Stop being sad and light up your wife’s life a little

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/11/2025 (333 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My wife is really fed up. She says this fall she needs me to finally break down and buy a special light for my seasonal affective disorder. Winter is coming, and I’m already feeling the bad vibes and getting depressed from the lack of sunshine and warmth.

Already, I’m starting to get cranky and sad, and I keep turning on all the house lights. But I think a SAD light would be the coward’s way out — just giving in to it. I’d feel like an idiot sitting with my SAD light every day. Why can’t we just turn on all our lights like normal people?

— SAD Guy, St. Norbert

Dear SAD Guy: Facing up to our limitations and compensating for them is the smartest thing we humans can do. Plus, it’s really beneficial for the health of our love relationships when we openly agree to work through our issues.

So, hike out and buy yourself a suitable SAD therapy light or two, and use them daily this fall and winter to buoy up your mood.

If you really can’t bring yourself to actually go out and buy the special light, give your wife the money to do it for you. She would probably enjoy that. Just get the purchase done one way or the other and keep your love relationship shining brightly all winter.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I bought a little house recently — my first — and now my new boyfriend is broadly hinting he wants to move in.

He said last night, after staying over with me in my new home, that he realizes he wants to get out of his old apartment and move into a nice little place.

I got the hint, but pretended I didn’t. I haven’t extended the invitation because we’re very new in our relationship and I don’t know where it will go. He’s more attached to me at this point than I am to him.

Also, I happen to know he’s bisexual from some friends we have in common, although he hasn’t told me about that yet.

He’s really lovable and sensual and perfectly suits me in bed and otherwise, but how deep do his feelings for me go? They seem to have amped up a lot since I bought the house, though I doubt if we could be together forever.

My other gnawing concern is whether he would be true in his time with me, when he also has an eye for men.

He would be a fun roomie and he loves to cook, but it would really mess my head up if he couldn’t be true.

The bottom line is I don’t have a roommate yet and I need someone to pay half the monthly costs. Should I give it a try?

— Tempted to Invite Him, Wolseley

Dear Tempted: It’s a lot messier emotionally to split up with a live-in lover who is not working out than to say goodbye to someone who’s just a roommate.

The best time to start living with a guy is when you really feel he is “the one” and that the two of you will likely end up in a long-term relationship.

You would best look around now for a roommate with a pleasant, easy-going personality — with whom you are not romantically involved. Then you can keep on dating your new guy as long as you want and not have your relationship tangled up with your living arrangement.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I ran into my old girlfriend while shopping for a Halloween costume in a secondhand store. She was just putting on a witch’s hat with green hair sticking out of it. I smiled and yelled out, “Suits you perfectly.” We both laughed and ended up going for lunch together.

Now, she’s started contacting me daily and I don’t want anything to do with her again, not even the “casual sex with a witch” she has offered me. How do I tell her, without hurting her, that one lunch with her was more than enough?

— Paying Again, St. Vital

Dear Paying Again: There’s no way around having to inform this woman once again that things are not going to work for you beyond a casual friendship.

Then tell her the only way for you both to get past this awkwardness is to stop the phone calls and messaging and to get on again with your separate lives.

Make sure to sincerely apologize for getting her hopes up because she doesn’t deserve what must feel like a hurtful tease.

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.

   Read full biography