Rescue role noble, but it’s important to care for self, too

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This article was published 02/04/2020 (2375 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts:  I’m a regular guy with an irregular girlfriend. I admit I picked the usual kind for me — addicted. I seem to have to rescue women in distress. This is my third girlfriend who needed to kick an addiction, but this time it’s not drinking. She is a gambler who had no friends other than her gambling buddies. I was her first outside friend/lover in 10 years.

My goal was to get her off the gambling and to reconnect to the “real” world with people other than gamblers — and I have managed to do that. The problem is, she doesn’t see me as a boyfriend anymore and I notice she’s starting to look at other normal guys.

I am becoming “just a friend” and I know that because she started saying “thanks” and “I owe you” more than “I love you.” Her interest in making love with me has dwindled to almost nothing.

I talked to her about it last night and she said something that set me back on my heels: “So, when are you going to do something about your problem?” I said, “My problem?” and just stood there with my mouth hanging open.

She said I couldn’t rescue my own mother from addiction and so I keep re-running the old scenario, replacing my mom with women like her, hoping to make good that way.

Talk about nerve! I was mad, but she had a point and suggested I get professional help myself. I walked away mad and depressed.

My mother is still drinking, and the sorrow and bitterness I feel is so deep it will never go away.

I’d like to take a chance on a normal woman but I don’t know how to think that way — to relax and know everything will be OK even if I don’t work diligently to keep my woman straight. That’s all I know. Am I really stuck? — Always in Rescue Mode, Transcona

Dear Rescue: You need to get out of rescue mode because people who have been rescued often prefer a lover/partner to see them only in their new healthy mode. They feel better than if they stayed with the one who has seen them addicted and remembers them at their lowest, and who will always be on the alert for a return to their old habit.

There’s no harm in researching this and getting professional help down the line.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My daughter has accepted a nude role in a theatre production in another country. She wrote her mom and told her that. They won’t start rehearsing until after this COVID-19 situation is completely over. How can I talk her out of this before she starts?

I realize she’ll be in another country and her mother and I won’t be publicly embarrassed here. She won’t disgrace herself her in Winnipeg.

But she is still my little girl and I want to protect her from herself and the creeps who might wait for her in the alley after the show.

The only time we encouraged nudity was when she was a two-year-old at the beach. — Her Upset Dad, Winnipeg

Dear Upset Dad: It’s interesting she wrote her mom who would blab the news to you, with many months left to try to discourage her.

Maybe she likes her parents’ protectiveness, or maybe she just likes to shock you and show how grown up and independent she is.

Write her yourself about safety concerns without calling her down or trying to shame her.

And then just wait. Who knows? In any case, there may be no money to continue with his production after the virus.

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

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