Time doesn’t fully blunt the pain of infidelity

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/04/2024 (878 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My wife is depressed because I told her I had an affair almost 23 years ago. I had to finally get it off my chest, but now it’s on hers. She can hardly look at me and it’s like I have become a stranger to her.

It was at a time when she was very sick and hurting and couldn’t even have me in the bed beside her.

I waited on her hand and foot and showered her with all the love I could think of — flowers, acts of intimate service, cleaning the house and looking after the kids. She hardly reacted to me.

Then I became close with a neighbour who cooked meals for our family. We had a brief affair which gave me enough energy and comfort to allow me to continue to nurse my wife back to health.

Once she was over the worst of it, I told the neighbour it was over and she said she was fine with that. We remained (just) friends until she moved to a new town.

Unfortunately, now my wife feels like she was deceived at a time when she could not fight for her marriage. Why can’t she understand the affair is long over and done for good?

— Disappointed, southwestern Manitoba

Dear Disappointed: It could be your wife has imagined a lot of scenes of your affair. Maybe she envisions you and the healthy young neighbour making passionate love while she was the sick wife just a stone’s throw away.

You really need a third person — a counsellor — to work with you two to parse this complicated situation and help you both heal, and get past it. That’s your best hope of coming back together.

If your wife has recovered enough to be able to participate in counselling — which takes a certain amount of emotional energy — she may be able to stop being so angry and defensive and be able to forgive you.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My new boyfriend of eight months has a cottage and just dropped the bomb that he’s going out to his summer place to open it for the season. Is he nuts? It’s still freezing at night. Or is this really just a plan to get away from me?

He knows I want to be with him now we that have declared our love, but I have to work in the city. He can work remotely from wherever he wants.

I don’t know if this is a hint, a first move away from me or a way to put off commitment. What could it really be?

If I ask him too soon, he might bolt. What should I do?

— Cottage Conundrum, Grant Park

Dear Cottage Conundrum: If he cares as deeply as you hope he does, he will making new moves towards you. For instance, if you start feeling uncomfortably far away from him, he will start contacting you more frequently, talking longer and inviting you more to come out and be with him at the cottage.

But if he does not move to close the widening gap, he may be thinking you’re really not the type of partner he needs, which is a cottage-lover like himself who might want to live and work at the lake. He might be right!

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.

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

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