Never too old for the drama of Facebook

Originally published in 2013.

Dear Annie: My husband, “Clark,” and I have been married for 47 years. We both have Facebook accounts.

A year ago, Clark became friends with “Toni,” an ex-girlfriend from his late-teen years. I am my husband’s third wife. Toni has been married at least twice, maybe three times. I’ve lost track.

The problem is, Clark and Toni were chatting and “poking ” each other regularly until his sister told him it wasn’t fair to me. Clark claimed that he stopped chatting.

However, the poking has continued.

A few months ago, I sent Toni a friend request.

All of Clark’s friends from his hometown have friended me right off, but Toni didn’t respond. Clark then asked her to do it as a favour to him.

She then sent me a friend request, with no mention of being sorry for ignoring my previous one. I agreed so as not to be rude.

When Toni’s birthday came, I wished her a happy birthday. Our birthdays are in the same month. She ignored mine.

Last week, I taught Clark how to delete a poke, and he did. But this week, they are doing it again. Since he was the one who did the delete, he must have been the one to start back up.

When I asked him, his response was that nothing is going on and Facebook chatting and poking is no big deal.

Clark has even commented that he would like to meet Toni, with me, just to see what she looks like now.

Toni is not the only female who regularly pokes Clark on Facebook. I have told him that liking and sharing posts is less personal than pokes, chatting and messages.

Now he is talking about creating a Twitter account.

Am I overreacting, or should Clark be more considerate of my feelings? Torn

Dear Torn: This boils down to trust. Something about Toni is ringing a lot of bells in your head, and Clark should respect this by limiting contact. However, he doesn’t seem to have done anything untoward, so he objects to your reaction.

Try calmly explaining why Toni bothers you and why it’s important that his behaviour reassure, rather than alarm, you.

He needs to know this is moving into risky territory.