Take honest approach with heartbroken pal, girlfriend

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/05/2021 (1970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I miss my girlfriend, who’s working in another province this year. I’m starving for her company, affection and the sex. My best buddy in Winnipeg for many years has been a young woman with a steady boyfriend she plans to marry. Marriage has been his idea from the start and she’s gone along with it because they both want to have a large family of kids — not a common desire these days.

Then, disaster! She just found out he’s been cheating on her, from an informant she trusts. When she confronted him, he apologized for hurting her, but didn’t even try to deny the cheating. They’re finished. She came running to me and cried her eyes out. Usually, she stays on my couch if it’s a late-night visit, but that night I took her to bed and held her close with a blanket between us, so she could cry herself to sleep. That’s when I realized, lying there in the dark, “Hey, I love this woman myself.”

Now I have a big problem. She is so messed up and certainly isn’t looking for some other guy to hit on her, and I have a girlfriend. Should I take a chance and tell my friend of my deepening feelings for her, or will it just feel like she’s being pressured when she’s so weak and needs comforting? Will she think I’m just lonely for sex, because my girlfriend’s elsewhere?

— Hot Mess, West End

Dear Hot Mess: You really need to think about your relationship with your present girlfriend. If it’s not making the grade, break up with her, pronto. (This heartbroken friend you think you love doesn’t need another cheater in her love life.)

Once you break up, you could let your friend know she could call you forward if she ever wanted to deepen your friendship into a romantic relationship. She’s in the first stages of grief right now, so be very cautious and sensitive — and don’t neglect to see to your own shaky relationship situation first.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Once again I didn’t get anything from my married, 30-something “boys” on Mother’s Day — no card or flowers, not even a phone call. They learned to be cheap and ungrateful from their father, who always treated me like the hired help.

If I hadn’t bought gifts for my boys and signed them “from Mom and Dad,” my kids never would have had a Christmas or birthday gift from their father. He never chipped in a single dime. I always worked and helped the boys pay for their university — still nothing from their father. I divorced my cold and selfish husband when the last boy graduated.

I don’t know why I still hope for flowers and cards from my grown-up kids on holidays, but they never come. Is there anything I can do? I feel like I’m…

— Their Forgotten Mother, St. Norbert

Dear Forgotten: How do your sons treat their wives around gift-giving times? Ask their wives casually about it. Then fill them in on how it was with gifts and their father when they were growing up. It might be illuminating for them. Kids soak up a lot about attitudes to gift-giving, even if they don’t say anything.

Your sons must have learned from the unhappiness they saw at home, and perhaps they’re the opposite with their young families — totally generous and thoughtful. Or maybe they had to be taught by their wives. Since nobody’s teaching extended to honouring their mother, maybe the wives will do a little extra teaching around that topic if they know what’s going on.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Please tell Desperate for His Support, whose husband doesn’t want her to get a breast reduction, that if she is having any physical symptoms due to the weight of her breasts (sore back, sore shoulders, indentation from her bra straps), she does not need to pay for breast reduction surgery.

This is a medically necessary procedure in that case, and would be covered by Manitoba Health. She needs to ask her family doctor to refer her to a plastic surgeon who performs this procedure. I had it done 20 years ago and know other people who have as well. None of us paid for it out of pocket.

— In Support, Winnipeg

Dear In Support: Thanks for writing in. Consider your experience and advice passed on to women suffering with the pain of heavy breasts. As for getting the emotional support from Desperate’s husband, it doesn’t look like that’s forthcoming and couples counselling might be in order (now available by phone or Zoom-type meeting apps).

Please send questions 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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