Betrayal complicates already hard healing process

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This article was published 14/08/2024 (730 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: After a terrible accident, my husband and my best friend nursed me back to health. But after my body healed and the mental fog cleared I noticed a strange closeness between them. I tried to reason with myself, thinking ,“Of course they would develop a bond over saving me.”

But my best friend has continued to make three or four weekly checks on me, for no real reason now that I’m pretty much better. When she was over recently and thought I’d gone back to sleep I overheard her talking to my husband. She said, “Baby, I never see you. I miss you so badly — I miss making love with you.”

My heart broke into a million pieces! I ran into the room and screamed, “Get out!” and then I went crazy and went hobbling out the door. My husband chased after me and brought me back. He said they never meant for this to happen.

He was crying, and said, “I was needy! It wasn’t love. It was just sex.” Just sex? While I was fighting for my life, he was thinking of himself and his sexual needs in the next room? I hate them both but I don’t want her to have him. What should I do? I told him to go and he is staying at a friend’s place.

— Broken-hearted and Alone, Winnipeg

Dear Broken-hearted: To be betrayed by your husband and best friend on top of recovering from an accident requires a multifaceted support system to help you recover. Since you are barely strong enough to organize your affairs by yourself right now, ask a close, knowledgeable sibling or your parents — or even your whole group — to help you respond to this emergency.

Then make a list with them of assistance you will need now and in the coming months, and where you can get it. They may want you to move in, so they can take care of you and get you set you up to be truly independent once you’re stronger and healthier.

For a start, you’re going to need a lawyer and financial adviser, and any necessary continued medical and psychological supports.

You also need loving company right now — you shouldn’t be living alone. Maybe someone in your family would be best to stay with you now until you feel physically and emotionally stable.

You can recover from this, but you need a strong, trustworthy support system put in place ASAP, with protective loved ones at the helm.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m writing in response to the girls who were campaigning to get rid of their father’s girlfriend. Clearly those spoiled, self-centred daughters have been raised to get whatever they want from daddy.

I agree with you, that their father also needs to grow up and stop using women as amusement for all his petty little games!

He and his atrocious little demons should all be contemplating the published advice you offered. But might it only serve to amuse them more?

— Not Impressed by Users/Losers, Winnipeg

Dear Not Impressed: Yes, those daughters might laugh the advice off at first. But even if people act like they’re amused by offered advice, it often sinks in once nobody’s looking and their feathers aren’t so ruffled.

Advice on relationship problems doesn’t usually go to waste. People often have the same issues themselves, or know others who do, and enjoy sharing their experiences and solutions. A crowded beach with conversations on all sides is great proof of that!

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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