It’s likely ‘open’ season on your relationship

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/09/2024 (696 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: Yesterday my girlfriend came home and asked me if we could have an open relationship. I’m in shock. Where did that come from?

She’s doing her master’s degree at the University of Manitoba and I’m wondering if there’s already somebody she wants to take out for a trial run.

I’m angry, but also very sad. I love her, but I don’t think I can keep being with her knowing she wants to sleep with other guys, too.

Is it even possible to recover from something like this?

— Totally Gutted, St. James

Dear Gutted: Somebody who seriously loves another person usually doesn’t deliver a boot to the heart by asking for an open relationship, which generally includes sex with other people. Your reply might well be, “You’re perfectly free to have any new relationship you want because we’re at the end of the road.”

If she tries to pretend she was just test-driving the idea, tell her this: “If it occurred to you that you’d like the freedom to date other people and would chance losing me, then you’ve already lost me. I only wish you would have been honest and told me sooner.”

She may beg for a second chance, saying she’s given up on the idea to experiment, but don’t bite. You need to find a relationship where you’re both a definite No. 1 to each other.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I once again asked my boyfriend (we’re gay) if he would please dress nicer when he’s out with me at night.

He got mad and totally rejected the idea, saying he preferred to be comfortable in his favourite black sweatpants. He has half a dozen pairs, from baggy to slim.

When I bought him a pair of beige cotton pants to go out in this summer, he totally blew up and said I was choosing his clothes and “mothering” him.

I just want him to stop wearing sweatpants every single time we’re out. My friends are saying the problem is my fault for nagging him about something that’s not my business. I totally disagree. What can I do?

— Man With a Little Class, Osborne Village

Dear Man With Class: Sweatpants are a stubborn non-fashion statement for some people. It’s like saying “I won’t get dressed up. Take me as I am.”

In your letter, there’s a clue to the origin of the problem — the word “mothering.” Many people have had problems with a parent over what they really wanted to wear when they were younger. Your partner may have felt he couldn’t dress the way he really wanted to back then, so he learned to live out his life in black. That way his clothes were no longer a topic of discussion. Unfortunately, it’s backfired in his relationship with you.

Encourage your partner to talk about what he would really like to wear if he could. Maybe it really is the colour black at this point. If so, encourage him to wear more fashionable black clothes, and then leave it at that.

Does he tell you what to wear? Probably not, because he’s made clothes a non-issue in his life. Maybe you need to do that too, if you want to stay with him.

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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