DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My husband had developed a suspicious pattern of being missing in action during work hours — and finally I figured it out. He had another woman.

I insisted on counselling and he reluctantly went, “for the kids’ sake,” he said. The counselling seemed to have worked, especially when the other woman transferred to Ontario. Little did I realize, however, she would still be flying back here regularly to keep up her sales in Manitoba, and my husband would continue seeing her.

There is no love left between him and me now.

Worse than the cheating, he’s not an attentive father to his children, when he even bothers to hang out with them. Frankly, it was me who always wanted to have a family, and my husband just wanted to have a lot of sex. Now he’s out a lot after work, no doubt getting what he needs.

As fresh chaos unfolds in the Middle East, Ukraine and its allies fear it will detract from dealing with Russia’s aggression in eastern Europe. Sudan doesn’t face that problem. The African country’s brutal civil war — about to enter its fourth year — has never been a global priority at all.

Still, what began in April 2023 as a violent falling out between competing warlords has dragged the nation into the abyss. The world’s worst humanitarian crisis continues there unabated. A dense web of local militias and foreign interests has become entrenched. And all of this is further destabilizing the already fragile Horn of Africa region as well.

Sadly, Sudan’s people shouldn’t expect serious help to arrive any time soon.

Fierce clashes erupted three years ago as a bitter power struggle exploded between Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the leader of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, General Mohamed Hamdan (Hemedti) Dagalo.

During last year’s brutal wildfire season, our children inhaled toxic smoke. Children, with their growing lungs, are especially vulnerable. Experts say inhaling smoke is comparable to chain smoking cigarettes, or worse.

It increases the risks of: cancer, asthma attacks, lung diseases, and even early death. Toxic smoke can inflame the brain and contribute to mental health challenges like anxiety.

What’s less known is that children aren’t only exposed outdoors, but also indoors where there is inadequate air filtration. Without proper filtration, it seeps indoors into homes, schools, and childcares.

I witnessed this last summer. As a climate planner working on wildfire preparedness, I thought indoor air quality would be safe. I was wrong. On smoky days, we measured the air quality in my daughter’s daycare. It was consistently poor.

In today’s contested, turbulent public opinion environment, governments increasingly use carefully selected words as a way to shape positive public beliefs about proposed legislation. The public needs to look beyond the symbolism of political language in bills in order to understand what will actually happen as a result of proposed policies.

Bill 27, The Declaration of Principles for Patient Health Care Act, is a showcase bill of the Kinew government in the health-care field. Bill 27 was promised in the throne speech in November last year, and is now before the legislature for debate and potentially for public hearings before a legislative committee.

The intention of the bill is to improve the patient experience, which is a laudable goal. My concern is how much positive change its provisions will produce. The throne speech promised a “charter of patient safety” and in an article on Dec. 2, I raised concerns about whether that phrase might lead to the public belief that the intention was to create legally enforceable rights for patients in their interactions with the different parts of the health-care system.

It is now clear that it does not go that far.

I promised my late husband, Mendel, I would write a novel dedicated to the memory of his half-brother and half-sister, who were murdered in a Nazi extermination camp when they were nine and 10.

I have a colour-tinted photo of these children at three and four. It is the only surviving representation of them. Theirs was the first family story Mendel told me. In marrying him, I married his story. We carried it together. I carry it now after his death.

I will launch the novel this spring.

For any other of the pieces I have published, Mendel was present, an advocate, firing off emails to family and friends, organizing details, filling the car with the “stuff” I needed to pull off an event or make a presentation, supporting me in everything I was trying to do.