Get off sidelines and team up with fellow ‘stand-in’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/07/2023 (1134 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: Talk about pathetic. My weekend girl “friend” and I are actually in love with two other people, age 16 and 17, who aren’t allowed to see us exclusively — and particularly not on the big summer weekends happening now. They’re always expected to join their parents up at their stupid cabins, beside each other. The parents have been friends for years, and everybody parties together.

Get this! The two sets of parents openly hope they’ll get married some day, and unite the two families. It’s not cute; it’s nauseating! But worse, the prospective bride and groom think it’s a laugh, and play along. I was invited out just once last year, and I was treated like a threat from outside.

In self-defence, my weekend “friend” and I have been getting together and drinking wine on the weekends. She calls them our “pity parties!” I’m starting to have bigger feelings for her than friendship, as she’s very cute and funny. Would it be a mistake to make a move on her? I think this lake thing is a sick situation and we both deserve better.

— Confused By New Feelings, Island Lakes

Dear Confused: That two-family lake romance situation is not going to go away unless there’s a big blowup between the guy and girl at the centre of it. That’s unlikely to happen, because they’re also enjoying the fantasy! Meanwhile you two stand-ins are relegated to waiting in the city.

It’s time you woke up! So why not take a chance on falling for each other? Let the duo who are using you when they’re in town carry on pleasing their parents until they can’t stand it anymore. Or maybe they’ll actually go with the flow and end up marrying.

Good luck to them, living their lives in a fishbowl with two sets of parents peering in!

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My husband is addicted to Facebook and it drives me crazy. I wanted to spend our retirement travelling together, rediscovering our love for each other and doing things that made us happy. Instead, all he does is sit on the computer all day, arguing with people and watching videos about conspiracies.

He argues with me about politics all the time and I don’t even pay attention to that kind of thing. He just wants someone to validate his ideas regarding the things he sees online. It’s making me crazy and he doesn’t even see the irony here.

Now he just sits there, getting angrier and lazier, turning into the grumpy old man he used to rail against, as a youth. He was a long-haired, bass-playing bad boy when we were young. He used to make me feel safe, seen and like a total bad girl. What fun that was!

Is this all life has left for me? Where’d my husband go? I have my own considerable savings and investments and I’m considering travelling with my best girlfriend, who is tempting me with different destinations every week. He definitely isn’t included in her invitations.

Should I do it? Will it blow my marriage up?

— Until Travel Do Us Part? Old Tuxedo

Dear Until Travel: Marriage partners owe it to each other to have the really important, necessary rows, not just stifle them and go haring off like a jackrabbit with a travelling buddy. So, stand up! Tell your husband you’re totally fed up with his negativity, his computer addiction and for turning himself into a grumpy old man. Ask him if he can find the original version of himself in a hurry, because you’re losing your feelings for him.

The last thing you want to do is go flying off with this girlfriend of yours and then realize five miles up in the air you’re still in love with the husband you left hurting and want to go home again, but it’s too late! So, have the fights you need to have, and be sure to listen to his complaints about you, too.

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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