Farm life not cultivating togetherness

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This article was published 26/04/2016 (3812 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Three days ago we had World War Three on this farm. My stepson ran away because he hates me. He says I work him like a slave (that’s not true, it’s just farm chores) and that I hate his music, which is true. He packed his clothes and his guitar and went to Winnipeg with some friends who drove him to the edge of the city where his father picked him up. He’s now living at his dad’s place. 

My wife and I have two more children of our own, so frankly I thought it might be a relief with him gone. Little did I know. My wife talked to her son on the phone and then to her ex, and according to her, he said he was “glad to have his boy there with him, after the way Bozo treats him,” and he hung up. Bozo would be me. Then my wife turned on me screaming, and our kids heard it. I ended up yelling back at her in my own defence.

I treated her boy like any other kid on the farm. Big deal: he had work to do and got his hands dirty. He’s a spoiled city-boy teenager who was her first child. He’s her darling.

She says she and our kids are moving to the city. She has a career in Winnipeg and makes a lot, so she says she can handle the bills herself. I will have to pay support for the kids. She says she will move everybody ASAP. She already has a lawyer and a plan. I said, “How long have you been planning to leave?” and I could see by her reaction I had caught her. She said she’d been thinking about it for a long time.

I broke down, begged her to stay and told her we would to work it out, and she just said, “no way!” I could hear a door slam shut and locked when she said that. So now here we are under the same roof and everybody is crying and the kids are scared, asking questions about losing friends and school and even asking if we are getting a divorce.

— Heartsick Husband, Manitoba

Dear Heartsick Husband: Emergency professional counselling would help. If your wife won’t go with you, go alone. Try to find a counsellor who does whole family counselling because everybody, including the kids, is upset. Since your wife already has a lawyer lined up, you will need your own and need to talk to your accountant, but mostly you and your wife need to talk to a marriage/relationship counsellor immediately, away from the kids, and get everything out on the table. She’s so ready to go there could be a lot more to this story — even an affair.

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
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