Dear Shameika,
I’m a 45-year-old man that was dating a 40-year-old woman for a little over a year. I realized early on that this would never go anywhere because she wouldn’t let her wall down and was really surface — only caring about superficial things. I never felt like I could get to know the real her so I broke things off. Long story short, when I told her things weren’t working out, she stole my phone before storming out of my house. She started contacting people from my text conversations — including friends and coworkers — to see what my relationship was with them. It’s been three weeks and she says she doesn’t have the phone because she left it in a tree outside of my home. She even sent a video of herself putting the phone in the tree. I never found the phone, so I had to get a new phone but with the same phone number. Now she won’t stop calling, texting, calling my child’s phone and riding by my house to see who is there. She also wants to get back together. I’m not sure how to handle this.
-Dealing with Crazy
Dear Dealing with Crazy,
Let’s take a deep breathe and blink this one out shall we? Woooo-sahhhh.
You got you a live one right there. Have you ever seen A Thin Line Between Love and Hate? I think you caught a Brandi, sir, including a low-scaled version of scorned woman revenge tactics (that never work, by the way). I have to check you on something, you say you saw red flags early on, so why hang in there for over a year? Were you hoping things would change or were things just so bootylicious you couldn’t give it up?
Often we meet someone we really like, but then the universe begins to show us signs and, in this case, you chose to ignore them. You knew it wasn’t going to work for you, but did you get to the root of why she was keeping that wall up?
She clearly has some insecurity issues and, judging by your letter, I’d say you were right to get out while the getting was good. Now, I don’t know any grown-ass woman over the age of 35 that has the agility and flexibility to be climbing a tree while videotaping herself returning to the scene of a crime.
I’m assuming her point in taking your phone was to see if you were seeing other people, because I’m sure in her mind that would be the only way you would break up with her. Adults would have used their words and simply had the conversation about it, but it doesn’t sound like you scratched the surface to even figure out how she reacts to stressful situations. You didn’t mention if she found anything noteworthy, but that still doesn’t excuse her behavior, especially when it starts to cross over into your livelihood at work.
But I digress; you asked what you should do about her contacting you and your child and riding past your house. You need to change your phone number, block her and get a restraining order. There is no other way to handle this. She’s already proven her instability by climbing trees, and in my head, I have a vision of her doing this ridiculousness in heels. Since you clearly didn’t know she was capable of even doing this foolishness, you have no idea what she is capable of having had access to your phone and the info in it.
The other important thing here is that she probably knows a lot about your child, including their school and activities. So to protect your child and yourself, you have to put a restraining order in place. Of course, if she continues to violate that and your privacy, then you absolutely should call the police. There’s no reason that you should have to continue walking around looking over your shoulder wondering if she is going to jump out of a bush or roll out from under your car just to see what you are doing and who you are doing it with.
Bottom line, in the future when you see red flags waving, adhere to them and RUN! The universe doesn’t send signs just for the hell of it! Good luck!
If you have a dilemma you need help solving, drop me a line: shameika@themofochronicles.com
This work by Queen City Nerve is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Shameika, great response! Hope he takes your advice. What a wacko!