no, that she felt she had to be transparent with her boss and she had told him about the night in the hotel. Her boss said he had no business dictating her social life, but he admitted he felt a little weird about it. This isn’t 1956! I was so mad I walked out. I don’t really want to do business with that jerk anymore, but it’s a very big account. What do you think?

— Hands Tied, Out of Town

Dear Hands Tied: It’s generally a bad idea to hustle the EA of the boss you’re hustling for business. She knows a lot of private information. Her boss may have been worried you were going to pry it out of her with dinners, sex and romance, and he would feel spied on. “Pillow talk” is the expression for this situation.

There is another possible scenario you’re going to hate. You may have been a one-night stand from the start, and she may have just wanted a taste, but not the whole enchilada. She may not have spoken to her boss at all, just used him as an excuse.

 

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My heart is raging. I rescued my man from a cold marriage where he was nothing but a slave. He supplied the money for his ex-wife’s alcohol and shopping addictions, and she gave him nothing but her back, in bed.

We had an affair and he got caught. She kicked him out, went for the big money with a divorce and now, five months after we were married, she wants him back and he’s listening to her.

It all started with family therapy, which she insisted their boys needed with him present because they hate their father (only because that’s what their mom taught them). She also taught them that I was the evil witch who stole him away.

Now, she claims to be cured from her spending and booze addictions, and has found religion. She said in a letter I found that the divorce was all her fault and she begs for his forgiveness. She said, “I feel nothing but love and gratefulness for what we had at one time, and for the beautiful boys we created together.” I want to throw up! He got sucked in and went to these sessions and now he’s drifting away from me. How do I get him to stay? Or should I even try?

— So Hurt and Angry, Winnipeg

Dear So Hurt and Angry: When is a straying husband worth fighting for? Some would say always, if you still love him, but your situation is a bit different. This is a tug of war with a suddenly nice ex-wife and his lost boys pulling on his heartstrings, and you pulling on the other side, hurt and spitting mad.

His ex-wife says the kids are messed up. No doubt they are! Daddy married you, the affair woman, and abandoned them and their mom. The boys had to listen to their mother’s anguish and, now, she’s acting like an angel, touting her new religion and her changed self.

A better move for you may be to stop fighting. Tell this man how much you love him, but invite him to go back to his ex-wife and kids if that’s what he wants. He certainly can’t stay with you and experiment. Once he gets his own place or moves in with her, that leaves his ex free to relax, to stop putting on a show and go back to her real self. (She may or she may not be reformed). That may be the only way you have a chance of winning. I’m betting he’s going to want to at least give it a try with his ex, for the kids’ sake.

 

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.