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This article was published 29/07/2023 (1112 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: Up here at the cabin, our life is in an uproar. I’m a teacher, and off for the summer, and our eldest daughter is here working at a local business. This guy she’s seeing at the lake is about three years older, and I don’t like the sleazy look in his eye! She’s crazy about him and hangs on his every word.

She races home from work for dinner, changes quickly and takes off with him in his truck. She’s been coming home really late — like 2 a.m.! I met her at the door again last night. Her face was all flushed and she wouldn’t talk. Since my wife can’t be here five days out of seven, she doesn’t have the same gut feeling as I do, which frankly, is that our daughter is in danger of getting pregnant this summer!

What should I do? I can’t leave our younger kids in the cabin to go out looking for my daughter and haul her home at night. I think she should go back to the city.

— Sick Feeling, Whiteshell

Dear Sick Feeling: The worst thing you could say would be “Break up with this guy, or your job is finished and I’m taking you back to the city!” Teenage rebellion has produced an alarming number of too-young marriages and babies. Instead, call your wife and tell her an intervention is needed.

One of you needs to help your daughter protect herself. Ask your wife to come up to the lake ASAP with a few different methods of contraception, to be used if needed. Hopefully, your daughter has already learned at school about the various options available, and is quietly using some kind of birth control. If not, she may need to see a medical professional who can prescribe an oral contraceptive, which has a better track record than condoms.

Your daughter doesn’t necessarily need to go back to the city for help. There are medical professionals in towns near the area who could help, so do some research ahead of the talk with your daughter.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I have a happy, long-lasting marriage, but I’m not “true” sexually. After our last child was born, my wife told me she didn’t enjoy sex and in fact, never really had, except for the result of making a baby. She is a great cuddler, very loving and lots of fun to live with.

That’s all great, but I’m also really sensual, and it got to the point where I needed a woman who really wanted to have sex, and welcomed it.

Without getting my wife’s permission (only a fool would ask for that) I connected with a woman online who was in the same position. She loved her husband and kids, but it was just “not happening” with him in bed. In the end, she suspected her husband was a bisexual man, who just really wanted children.

She didn’t dig for the truth on that front, as he was great to her and a loving dad and she didn’t want to lose him. To this day they’re happy and content at home, but haven’t shared a bedroom for years. She and I continue to have a long-lasting sexual friendship, and we have both kept our happy marriages and raised good kids.

Other people might want to consider this way of handling sex, if they love their marriage partners and are compatible with them in every other important area, other than sexually.

— Different Solution, Manitoba

Dear Different Solution:People in marriages often know more than their cheating partners think they do! After many years of disappearing regularly, it’s likely both your mates have sussed out where you were going, and have made the decision to let you have an outside sex partner — and still keep the marriage intact.

So what is the difference between your marriage situation and others where a partner is cheating? Most people end up hurt, jealous and angry, which precipitates a total breakup. In your case, your marriage partners are likely relieved they don’t have to perform sexually anymore. Would this work for other people? Sometimes, but not often, as cheating can devastate a relationship emotionally, and that deep pain is just too much to bear.

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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