Don’t even think about escalating name game

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I’m married to a disloyal woman. I just found out I’m not exempt from embarrassing personal criticism, even if I’m her husband and she’s supposed to be loyal to me.

She’s been telling the women in the family about some of my bedroom failures and the mean nicknames she has for me.

Should I start making up names for her, to push back? Would that finally shut her up?

— Angry and Hurt, West End

Dear Angry and Hurt: If you pin embarrassing nicknames on your wife — even a real doozy — and it somehow gets out to the broader family and she is teased, it will trigger a big mess you can’t control.

Then you won’t be experiencing anything affectionate at all from your wife in the bedroom or anywhere else.

You should realize nasty nicknames tend to spread fast and stick around. Her parents — who named her at birth — may dislike you for dissing their beloved daughter, even if she’s far from perfect.

If you want your marriage to warm up and be a happy one, you two really must work on a deal to be more supportive and protective of one another. It would help to start seeing a relationship counsellor — both together and individually — where you can express yourselves freely. Then you would have an impartial judge of what pet names could actually be sweet and supportive if you two were ever inclined to use them.

Finally, if you like your partner’s first name, say it with love, kindness and amusement, but don’t use it when you’re actually angry, as it can come out sounding cruel and nasty. Your mate doesn’t need that sticking in her memory forever.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My recent ex-girlfriend and I rented a great cabin for three months this summer, and already paid in advance, splitting the cost 50/50.

Now we’ve had a serious fight and I can’t see us ever getting back together again. But she’s insisting on keeping the rental this summer — for herself.

I asked her to be fair and at least give me back my half of the rental money, but now she won’t even take my calls.

I just found out today she has plans to charge her many well-to-do friends rent when they go to the lake in the summer and make herself a nice profit.

It’s like she’s trying to run her own little cottage hotel, yet she insists she’s not able to pay me back. What a liar. What can I do?

— Cheated Ex, South Osborne

Dear Cheated: See a lawyer and explain the whole messy deal. Your ex will not be popular for long with the actual cabin owner if she’s discovered to be running her own little rental business out of it.

Granted, people who visit a friend’s rental cottage often chip in some money to help out with food costs, but your ex-girlfriend seems to be planning to go way beyond that and into her own profitable rental business.

As for your ex refusing to take your calls, she’ll have to sit up and take notice once a lawyer is involved. Then she can’t brush you off so easily.

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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