Victim kept rape a secret for decades

DEAR ABBY: Thirty-five years ago I was raped by a stranger. He told me he would kill me if I ever told anyone. I never told my husband (now ex-), mostly because I was afraid if I did he would never touch me again. So I lived with the secret. It eventually tore our marriage apart and we divorced.

Although we have both moved on and remarried, we have remained in touch. I am 60 now and he is 64. I yearn to tell him the story before one of us leaves this Earth. I want him to understand and hopefully forgive me for the events that drove us apart. Please advise me on this. — Still Not Over It in Maryland

DEAR STILL NOT OVER: If it will bring you comfort, reveal the secret you hid from your ex-husband. However, before you do, I urge you to first disclose it to someone trained to help victims of rape.

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have been married a year and a half, although we’ve been together off and on for more than 13 years.

I sometimes get the feeling that he married me only because he was tired of being alone. He often compares me to his late wife, and he always commemorates both her birthday and the day she passed away.

What I have a problem with is, every year he posts happy birthday, and her name, on Facebook, but he never mentions my name on Facebook. Should I bring this up to him or just let him continue? — Current Wife in Texas

DEAR CURRENT WIFE: The basis of a solid marriage is communication. By all means bring it up — all of it — and tell him how it makes you feel. He may be trying to keep his late wife’s memory alive by wishing her happy birthday on Facebook, but as far as Facebook’s reach may be, I’m pretty sure the messages don’t reach the great beyond. That he would mention her birthday and not yours is insensitive.

DEAR ABBY: We invited friends over to enjoy our bounty from a successful fishing trip. They live about an hour away. They accepted our invitation, then followed up with, “Can you put us and our two dogs up overnight if we drink too much?” I replied that we meant the invitation for humans only this time. They replied, “We’re sorry you don’t want our well-behaved ‘girls’ in your newly remodeled home.” And, Abby, they didn’t come! Was I wrong? — Animal Lover, But …

DEAR LOVER: I’m kind of feeling they overreacted. If you preferred they not bring uninvited guests, whether of the two-footed or four-footed variety, you were within your rights to refuse to have them.