Enjoy having your own cabin for the summer

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This article was published 06/05/2016 (3484 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My husband just rented a cottage for the summer at the lake where my parents have a cabin. That cottage has always been my summer home, but my husband and my mother don’t get along. He said he wouldn’t sleep another night under her roof.

Now, apparently, it’s up to me to break it to my mother that we won’t be staying at the family cottage with all my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews. We don’t have any kids, but plan to very soon. What do I tell her?

— Stymied, North Kildonan

Dear Stymied: Your husband probably will be A-OK if you blame it on him. Tell your mom your husband insisted on an independent, quieter place a small distance away from the crowded family cottage, and just went ahead and rented it. She may be secretly pleased. A lot of older couples feel they must share the cottage with their grown children, and often several sets of grandchildren too, and it’s just too crowded for everybody to get along.

There’s never enough insulation for privacy at night, and there’s too many problems concerned with different people’s rules, styles of living, food preparation and division of labour. Congratulation to the two of you! You’re going to have great sex life this summer and a place to go and get away from the fray when things get busy and wild at the parental cottage with all the relatives. Your husband and your mom will stop fighting as much because there isn’t too much forced contact.

You’re still in the same beach community and your mother will get over this quickly enough. I suggest telling her on the phone and then letting her go through the preliminary emotions until she gets back to peaceful. That may happen in a week, or the moment she hangs up the phone and dances a jig, but it’s better not to be in her face or discuss what you’ve done at length, especially if her first reaction might be to cry or badmouth your husband.

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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