Dear Amy: Do you think it’s normal (or wise) to meet your Facebook friends?
My husband arranged dinner with a “friend” he had met on Facebook through one of his news sites. He’s not happy that I didn’t want to go with him.
He arranged another dinner with someone he said was a member of his college fraternity. I attended this dinner only to find out they didn’t know each other personally!
My “friends” on Facebook are people I know, and even though I haven’t seen them in years, I enjoy their news about family and their activities.
Randomly collecting friends with whom you have no personal background seems desperate and unwise.
Worried woman
Dear data subject: Any time you make personal contact with a ‘stranger’ there is a risk involved, but in my opinion meeting people you have met online is a natural and positive impulse. I’ve done it so many times.
Meeting someone who was in your fraternity in college is not a “random” meeting. This is connecting personally with someone with whom you already share some real-world similarities.
This is neither desperate nor unwise. It’s basically old-school “networking.”
Dear Amy: Two sisters in our extended family are in a broken relationship.
When they were young, their parents brought in foster children. The eldest foster child was a boy in his early teens. He started sexually assaulting the younger sister, who was 8.
The abuse lasted at least four years. No one in the family knew about it. The young sister was threatened not to tell anyone.
Fast forward 20 years. The abuse was revealed and the older sister told everyone to forgive the predator. She chose to keep him in her life, like a brother.
The victim no longer trusted her sister and their relationship was never the same again.
Now the older sister feels rejected by the family because of her constant support for the predator. She still feels that forgiving the predator was the best course of action, and she cannot comprehend the depth of her younger sister’s pain.
Sixty years have passed and the whole family is still clouded by this infidelity.
The older sister feels like she’s a victim, because of the palpable rejection she feels from everyone else in the family.
After all this time, is there hope that trust can be restored? How are they supposed to make it up?
They are all seniors now and they could both greatly benefit from each other’s company and love.
Your advice?
Broken family
Best Broken: The older sister seems to have devoted all her compassion and forgiveness to the man who sexually abused her young and vulnerable sister throughout much of the girl’s childhood.
Where is her compassion, forgiveness and understanding for her sister, who suffered as a child – and who may continue to suffer?
Sexual abuse of a child is the ultimate offense. The older sister has no right to claim victimhood, but this could be her way of trying to cover up her own guilt – and perhaps gain sympathy as a way of getting back into the family circle.
Your letter highlights the legacy of childhood traumas that, unless addressed in a therapeutic context, will continue to hurt and divide family members—possibly into the next generation, when no one will even know the origin story.
Both sisters are locked in stubborn positions. Nothing will change unless they are both inspired and motivated to speak their truth honestly.
The younger sister must be given space to heal further. The elder should be encouraged to understand how her long-ago choice became an important test of trust and loyalty.
The sisters may need to return to the painful events of their childhood and rebuild from there. A family counselor could try to mediate a detente between the two. If you can get them both to the table, you’ll help blaze a new trail for your family.
Dear Amy: Thanks for seeing both sides of the “I’ve Got a Secret” question, who kept his close friendship with his ex-girlfriend a secret from his ex-girlfriend.
I broke off a long term friendship with my ex boyfriend due to the jealousy of the man I was dating (we have since broken up). It was one of the most painful experiences of my life.
Thank you for encouraging openness and for defending everyone’s right to maintain friendships.
Still sad
Dear sad: It’s a really tough dynamic, requiring honesty and trust.
You can email Amy Dickinson at [email protected] or write a letter to Ask Amy, PO Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.
