Mate’s escalating misogyny a serious red flag

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This article was published 15/10/2024 (717 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My live-in partner hates his mother, but when I just laugh and jokingly suggest he gets a new one, he just grunts and says, “Too late.”

We hardly see her anyway. She’s at bingo three nights a week, and now that gardening season is over and it gets dark earlier, she stays home and watch her shows on TV.

I’m getting fed up with his constant carping about his mother. The thing that worries me is he seems to have broadened his distaste recently to include a lot of other women — such as our neighbour and several of the “witches” where he works.

How long before I am not the exception to the females he seems to disrespect and resent?

Last night I brought this up and sure enough he let fly and called me some names I’m not going to share with you and your readers.

He’s never been like this before and ended up breaking down crying and apologized. Do you think he can keep his word not to be abusive again? Even if he can, do I really want to stay now this has surfaced?

— Scared, Fort Richmond

Dear Scared: You’ve just had a clear warning, which is a good reason to leave. Too many people who end up in abusive relationships look back on a time when they knew abuse, whether verbal or physical, was a definite possibility in their relationship, but they accepted the tearful apology and stayed.

If you stick around, your partner will know he can just say he’s sorry and get away with one form of abuse for sure. That can often escalate into physical and more serious emotional abuse. However, be prepared when you tell your partner you’re thinking of leaving because he’s surely going to apologize and be sweeter than he’s ever been before. Sadly, in most cases, the abuse is still lurking behind the apologetic behaviour.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I received an offer at the beginning of the summer to move from Winnipeg to Vancouver for work. My girlfriend told me she was excited for us.

We have been together for three years. She said she had always wanted to live in B.C. and now she had a reason to go.

Our plan was for me to go there first alone and work for six months if I liked the job. Then, once I was through the probationary period, she said she would move out to join me. Well, it’s been three months now.

We had promised to talk every night on FaceTime until we were back together, and we did — for a while. First she complained she was lonely, and then angry, and then she started a bunch of fights with me. Now she’s gone cold.

Most of the time she claims she’s too tired to talk and she’s even said she isn’t sure about living in Vancouver anymore.

Is it actually over? What if I move back? I don’t want to.

— Great Job Killing Relationship, B.C.

Dear Killing Relationship: You don’t mention flying your girlfriend out to B.C. to see you, even for a little holiday in the summer. Unrelenting distance coupled with sadness can certainly kill a relationship.

It wasn’t likely the job that turned her off. If you had wanted her with you, then your second paycheque should have been for bringing her out to see you.

Moving there seems to have been mostly your dream, not hers, and now she doesn’t want to keep investing emotional energy on hopes of living in B.C., with or without you.

You’re going to have to move fast, my friend, or she’s going to be truly gone.

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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