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Why do they need to include husbands?

DEAR ABBY: Several married female friends and my married sister seem unable to have one-on-one conversations, outings or a lunch date with me without including their husbands.

DEAR ABBY: Several married female friends and my married sister seem unable to have one-on-one conversations, outings or a lunch date with me without including their husbands.

Several times after making a lunch date, one friend, unbeknownst to me, has called her husband and invited him as well. Another friend's husband never seems to allow her to talk to me alone, and will even be on speaker or another phone listening.

My sister will not read her emails from me, but instead has her husband read them aloud to her while she's doing something else and then dictates a few words to reply to me with.

There is nothing I would say to these ladies that I wouldn't want their husbands to hear, but can you tell me why certain women feel a need to include their spouses in their female relationships in this manner?

- Frustrated with my BFFs

DEAR FRUSTRATED: Your friends may assume that you like their husbands' company as much as they do. Or their husbands may be retired or semiretired and have no social lives of their own. Of course, the way to get a direct answer to your question would be to ask them why they do this, and because you feel it is rude, you should tell them.

DEAR ABBY: Last year a neighbor confided to me that she had been sexually assaulted. In an effort to both show and invite compassion, I told her I empathized with her because I had been assaulted on multiple occasions as a child and teen.

I have now learned that this woman has told other neighbors that I "had sex with a lot of men," but she failed to put it in the context that I was a child victim of multiple predators.

I have no shame or guilt issues over what happened to me because I worked through that long ago. But I'm at a loss about what, if anything, I should do. I have already learned the painful lesson that she wasn't worthy of my trust and has serious issues of her own.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

- Re-victimized

DEAR RE-VICTIMIZED: You have every right to be angry with the blabbermouth. Because the word is out, set the record straight with the neighbors who were kind enough to tell you that your confidence wasn't respected.

And in the future, I wouldn't blame you if you avoided the woman who started the rumors whenever possible, and let her know why.