Start planning to leave your husband before he dumps you

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/03/2016 (3522 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My husband is waiting for his horrible former girlfriend — his “first love” — to return to his arms. I found out when left his computer open in the middle of a heartfelt letter to her and I went to work digging for the truth.

Before we met, she dumped him and he was heartbroken for a year. She married somebody else, and he married me. He told her in a letter it was “in retaliation.” That broke my heart in pieces. Now she is free again and wants “time to sort herself out,” but she’s writing him twice a week, at least. I guess my days are numbered, unless I leave first or she doesn’t want him.

I am growing colder every day. Although I thought I loved him, I see now I was just a stand-in for the real thing— I was second prize. We have no children, and I am not quite 25. Should I leave, or wait to see if she doesn’t take him back? Could going to a relationship counsellor help? My mom and sisters have gotten wind of this through my older sister who I confided in, and now they are telling me to leave him. What do you think?

— Going In All Directions, Downtown

Dear Going in All Directions: I think you should do what you want, when you want. While you’re in the process of losing love and self-respect, you’ll find the right time to leave. You’ll find love doesn’t just end because it’s sensible to let go, especially when there’s hope or even when there’s no hope, in some cases. But, the ability to stay with a person who has been sneaking around to communicate with an old girlfriend diminishes the love quickly. One day you just arrive, bang!

I agree with your mom and sisters, especially since you are only 25 and have no children. There’s still a big sea of single people around you, but you can’t go before you’re ready or you’ll go running back to him. So, let your husband throw cold water over your feelings now and start making an alternate plan of your own that includes a place you’d like to live, money/savings and counselling — or maybe a little of that and some travelling with a friend. Once you know what you want to do and how to do it, you will be better-equipped to rise from this.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My mother was mean to me all her life, and now she has died. I didn’t go to her funeral because I would have heard her mocking me from above. She called me a sissy all my life and loved my other brothers. My older brother (the favourite) said I should have gone to the funeral, and I keep hearing his voice in my head. Why should I have gone? She didn’t love me. People talked about my absence, he said. Now I wish I had gone so I didn’t feel guilty, but what can I do? Don’t tell me to go to her grave, and talk to her. What else can I do?

— Guilt-Ridden Wimp Son, Winnipeg

Dear Guilt-Ridden Wimp: Sometimes it helps to burn a candle and talk into the air at the person — have a little cleansing rant about how she treated you. It’s your own little funeral for her. You might start by saying, “Mom, I don’t know why I was born into your family as your son when you were so cruel to me and loved my brothers. You’re gone now and it’s time for letting go on my side. I am going to live my life the way it was meant to be lived.” Then blow out the candle and go in peace.

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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