She’s singing the young-man blues

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This article was published 12/10/2018 (2909 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I met a man 14 years my junior this summer. He lied about his age by half, and I jokingly said I was OK with a seven-year age difference. Then, after weeks dancing around each other at the gym, we had lunch together, drank too much, and jumped into bed at my place. It was wonderful.

The only problem that showed up right away was he didn’t talk “all fancy-pantsy” the way I do. I’m well-educated and have a large vocabulary. He is highly proficient with computers, but beyond that world, his vocabulary and grammar are more rooted in the street. 

This should not matter! It’s just a communication style. When we are confined to the gym, the bedroom and fun little restaurants, the symphony of love and lust is in perfect tune. Here’s the problem. He’s already fallen in love and wants to meet my friends and family. They’re not going to approve, and, unfortunately, that matters to me.

I thought we’d just have a romp and lots of playtime and he’d regretfully tell me I was too old for him and that he needed to be free again. The opposite has happened. He’s trying to educate himself and has started using 75-cent words that don’t quite fit.

Don’t get me wrong. He’s very sweet and funny and the most devoted, powerful and tender lover I’ve ever known. I don’t want to throw him over for someone more my age and financial equal, but I also don’t want him to meet my people, either.

Children are another problem. He wants us to get married and have two of our own. I’m in my late 30s and don’t want to “pop out two kids” as he so inelegantly puts it. Please help. 

— Cougar In Trouble, Charleswood

Dear Cougar in Trouble: This may come as a shock, but he’d have as much to put up with, if he were married to you, as you would with him. You’re as much a snob as you imagine your family to be. They might find him refreshing, compared to you.

But you’re right. With or without family considerations, a marriage to you would not be good. Whatever it is he loves about you, he needs to find those same qualities in a down-to-earth woman who’s intelligent and speaks plain English and wants babies with him. If your family and friends looked down their noses at him, married life would not be pleasant beyond your own doors.

It’s time to send him on his way. Confess your real age (which he may know by now) and your unwillingness to give him babies and that you need to say goodbye. And don’t go running back for trysts because the sex was so good. That would just re-break his heart. 

As for prowess in the bedroom, there are many other men who possess the same equipment, and many who are really talented with it at your age. What will be harder to find is the devotion and desire to please and impress that you get from this younger man. Still, you have to keep trying. 

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I cheated on my husband four years ago, got caught, and he forgave me. I have been a good wife, until now.

I just found out he has been cheating on me off and on when he goes out of town, ever since I cheated on him. We didn’t “start fresh,” as he told me. Should I start sneaking around on him?

I am so mad, I really feel like it. But he is, and has always been, the love of my life. We are in our 20s and have no children. 

— Broken Heart and Angry Mind, Winnipeg

Dear Broken: The one thing you can’t do is nothing and take more of this punishment. This has gone way beyond getting even, and he knows it.

You two need a marriage counsellor more than you need your next breath. Trust is the major issue, and both of you have broken it.

You will need more than a few sessions to work out the anger and fear behind this cheating, and it may not work. But with so much young love at stake, it’s worth a try.

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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