Visits to strip clubs suspicious

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This article was published 30/12/2015 (3931 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I got engaged to my boyfriend last month and the wedding is next summer. He’s a very exciting man, and I love him very much, but now I am doubting if he loves me anymore. His friends took him on a round of celebratory engagement drinks (suspicious!), and word has drifted back to me that they went to strip clubs.

My husband-to-be used to be a wild entertainer of sorts, and addicted to the peelers. I hate strippers and all they stand for. I also am starting to realize I don’t trust the guy I’m supposed to marry. He calls and see me less since we got engaged — and I mean half as much. I guess I’m already “conquered,” so why bother putting in the time? Sometimes he smells wrong, like a woman’s perfume.

Last night he said and did some things in bed that were totally new and the language he used came from somewhere else — they weren’t his words, more like another woman’s words. I think he’s had sex with someone else. I feel it, and I sense his distance and guilt. He laughs awkwardly a lot, especially if I say something intimate or serious. What do you think?

— Sensing Strangeness, Winnipeg

Dear Sensing Strangeness: It sounds like you are sensing something that will come fully into view with a few more clues. When you have that kind of inkling, it means you have half of a “knowing” and your mind can just about connect all the dots. You should hurry things up and ask him when you are looking right into his face and have your clothes on so you can make a hasty exit if you’re upset. Naked in bed is a terrible way to have that sort of conversation, as you are so vulnerable.

Let’s say you smell another woman’s perfume on him the next time you’re in bed. Get fully dressed, take your coat and purse into the living room and ask him to put on a robe and sit down. Then say, “I can smell another woman’s perfume on your skin, you are growing more distant with me and I know you are out with the guys who go see strippers more than you are wanting to be with me. Are you back to seeing strippers again, and have you been having sex — or forms of sex — with any of them?”

Look him straight in the eye and watch every muscle in his face. If he tells you he is, have it out with him right there and give back the ring. You may not be getting married to this guy, and it’s better to know now than the day you’re walking down the aisle. Many brides and grooms will tell a counsellor, “I knew the day we got married it was a mistake.” He might be trying to break up with you in a passive-aggressive way so you have to be the one to do it. Far more women break things off than men do, and it’s often after the man has behaved so coldly or dishonestly she has to do it.

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

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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