You’re steering into strife over wife’s prized pickup

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/02/2024 (595 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My wife insists on driving her beat-up old truck with lots of its paint scraped off. Why? Because she’s a lousy driver and has frequent parking accidents, mostly hitting fences. She won’t get the truck fixed and painted, and it’s an embarrassment to me.

I have a beautiful farm. She takes the truck to town for her job, even though she has a nice little car I bought her, right after we got married. You’d think she’d be grateful, and use it, but she still wants to drive her stupid truck — which she has given a full name, including a middle name and her last name. My shiny unused present sits plugged in and ignored in the garage, and she’s yet to give it a name!

The guys in town tease me about the truck, but they don’t dare say anything to my wife, because she’s a firecracker. I told her last night the guys say I look cheap, because my wife drives such an old beater. She just smiled and raised her eyebrows which means, “Do I really care?”

Please help me get through to her!

— Frustrated, southern Manitoba

Dear Frustrated: This truck with the human name is like a child who came with your wife into the marriage. She and her truck have no doubt been through a lot together and finally drove into your life. Be grateful for that piece of luck!

For your wife, keeping her “beater” serves many purposes, and one of them is to remind you of the fact you don’t rule the roost. She doesn’t tell you to get rid of any of your vehicles, and I’m sure you have a few on your farm.

It’s also not a problem if she scrapes more fences with her truck, because as they say, “you can’t wreck a wreck.”

Your wife is a character and everybody in town knows it, and that should be fine with you. The guys with less interesting wives will envy you. So just learn to smile about this truck issue, and say, “My wife’s a character, and I wouldn’t change her!”

Then work on believing in that motto, because that’s the key to your success as a long-lasting couple.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’ve been seeing a man who’s been very unhappily married for years — no sex, no loving kindness from his wife. He’s just living with her until the last kid is gone to university out of province, which he says will be next fall. Then he says we can move in together.

I’m not sure I want to live with my guy and play the role of his new wife, and here’s why. For now, we see each other secretly at my place after dark, all cloak-and-dagger. He parks a few blocks away, and walks. I quickly slip him in through the fence.

I confess I love the secret-rendezvous aspect and I want to be his “forever lover,” but maybe not take over the role of his wife. My biggest fear? What if we got married and he misses the secret meetings with a lover, and got himself another one on the side? I guess the joke would be on me.

He’s good-looking and has enough money to be able to do that — and I guess I’ve given him the training. Ouch! I just can’t bear the thought of someone else playing our sex games, and me being in the role of his wife. So how could he and I marry, and still be lovers?

— Afraid of The Future, Winnipeg

Dear Afraid: Sneaking around to get to each other is not the only way to rev up the adventure quotient in a highly-sexual love relationship. Since you two have learned to associate adventure with sex, consider looking at what sex shops offer for games, equipment and instruction for a wide variety of exciting scenes.

So go check out Winnipeg’s retail sex shops — Adam & Eve and Love Nest (two locations) — which bring in everything from costumes and exotic lingerie to sex toys, lotions and erotic games to try out. Staff at the stores could likely suggest many ideas for staging rousingly dramatic evenings.

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.