Adapt home life for much-needed social time

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This article was published 09/06/2022 (1572 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I feel doomed to loneliness. I’m a single working mom who has two jobs, so I’m never going to get another guy. I barely have time for myself, let alone for another person.

Part of me says I should try to shed some of the things in my schedule to attract a person into my life, but then I worry I won’t be able to commit to spending enough time to keep them and earn what I need.

The easy answer is just to not date at all! What a miserable thought. I get very sad and lonely some nights and wish there was another person lying next to me.

Is the grass really greener on the other side? Should I rearrange my whole life on the faint hope somebody will walk into my life — but then they get fed up with my kids and start looking to get out?

— No Time for Love? south Winnipeg

Dear No Time: You’re right! Two jobs and several kids to look after, doesn’t go well with trying to find new love.

From your sad tone, you don’t just want a hot date once in a while. However, a search for a relationship requires time and space, and liberating time for dating requires a plan. Let’s help you with that.

First, you need to negotiate a new child-care schedule with the children’s father and a grandparent (or two) so you have at least one weekend overnight free to see friends or go out on a date like an adult. You also need a younger babysitter or two that you know and trust for short dates of a couple hours’ time. As you open up socially, you’ll start feeling anticipation and hope, and the happier attitude will attract more people to you. Good luck and have fun!

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’ve been dating a girl who loves to party. I like to unwind sometimes with friends, but she’s the type who wants to go out three or four times a week and drink. Sometimes she’ll meet strangers at the bar, and end up going with her friends and them back to their homes. They’ll stay up all night drinking, right into the morning! Or, so she tells me.

This last weekend she went home at noon, and finally answered my call. I was in shreds by then. I was hurt, but also worried about what she was doing. How can I convince her to stop going out so often? I worry she’ll just get mad at me, and that’ll be it for me! She’s the first girl I ever cared about.

— Stressed Out, Osborne Village

Dear Stressed Out: This girl seems like the type who may walk all over someone if they’ll put up with it. You don’t even ask questions, because you have a pretty good idea she’ll tell you to get lost. The sad news you need to face? With the way she’s acting, it seems she doesn’t really care how you feel, and it’s time to say goodbye.

You probably have an idea what this girl is doing when she’s partying and staying out all night. Worse than the fact she doesn’t seem to care is that she could risk your health if you’re intimate with her. This user is so wrong for softhearted you. You need a kind, loving person who wants a nice guy and would treat him lovingly.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m writing in response to the woman who wrote in about how to show compassion for her husband and his nightmares. (I advised her to wake him and talk him down. —Miss L.)

Like that lady’s husband, I also had very bad nightmares. I’d remarried, but my previous life was still haunting me. When my nightmares occurred, my now-husband would reassure me that he had my back! It took several years for me to start healing from the past, but the nightmares became less and less common. Please have patience! Obviously, your husband’s life was a living hell before, but hopefully it will get better.

Please send questions, 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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