Reckless behaviour signals need for serious help

Opinion

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I was at our cottage for two weeks finishing a project I’m writing up for my boss out east. He was paying me triple time to finish it up for the people there.

My wife doesn’t like lake life, so she wouldn’t come with me. That made it feel a bit empty, but somehow even better for where I was finally headed — off the rails.

I had my favourite booze, music and nobody to love me, only my on-again/off-again younger girlfriend who came up to visit me for some recreational old-man sex to fill her day. There is no mistaking it for love, that’s for sure.

In the meantime, my wife had a little time to herself and my spies who came up on the weekends reported to me that she didn’t seem to be suffering from loneliness while I was gone.

I realized that was code for “another guy on the scene,” so I got up and drove home pedal-to-the-metal. Who cares what could have happened — I got home in record time.

Imagine the shock when I came up the driveway to wide-open doors of the house with my wife gone and just a note saying she had moved in with a friend. She didn’t say which sex, but then again, she likes both of them.

She took everything — all the furniture except for a bed, some lamps, my guitars, the electronics I need for work and the things she bought me as gifts when she used to love me.

She dumped all my clothes in the bathroom for some reason and soaked them. I was left with a pair of jeans and two T-shirts.

It galls me she could gut my beautiful world when I was at the lake and defenceless. She insulted the home we decorated together and didn’t even leave me a letter to say why.

I don’t even know where she is laying her head out there in the world. I used to love her so much.

— Bare and Broken, Winnipeg

Dear Bare and Broken: What were you feeling when you opened the door and saw your wife had stripped it bare of everything that made it beautiful? Between the angry words you write here are clear darker feelings of emptiness, pain and bewilderment.

This is what happens when broken lovers finally decide, “That’s it, I’m done.” But it sometimes takes too long to leave and then they finally slash their way out of their nest in the cruellest, wildest, most careless ways possible.

You need to tap into people who can support you now — the good old friends, family and people at work who know you, and will help you through this breakup so it doesn’t become a serious breakdown. Your reckless behaviour speeding home in who knows what state was highly irresponsible and points to troubling thoughts you really need to work through so you don’t harm yourself or anyone else.

You need your family and friends to help keep you afloat. If you don’t already have psychological support, see your doctor to find some counselling to support you emotionally and with appropriate medication, if needed. It’s time to go into full repair mode and reassess all parts of your life.

Please send your questions 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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