DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I really miss the first version of my husband. We were so in love and he was perfect, but I missed him so badly when he went on his sales trips. He was also lonely thinking about me, and we talked on the phone for hours at night. He would bring home jewelry for me with real stones, and say, “See? I was loving you every minute I was away.”

Then the nightly calls and closeness between us just seemed to peter out. Oddly, he was generally happy, and I was glad for that, but he seemed different — and actually smelled different. He also bought new clothes and started watching different TV shows.

A female friend of mine ran into him in another city where he was doing business, and said my guy seemed very different than the person she knew here at home. He introduced a female “cousin” walking with him, and then they took off quickly. My husband doesn’t have any female cousins. He was clearly cheating.

I decided to search his clothes in the closet. I smelled perfume evidence of another woman and found an earring I didn’t recognize. When he came home, I showed him my finds and his face got red. Then he said that it was my fault because I didn’t want to go on sales trips with him. He said he missed me so badly that he got depressed and needed a “friend.”

Friend? I reminded him I have a serious career here in Winnipeg and I never need a sidekick to cheer me on at work. I said, “Unlike you, I’m a completely honest, true and independent person. People can always trust me.”

So we recently separated and I’ve moved back in with my tough mother. She thinks I should do things to him I can’t describe here. I don’t know what to do. I just bawl like a baby. It’s so embarrassing. I hadn’t even been married to him for a full year. He’s probably still seeing his new woman.

He isn’t phoning me — not even trying to work through things, no apology, no nothing. What now?

— Not Going Back to Him, Westwood

Dear Not Going Back: Let this guy go. People who have had a lot of experience with short, intense relationships are often happy to move on, although they make a lot of fake noise about not wanting to do so, at first.

They may love the chase but don’t necessarily value a long-term relationship — especially once they get caught cheating. Your husband was in the perfect job to meet new women and have just enough privacy to charm them.

Call a reputable divorce lawyer and have a meeting to talk over the situation. Look at your options, make a plan and start working on it. Make this a blip in the timeline of your life, not a long drawn-out tragedy.

You’re smart to be living with a protective relative for now. A lot of rejected cheaters have no problem harassing an ex they think they own, unless they know they’re living with family or good friends. Consider staying with your mom longer than you think you need to just to make sure your ex has really disappeared from your life.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I have a little crush on a guy who lives near the bus stop we both use to head downtown to work. I’ve been timing things so I end up there right after him. This morning he laughed and said, “Why don’t you just sit with me this time?”

I blushed, but I was able to regain my cool. We had a fun talk on the way downtown.

At work I confessed to a female friend about this and told her the man’s name, and she started to laugh. I asked her what was so funny, and she said she knew him. She said he was a great guy and recently single.

Now I’m on fire. What’s my next move?

— Like Him a Lot, St. James

Dear Like Him: Next time he runs into you at your bus stop, plunk yourself down with him again on the ride, and announce: “I bet you know some good spots to eat lunch near work. Want to go eat together this week?”

Lunch is relatively harmless — it doesn’t have to mean anything relationship-wise, plus you already know he’s not attached right now.

So muster up some courage, and chat him up. You need enough time to share ideas for restaurant possibilities. Then you can consider giving him your contact info. Good luck.

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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