RELATIONSHIPS
Relationships With Ray
Dear Ray, I split up with my girlfriend two months ago, but she will not leave me alone!
Dear Ray,
I split up with my girlfriend two months ago, but she will not leave me alone. We were together for just under a year and had a lovely time for the early part of the relationship. But as time went on she became more and more possessive and insecure about things. Although we were not living together, she spent much of her time in my apartment and was very clingy.
Although I did tell her I loved her during the early part of the relationship, I now know that it was not love, it was infatuation. But my ex believes it was love, and she is constantly on at me about how I said I loved her, and how love is forever.
When we split up, she was very upset (it was my decision) and I promised her that we could remain friends. It was very upsetting to see her so hurt, but I felt our relationship had no future and had to take the bull by the horns and end it. She has taken my promise to remain friends as something else, however. I believe she still thinks she is in a relationship with me.
She still had the key to my apartment when we split, and then I started coming home from work to find her there waiting for me, either in tears or with the dinner cooked and full of smiles, as if this was an arrangement between us. So I asked for the key back and said we had to stay away from each other for a while, until we separated emotionally.
She will not accept this. She constantly phones and texts me, is waiting outside my apartment building for me when I get home from work and on a couple of occasions when I have come home from a night out. She veers from being angry at me and aggressive in her attitude, to crying and begging me to try again. I try to be firm but kind to her, but I am feeling more and more angry and frustrated as time goes by.
A month ago I met a lovely woman and we have been seeing each other a bit. But I am seeing her secretly as if I am having an affair. I am actually afraid of what will happen when my ex finds out, so I go around with this woman like a fugitive.
I want my ex out of my life, but she just will not go. Have you any suggestions about how to help the situation?
Yours,
Amy
Amy,
By any chance, did you watch 'Fatal Attraction' and sympathetically envisage Glenn Close as an ideal friend? Because unless you are absolutely blunt with your girlfriend, boiled rabbit stew awaits your return one night. This is stalking, obsessional behavior, with no correlation to love, but every connection to possession, insecurity and violence. And Amy you are participating in this in humoring your ex, in concealing your new relationship. You are facilitating her.
Your ex sees nothing wrong, because you have not told her. She needs to know you have moved on and are seeing someone else. If you kid-handle her then she will act like a child. We mellowed inhabitants from planet Maturia recognise that relationships end, love changes, ceases, dies. Only someone naive and/or very manipulative as children can be, would argue "constantly how love is forever".
The only thing to break your ex's delusion, with her unwanted prepared evening meals, her nocturnal waiting outside your apartment, is hard, cold, blunt reality. If she will not hear you, if she will not see your new relationship and realise you have moved on; then legal intervention is necessary, either through a solicitor and/or the police. The Law is the only force that delusionals will pay attention to, because they have to, psychologically and culturally.
You need to stop tip-toeing around her and facilitating her delusions with promises like, "we could remain friends" or "we have to stay away from each other for a while". The delusional only hears the words 'remain', 'each other' and 'for a while'. Obsessionals cling to their obsession against all logic and reason until it is broken - no, not just broken, because that implies it might be fixed - until their delusion is shattered, destroyed. You are the only one whose actions, whose agency can do this.
You "had to take the bull by the horns and end it" before, but now you are going to have to put the bull out of its misery and shoot it. It is a mercy killing. This is not something to be calmed, placated, tamed by red cloaks and evasive manoeuvres. It needs a short sharp sword to kill. But you are afraid to do this, even your demand "I want my ex out of my life" is tempered by "Have you any suggestions about how to help the situation?" The situation cannot be helped; it has to end.
Is not fair on you, your new girlfriend and even on your ex, who is a victim of her own self-imprisoning delusion. You are acting like a fugitive, but you are cowardly fleeing your own responsibility. What is it you are afraid of? Why are you giving your ex so much power? There are questions here about your own participation and actions, as much as your ex's. She won't change, she has proven that, only you can. Stop this before it destroys someone, before it destroys you.
Ray