New husband can’t get over dearly departed wife

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/09/2019 (2558 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My new husband still keeps pictures of his beautiful but recently deceased wife in our house — actually their old marriage home. I don’t like living here, but he wouldn’t leave it when we married.

He’s just not over his dead wife, and I fear he never will be. I noticed the other night he had hung his favourite picture of her on the dock at their lake, a little ways up at the side of the bed where he can see her — when I’m looking at the ceiling, if you get my meaning.

It makes me feel like a non-entity and that I’m just a body double. It creeps me out, Miss L. I know what’s going on. I cried myself to sleep last night and I’m thinking of leaving. I feel embarrassed and icky since I discovered what he’s doing. Should I leave?

— Her Stand-In, Winnipeg

Dear Stand-In: A new couple’s home life shouldn’t feel like this. If you do want to stay together, you both need counselling — apart and together.

Also, if you stay together there have to be limits, like getting a new place, and no pictures of her except one picture in his office.

The bigger issue is whether he’s able to commit to you and his current relationship. You need to get to the place where you both feel you’re in a new relationship with each other — just the two of you. Since you’re so choked up about talking about this humiliation, see the marriage counsellor alone first, and perhaps he/she will determine your husband needs to do some grief counselling for a time.

To remain a couple, you need your new husband to acknowledge that you’re right: this isn’t the way a marriage should be. You may feel guilty because this woman sadly died, and you took her husband. But both of you need to understand there’s no jealous feelings for his wife now. If she’s on another plane, his ex-wife is certainly not thinking about him or you.

You deserve to have a healthy, committed relationship. Make that your motto as you move forward.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m so mad I could spit. My four teenage children have ganged up on their dad and me, and we’re losing power every week. Two of them have cars they bought with their own money from part-time jobs, and the other two hitch rides with them, God knows where.

I caught one with a fake ID, and I suppose her brother has one too. They are under 18 and should not be in bars or buying cannabis. Their dad and I can’t follow them around town. The four of them are thick as thieves, covering for each other. But no one wants to move out of the house with the stocked shelves and freezer and electronics.

They have money because we made them start working part-time at 14, and their dad preached, “Money is power, so save it for something big.” Well, the guys with the cars and money in their wallets really understand those words now.

Their grades last year were nothing to get them ahead in life. So what we may be bringing up here are uneducated hoodlums. I count their smart-mouth sister in that group. The school year is just starting again. How can my husband I get back in control here? Help!

— Mother of Gang on Wheels, Winnipeg

Dear Mother: You have one ace up your sleeve. Talk to them about the future. What do they want to be? Do they know how to get to that point? What grades they will need to get into higher education they’d enjoy, so they don’t have to work at low-status, poor-paying jobs all their lives?

If you can get them fired up about who and what they’re going to be in life and tell them they are at the starting gates now, then you may capture the imagination of a couple of them at least. If they’re confused about what they might be good at, steer them to their student counsellors for early aptitude testing.

As for the four of them getting drunk and/or high and riding around in cars, talk to them about the ugly dangers of drunk driving, accidents that maim or kill other people, their passengers or themselves, and also the penalties for driving when you’re not sober or straight.

Ask them which of the four are usually the designated drivers when they’re out together to party. Watch their faces. Talk about keeping taxi money in their pockets, or if they spend that in the bar, money left inside the front door at home, to give to the cabbie when they arrive home — leaving their cars behind at the party.

Educate them, don’t yell at them, and never mind spitting or threatening. Keep your cool by keeping your cool verbally. Keep communication lines open at all times if you can. Standoffs and silence are bad news and no help at all. Good luck!

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.

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