DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: I have been dating “Greg” for nearly a year and we share mostly everything about our pasts. But I have not been able to bring myself to tell him about how I was sexually assaulted at a family reunion the summer before I graduated high school. I have been in therapy and I am doing better with how I deal with it, but I just can’t tell how Greg would handle knowing his girlfriend had been raped. How soon would be too soon, or too late? --- AFRAID TO TELL

DEAR AFRAID TO TELL: There’s no quick and easy answer for how or when to open up a particularly painful part of your life to someone, no matter how well you know them.

If this is looking like a truly committed relationship, there will come a point when the revelation should be made, especially if it’s part of your healing.

Consulting with your therapist should help, since your provider knows your particular story and, hopefully, also some suggestions of what’s worked for others in your situation.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: I’m still new at my job, but I keep seeing something that really bugs me.

It’s a healthcare center and my boss frequently leaves HIPAA-sensitive information laying around open on her desk even when she has outsiders in her office. She has left files and reports in the conference room, and once, in the lunch room.

I get that everyone slips sometimes, but this could get us all in trouble if a state agency shows up. I don’t know my boss’s boss, but I work closely with a very experienced woman, who is just above me, and just under our common boss. She is at another facility most of the time, so I don’t think she knows about what’s happening in ours. But she is in charge of the training for both buildings, so she is in our place fairly often.

Would it be wrong of me to tell her what my boss is doing? I don’t want my boss to be mad at me for going under her head, but I also don’t want to have everyone get in trouble. --- NEEDS TO PROTECT OTHERS’ PRIVACY

DEAR NEEDS TO PROTECT OTHERS’ PRIVACY: I’m guessing your boss is indeed in violation of at least company policies, not to mention good sense HIPAA practices.

It seems to me you would be perfectly justified in speaking to another employee who is in a position to take your concerns to the boss, provided she can do it without naming you as the source of the concern.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: I dropped something on the floor of my boyfriend’s car, and when I went to pick it up, my hand hit a magazine under the seat, which I pulled up figuring he was looking for it. It was an over the top raunchy porn magazine. When I asked him about it, he said it wasn’t his. He told me it was his roommate’s and that he would not buy anything like that.

I don’t know if I am more bothered by the content of the magazine or the suspicion that it really does belong to my boyfriend and that he is lying to me. I don’t want to make a big deal about it, but it is becoming a big deal in my own mind. Am I dumb to doubt? --- DOUBTING MY BOYFRIEND’S HONESTY

DEAR DOUBTING MY BOYFRIEND’S HONESTY: Do you have cause to doubt what your boyfriend is telling you based on other experiences you’ve had with him? If so, then you’re probably wise to not take everything he tells you as gospel. If he can’t, ─ or doesn’t want ─ to tell the truth, you need to think hard about the potential longevity of this relationship.

On the other hand, if you can verify that the magazine belongs to his roommate, then the offensive content becomes the main story.