Ex Troubles, Now Troubles

Helo

New member
I'm kinda bummed that I couldn't come up with a more clever title, the word "ex" should lend itself to some interesting wordplay.

I'm at a little bit of a sticky situation that I'm fairly unfamiliar with and wouldn't mind some input on.

Prologue: I was in a mono relationship for five years, we'd been exclusive and very mono, engaged to be married, talking about kids, the whole nine yards. Our relationship fell apart for a variety of reasons, poly being one. To call it a messy breakup would be akin to calling the Hindenburg an "oopsie." A lot of bitterness and anger on both sides, for valid and bullshit reasons. One of her best friends is a ladyfriend of my acquaintance currently, that was an arrangement that my ex proposed before we separated and her friend and I have continued. We try to keep it out of the limelight, neither of us has a desire to "rub" anything in anyone's face.


Currently, my ex and I have been separated for a year and change. I haven't even spoken to her in probably a year. Recently I came to learn that she's been..."checking up on me" via FB through the accounts of other people. A little FB stalking is whatever, but I have also come to learn that she's aware of my presence on other sites. Sites where there is no way that I am aware of that she would know of. She's apparently read my entire OKC profile that no one I know has. She's also, from what I hear, been stepping up her inquiries about me to mutual friends.

This is a little...unsettling. I'm not in fear for my life or anything like that but, emotional stability has never been her strong suit and actively searching me out and keeping tabs on me for a considerable stretch of time after we've separated is not the most normal activity in the world.

I'm used to ex's who have problems, but its usually DUDE ex's that get the hint once they see the 6'1'' friend standing behind the girlfriend when she reiterates that they are over. I have no real experience dealing with an ex girlfriend who hasn't crossed the "restraining order" line yet but is still paddling around in the shallow end of crazy.

I'm not interested in making up and being friends, I'm not looking to bury any animosity or sign a peace treaty. I just want to be left alone.
 
Hi Helo :)

I've had to deal with something similar. Anecdote first, if you like? I dated a crazy woman for a few months, who would not leave me alone for about a year. And she genuinely was crazy, as I later discovered. She eventually found my FetLife page and posted a nice big link to it on her blog, for all the world of fellow crazies to see. She had talked about me on her blog over the previous year - she had a little rally of followers. It certainly freaked me out, because through FetLife, people can relatively easily find out what events you will be attending, what you look like if your picture is up and so forth.

Now.... in terms of your ex.

You say you don't fear for your life - so it's just a privacy issue?

You have a couple of options. Either simply ignore her and leave her to it. Or, call her out on her behaviour and try to embarrass her into stopping. Most likely, she came across your OKC profile by accident, or ran a search for your description hoping to find you. Either way, it doesn't say much about her besides what you already know ;)

With my stalker ex? I sent her an email, telling her in no uncertain terms that she had better be removing the link to my FL from her profile. I reported her to FL... but... unfortunately discovered that really, anything we put online is our choice. It's a public forum and by involving ourselves in it, we relinquish our right to privacy.

You know her best, so I say choose the option that makes the most sense for you. Want to avoid drama? Probably best to let her get on with it - she'll get bored if she doesn't have your attention. Don't mind drama but want to give her a piece of your mind? Then tell her politely and firmly. Even sarcastically... "Can I help you with an unresolved issue, because it has been brought to my attention that you have been asking friends about me lately and reading my OKC profile?"
 
You could change your user names to ones you have never used before. Basically start new social media accounts she is unaware of. Delete your OKC and start over for example. FB is tricky as I assume you don't want to delete and restart that. I wonder if blocking the friends she is using to check up on you would help? Not a great option I know and may not work anyway given how difficult it is to truly control information on FB. You may want to consider leaving it entirely.

Maybe some of the more techy members have some stalker foiling ideas?

I also agree with a traceable form of letter (email, certified letter - something not on a social media site) to tell her to politely and firmly stop checking up on you online. I say polite because - gods forbid - if this escalates you do NOT want to have even a whiff of threatening words from you to create a 'he said, she said' situation. Document everything - if this gets worse and hopefully it won't - she's just morbidly curious or something - you will have the information at hand.

I hope this turns out to be a short term annoyance. Good luck.
 
You can also ask your friends to change the privacy settings of posts you make on their account to not be visible to the public, not show up on their feed, etc. Change our own fb privacy settings to only friends, not friends of friends, etc. Make sure she is blocked too. Then she won't be able to see anything you post and vice versa.
 
You can also ask your friends to change the privacy settings of posts you make on their account to not be visible to the public, not show up on their feed, etc. Change our own fb privacy settings to only friends, not friends of friends, etc. Make sure she is blocked too. Then she won't be able to see anything you post and vice versa.

