Dear Jane,

My husband and I have been married for six months and together for almost three years (we are both in our mid-30s).

However, before he and I got together, he was married to another woman – his high school sweetheart.

They were together for about a decade until she suddenly decided to leave him for another man she met at work.

I became the first girl he dated after his marriage ended, and we’ve been really happy together since then. However, I’ve always had this lingering fear that he might still have feelings for his ex-wife.

Recently, something heartbreaking occurred. While being intimate with my husband a few nights ago, he called out his ex-wife’s name very clearly. I was taken aback, pulled away, and couldn’t help but cry.

My husband immediately tried to assure me it was an honest mistake and that he was sorry.

And, in turn, I tried to put it to the back of my mind. But I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Feeling unsettled, I resorted to checking his ex-wife’s Facebook profile to gather some information. I noticed that her relationship status was updated to ‘single’. I felt guilty for admitting that I had checked her profile multiple times before. I also recalled that her Facebook account once mentioned that she was ‘married’ to the man she left my husband for.

My husband just called me by the worst name imaginable in bed. Should I leave him?

Now my head is spinning. I’m wondering if my husband’s ex-wife has reached out to him now she is single — which is why he’s thinking about her and said her name in bed. I fear that if she wanted to get back together with him he would leave me in a heartbeat.

Am I being crazy? My husband assured me that I had nothing to worry about, but I have a really bad feeling. I have trust issues from past relationships that are making me even more insecure about it all.

Should I reach out to his ex-wife and confront her? Maybe I could create a fake account on Facebook and accuse her of going after a married man to see how she reacts? Or, should I continue to question him — even though I might ultimately push him away?

From,

Name Shame

International best-selling author Jane Green offers sage advice on readers’ most burning issues in her agony aunt column

Dear Name Shame,

I feel the pain and fear in your letter.

I can only imagine how jolting it was to hear your husband call out his ex-wife’s name at such an intimate moment. And I can see how your imagination is going into overdrive.

Ruminating, the act of repetitive thinking — as you are currently doing — is what gets us into these spirals of anxiety, even when the situation does not necessarily warrant such intense angst.

This is not to say that you have nothing to worry about, but simply to point out that you may be overreacting before knowing all the facts.

Feeling threatened by someone else is a horrible feeling, but I’m wondering if your imagination is getting the best of you here.

Perhaps a lack of self-worth is causing you to imagine that you are not as good as his first wife and leading you to jump to conclusions.

On the other hand, this might be intuition — that feminine, deep-seated sense that something isn’t right.

Either way, thinking about it over and over isn’t going to help you resolve this. Nor will stalking her social media accounts looking for clues, or throwing accusations at her.

Everything you’re thinking is based on feelings, and feelings are not facts — making such accusations will only have you looking (and feeling) crazy.

What you must now do is find a way to navigate through this hard time and get to the root of your trust issues and insecurities.

There are several effective methods for dealing with past trauma — in your case, trust issues from previous relationships.

I encourage you to look into EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy — a form of psychotherapy used to help resolve trauma-related disorders. I think it could help you understand why you are having such a strong reaction.

Remember, the very worst that can happen here is you get your heart broken, and even heartbreak is a valuable lesson that can lead to change for the better.

Dear Jane,

I’m part of a large group of girl friends in our 20s who live in New York City. For the most part, things are very fun and we have a good time.

However, recently I’ve been getting frustrated by all the money I am expected to drop on the other girls’ birthdays.

There are eight of us, and for everyone’s birthday we go out for at least one fancy meal — bottomless brunch or a nice dinner. We cover the birthday girl’s share of the bill, decorate her apartment, get a cake, order flowers, buy her drinks at the bars and splash out on tickets to events or club entry.

All of this really adds up — usually a birthday weekend ends up costing me close to $500!

At the most recent birthday dinner, I decided to opt out of drinking to save some money — but then the bill and everyone expected it to be split evenly, with no discussion.

I love spending time with the girls, and I don’t want to miss out on these occasions. But I can’t afford to keep doing dropping insane sums on birthdays.

What makes the situation more annoying is that my birthday lands in August — so half the group is usually away on vacation, meaning they don’t have to spend any money at all, which feels unfair.

I get half the gifts, half the drinks and half the party.

How can I be a part of this friend group and still be involved in birthdays without going broke?

From,

Party Pooper

Dear Party Pooper,

I can well imagine how stressed you are at the amount you have to spend on your friends — $500 a birthday is a huge sum of money!

Today’s world comes with so many pressures, not least appearing to be as good as everyone else. I know so many people who have spent recent years struggling financially, terrified that anyone might learn they’re having a hard time keeping up with the Joneses.

When we start being honest about where we are in life, it opens the door to more authentic and meaningful relationships.

If you’re struggling with spending this amount on birthdays, I guarantee other girls in the group feel the same way, but nobody is saying anything because they’re all terrified of being the odd one out.

We are all so scared of being judged because, deep down, most of us are nursing a large pit of shame — whether it relates to our childhood, a trauma, past relationships, most of us secretly feel that we’re not good enough. 

We feel we’re not clever, thin, pretty, wealthy or successful enough.

This is why we agree to drop money we can’t afford to spend, just so our peers will know that everything in our life is good.

I want you to be brave and tell your friends that you can’t afford to keep spending like this.

Suggest an alternative — perhaps a dinner and flowers without all the extra frills of the apartment decorations, the cake, the club nights. Or skip the dinner and hit the club — dealer’s choice!

There are plenty of alternative solutions that will leave each birthday girl feeling appropriately celebrated.

You are worrying they will think less of you, but I think that’s unlikely. Given the high price tag I imagine they’ll be grateful you brought it up. And if not, if they somehow ostracize or judge you for not wanting to spend, then they are not the friends you thought they were.