Lack of trust

DEARANNIE » About sixmonths ago, my boyfriend, “Jordan,” relocated to another state for work. We’ve talked about my eventually moving there, too, sowe could be together, but we’ve held off making firm plans.

He says he needs more time to settle in to life there. He also says he wants to be positive he sees himself at this job long termbefore I uprootmy life, too.

He visited twice within the first month after moving, but in the past five months, he’s visited only once. I went out there once a couple of months ago. We do talk on the phone or video chat every other day, which helps.

The reason I’mwriting is this. A friend of mine was recently in Jordan’s town for work. She is single and uses a dating app that shows people within a fewmile radius. While she was on her trip, she was scrolling through profiles, when she came across Jordan and recognized him. ( She’s never met him in real life, but she’d seen photos of us.) She sentme a screenshot. I was shocked. I asked her to connectwith himon the app to see what he said. Hemessaged her back almost immediately — but not because he recognized her as a friend of mine. He thought she was just a randomwoman, and he started chatting her up and asking what she was up to.

Devastated, I called him immediately and asked for an explanation. He said that he was just using the app tomake friends and that if it mademe uncomfortable, he would delete his account. I told him I thought that was a good idea. I’mwondering whether I’d be a fool to trust thisman again. — Fooledonce

DEAR FOOLEDONCE » You knowthe saying, so I won’t remind you of the rest.

Don’t give Jordan another chance to break your trust. That dating app is not meant for making friends, and this man is not meant for you. As soon as you accept that, you’ll be one step closer to finding someone who is.

DEARANNIE » My father recently passed away. He had friends and acquaintances whom I did not know. Many came to hiswake and left Mass cards not from his church. The problem is that themajority did not put a return address on the card or envelope. I have noway of thanking these people now and feel bad about this. Please inform your readers that if they would like a thank- you for a kind gesture such as this, they should attach a return address label so the family of the deceased can know where to send it.

— Grieving inupstate NY

DEARGRIEVING » I amso sorry for your loss. Your plea is duly noted, though it sounds as though your father’s friends simply wanted to honor himand cared little about the acknowledgment— asign of what good company he kept.

DEARANNIE » My sister is 75 years old. She is a hoarder. She has lived at home her whole life and started accumulating junk soon after my dad died 10 years ago. If something comes into the house, it isn’t going out, as it is with most hoarders. So you can imagine what an appalling situation it has become.

My sister took care of my mom, whowas in a wheelchair until she died two years ago at age 93. I spent thousands of dollars between the time whenmy mom became ill and when she died, driving a 50- mile round trip every day for six years to helpmy sister take care of her. And I continued to do so every other weekend after our mom died, bringingmy grandsons to visit somy sisterwouldn’t feel lonely.

Recently, I took a tumble at the dog park and fracturedmy kneecap. I asked my sister whether I could borrowone of Mom’swheelchairs for a while. She told me to go look for one at Goodwill.

I figured that hermounds of precious junk must be more important to her than mymany years of loyalty, and I don’t want to ever visit her again. And she can’t visit me because she can’t bear the thought of getting rid of her broken- down Buick to buy a newone.

Do you think she would get helpwith her problem if I stopped seeing her, or would she just be happy alone with her stuff?

— Snuffedout by Stuff

DEAR SNUFFEDOUTBY

STUFF » Hoarding is a form of obsessive- compulsive disorder. The disorder does not operate in the realmof logic. You can’t reason with it. And you shouldn’t take it personally — because as much as it might seemto you that your sister is choosing her stuff over you, she’s not really choosing anything at this point. She’s simply acting on compulsions.

If youwant to stop visiting her for the sake of your own well- being, I applaud the boundary- setting. But it sounds as though you want to stop visiting her because you hope it would spur her to get help. If that’s the case, youwant to control the uncontrollable, and you’d most likely end up even more frustrated. Instead of basing decisions on howthey might or might not impact her hoarding behavior, base your decisions on what’s healthy for you.

Visit the hoarding section of the International OCD Foundation’s website ( https:// hoarding. iocdf. org) for information on what causes people to hoard and how you might be able to help.