Final hurdles are moving on in your mind and life

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I just ran into my former husband with his new woman. It was a shock. She looked nothing like me — not nearly as good. In fact, she’s the opposite of me — red-haired, freckled, tall and skinny like a rake. I’m short, dark, with golden skin from my Italian background. That was what my husband used to say he loved in a woman.

Does that mean he lied — that he really didn’t like my looks and secretly longed for the opposite? That seems crazy to me. But I should mention that in our last miserable years together he didn’t even want to hold me in his arms and look at me. He sometimes slept at his office (or so he said) because he was “too tired to drive home.”

He could have been elsewhere — like in some other woman’s home — because he always used his cellphone to call me, not his office line.

How can I forget about the man I loved so much and finally move on?

— Upset and Angry, Windsor Park

Dear Upset and Angry: Even though it sounds like it’s been years since you and your husband broke up, you haven’t really broken up in your mind.

You could greatly benefit from psychological counselling to finally get over this breakup and finally move on with your life. There’s so much more to experience in the present if you can finally get out of the past.

Ask your physician for a referral to a psychiatrist and take part in whatever therapy is necessary to get out of this rut and find a warmer and healthier relationship.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m a 32-year-old guy and I just ran into my girlfriend’s old boyfriend from our high school days. He and I were on a long flight home to Winnipeg, trapped beside each other.

He knows we’ve been a serious couple for several years, but he had the nerve to say with a sneer that she is “quite the babe.” I told him coldly to button his lip.

I thought I was through with him when we landed, but since then he’s been calling me at work, like we were long-lost friends, somehow connected by both having been her boyfriend. That’s just crazy. How do I get rid of him for good?

—Need to Shake Him Loose, Charleswood

Dear Need to Shake Him Loose: Take just one more call from him. Tell him you have a lot of work these days, and don’t have time for casual telephone calls. When he protests and quickly tries to weave your girlfriend’s name back into the conversation, tell him, “I don’t like talking about my partner with other people.”

That should stop him as that’s what he’s really calling about — he gets turned on just talking about her and probably hopes you’ll tell your lady that.

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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