Dear Amy: When my husband and I were just 19 years old, he cheated on me. Twenty years on, I’m still having a hard time trusting him.

Will I ever be able to trust him — or will I always feel this way? What can I do to start trusting him?

I feel like I have some form of PTSD from it. He says he was young and made a mistake, but is that a legitimate excuse? He has apologized so many times.

I want to live free. It is so time-consuming worrying about him and trying to track him. I am constantly accusing him of things that turn out to be nothing.

We have five children together, and he is a wonderful dad and husband.

I know I’ll regret it later if I don’t get it together now. How should I handle this?

— Suspicious

Dear Suspicious: Twenty years is an extremely long time for you to live in a state of “high alert,” and for your husband to tolerate your ongoing and very disruptive and baseless accusations.

It is a testament to your mutual commitment to each other — and a marvel — that your marriage has survived.

Constant rumination paralyzes your problem-solving skills, distracts you from the positive tending of your relationships, can affect your physical health, and is overall time-consuming. Your husband has been forced to react to your compulsions and accusations.

A psychologist might diagnose you with obsessive rumination disorder, which can be triggered by PTSD. You might be introduced to mindfulness training, which is a technique where you purposefully and consciously yank your mind back to the present whenever you find yourself obsessing. You would retrain your brain to refocus, and eventually, your brain would refocus without your prompting.

Additionally, I am certain that you would benefit from talk therapy.

Why were you so traumatized by an event that many others process and recover from? Insight and self-knowledge will bring you into a new relationship with yourself, your husband and your children.

Dear Amy: I’ve been divorced for four years, and I share custody of my 10-year-old daughter with my ex-wife. My ex and I co-parent, and of course, it is not entirely smooth, but it works out.

I have been dating my girlfriend for one year now, and she is saying that I should unfriend my ex-wife on Facebook. I rarely use Facebook, and I have nothing to hide from my girlfriend, or anyone else.

I feel like unfollowing my ex-wife on Facebook is fine, as it removes her from my Facebook feed.

If I unfriend my ex-wife, then will my girlfriend insist that I also unfriend her family members?

I feel like if I were to post a picture of our child on Facebook, there is no reason for her mother or mother’s family not to be able to see it.

Can you help me to navigate this post-divorce social media issue?

— Socially Challenged

Dear Challenged: You don’t need my help navigating social media, because you’re doing it. I wonder, however, why your girlfriend is so threatened by this social media contact. You should ask her.

There are many completely valid reasons to unfollow, unfriend or block someone. Aside from the generally commonsense reasons to maintain a separation on social media, many people also choose to use platforms as a cudgel when they are angry, breaking up or want to punish someone with a “block” or “unfriending.”

You and your ex seem to have a fairly amiable relationship. You successfully co-parent your child. You are transparent and have adopted a rational approach to social media.

In short, your girlfriend does not get to control how you conduct your (successful) relationship with your ex-wife and her family.

Dear Amy: “Hopeful” did not want her fiance’s friend to come to their wedding because he had disrespected her. She does not have to invite, nor should she be expected to, someone who has shown such contempt. And a man who would invite someone who referred to his fiance as “sloppy seconds” has no respect for his partner or himself.

— Dalal

Dear Dalal: One wonders why the fiance was so eager to invite him.

Copyright 2020 by Amy Dickinson

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