It sounds as if these "friends" are letting the ex use their profiles to look at the OP's. If he were to elaborate in that, then cool.
 
...actively searching me out and keeping tabs on me for a considerable stretch of time after we've separated is not the most normal activity in the world.

Honestly...I kinda disagree with this. You two were together for 5 years, planned on being together forever, and it has only been about a year since that ended. I don't think it is at all unusual for her to still be dealing with the grief of that kind of loss.

It doesn't sound like she is trying to initiate contact, or actually *do* anything to or with you. If that is the case, maybe let whoever is tattling to you about her FB/OKC escapades know that you just don't want to hear about it. If she does try to contact you or impact your life, you can deal with the specific action when it occurs.

But honestly, I don't see this as crazy-person behavior. It just sounds like coping with grief. Even if she wanted it to end, there is still going to be a lot of emotional work to do to get over the ending of a relationship that intimate. True, not everyone will go to these lengths to check up on an ex, but that doesn't mean she is dangerous.
 
Honestly...I kinda disagree with this. You two were together for 5 years, planned on being together forever, and it has only been about a year since that ended. I don't think it is at all unusual for her to still be dealing with the grief of that kind of loss.

It doesn't sound like she is trying to initiate contact, or actually *do* anything to or with you. If that is the case, maybe let whoever is tattling to you about her FB/OKC escapades know that you just don't want to hear about it. If she does try to contact you or impact your life, you can deal with the specific action when it occurs.

But honestly, I don't see this as crazy-person behavior. It just sounds like coping with grief. Even if she wanted it to end, there is still going to be a lot of emotional work to do to get over the ending of a relationship that intimate. True, not everyone will go to these lengths to check up on an ex, but that doesn't mean she is dangerous.

I agree with AJ1. Unless it escalates, just ignore it.

Since you're not interested in apologizing to your ex and making peace, let her work out her anger in her own way.

You were with her for five years, and now you've been sleeping with her friend for about a year...a year goes by pretty quick, and it's not unreasonable for her to still be angry and grieving.
 
Honestly...I kinda disagree with this. You two were together for 5 years, planned on being together forever, and it has only been about a year since that ended. I don't think it is at all unusual for her to still be dealing with the grief of that kind of loss.

It doesn't sound like she is trying to initiate contact, or actually *do* anything to or with you. If that is the case, maybe let whoever is tattling to you about her FB/OKC escapades know that you just don't want to hear about it. If she does try to contact you or impact your life, you can deal with the specific action when it occurs.

But honestly, I don't see this as crazy-person behavior. It just sounds like coping with grief. Even if she wanted it to end, there is still going to be a lot of emotional work to do to get over the ending of a relationship that intimate. True, not everyone will go to these lengths to check up on an ex, but that doesn't mean she is dangerous.
I definitely see your point and were I giving input on this subject, I'd probably say about the same thing.

There is some backstory that I cant really share out of privacy concerns. Even on an "anonymous" forum with people I dont know, there were some things that happened that, in conjunction with this kind of behavior, are a little worrisome. The most specific I feel comfortable being is that she had some health problems that were poorly handled and seriously upset her judgement.


I've already dealt with the friends in question, and I fully agree with the quotation marks. They've been removed from being able to see me or my activity on the various sites. I cant do much about OKC because I have no idea how she found it and the only way she could have was by actively searching me out.

This absolutely isnt an "I fear for my life" situation, I'm just a little off-balance as I've never really dealt with this kind of situation before.
 
I have no real experience dealing with an ex girlfriend who hasn't crossed the "restraining order" line yet but is still paddling around in the shallow end of crazy.

Sigh. Sorry you are dealing with that. :(

I'm glad you are wise enough not to be posting too many details online. I will assume truthiness in that you have more weird backstory you are not at liberty to reveal. If that is the case?

Could tell her you are aware of her activities. In front of witnesses. And tell her to cease and desist and to please respect that. (Maybe you do it by certified mail or something rather than in person. Whatever it best in your case.)

Go home, write statement summarizing this was done, take you and your witnesses to notary, have notary watch you sign statement, get notary to notarize statement. File it safe somewhere. $10 for the stamp is cheap for your piece of mind.

She doesn't have to know this bit. It's for YOU, should she start something else and try to change the name of the song if she chooses more crazy behavior.

Hopefully it will come to naught but should you have to start gathering evidence for a restraining order -- there ya go. First item in the folder and you aren't starting from ground zero scrambling around.

GG
 
Last edited:
Back
Top