[jjmac382]

Hey, I was wondering if anyone could help me out with this situation. It is somewhat hard to explain it but I will try my hardest. I am a 22 yr old senior in college and my ex Kayla is a year younger than I am. We began dating in August 09 and things were great or so I thought. The only problem in our relationship would be when my female high school friends would call me or if I went to a party and they attended. I understood that she might not have been comfortable with me talking to them since she did not know them, but she would always accuse me of cheating on her with them, which was not true. Around Thanksgiving, we started to see each other less and less as time went on because we were both busy with finals exams and end of the year papers and we understood that things would return to normal after our schedules eased. During our Christmas break, we did not get to see each other as much as we wanted to because we live in different states, but we tried to make the best of it. We would text each other all day and at night, we would call one another and talk for hours. During these conversations, she would always tell me how much she loved me and wished that we were older so that we could get married and start a family.
As our break continued, I started to realize that we were talking less during the day and she started to complain about how much she missed me and wanted to see. But whenever I would try to make plans to see her she would make up and excuse saying that she was either busy babysitting her cousin who just had surgery (which I completely understood) or that she didn’t have any money (which made no sense because I always paid for everything). After returning to school, a mutual friend of ours went on facebook and saw comments from her to another person telling him how awesome he is, how she misses him, and how it was great spending time with him. After our friend brought this information to me, I confronted her about it and she claimed that he was just a high school friend at first, but later said that she has been dating him and that we are not dating anymore because we did not see each other in a while.
Since she revealed that she has been cheating on me with this guy since the beginning of December, I stopped talking to her and all but one of our mutual friends stopped talking to her. Being newly single, my friends and I started going out to parties more often and I decided that I should not let this situation upset me and have fun during my last semester of college. Nevertheless, as I was starting to get over my ex, my mom passed away on January 17th. Along with having to deal with the passing of my mother, my ex began to call and text me every day this week trying to talk to me like nothing has changed between the two of us. She has been telling me that if I have any problems I can always call her and talk to her and that I can trust her, which I obviously can’t. Along with trying to get me to tell her of any problems I have, she has started to ask me if we can go away on spring break together or if we can still go to basketball games like we did in the past while we were dating. I really don’t understand why she would think that everything between us would be ok, or why she would get upset that I don’t invite her to hang out with me and my friends when we get to meet NBA players because of perks I received from my internship.
What I’m really trying to figure out is why does she keep trying to pretend that things between us are normal. Yes deep down there is part of me that still loves her, and wants her back even though she broke my heart, but I have told her that I do not think it is appropriate that we talk or hang out anymore. Even though I dislike her current boyfriend for getting with my ex while she was still dating me, I’m not the kind of guy to put myself in a situation that would cause problems in another person’s relationship, especially since she keeps saying that she wants to spend spring break with me and keeps telling me that hopefully we can start dating in the future.

[April Masini]

First of all, I’m very sorry about your mother’s death this month. That loss is probably making anything that’s emotionally charged seem super-charged. That said, you really seem to have your head on straight about how you want to handle your ex-girlfriend who is now pursuing you again.

Since you’ve already told her you don’t want to go out, and she continues to ignore you by trying to make things “normal”, you’re the one who has to set the tone and the boundary for your own life. If you continue to let her set the boundaries then you’re going to continue to feel confused, irked and eventually more than annoyed — angry. So my advice is not to take her calls or texts. You can start doing this gradually.

I’m not sure how often she’s contacting you, but you can respond only once every ten days and tell her you got all her messages, but you really don’t want to have any contact with her any more. If she continues, only respond once a month. And then if she STILL pursues you, stop responding altogether.

What happened in your relationship with her, is that while you were still in the relationship, she made the decision to start dating other people without telling you, and she made the decision to tell you the relationship was over, once you found out she was dating someone else and confronted her. Now, she’s trying to make the decision in your relationship again, by attempting to force “old normality” back on you by asking you out, contacting you frequently, and assuming intimacy that is no longer there. You are the one who has to step up to the plate this time and tell her, game over, quit it.

It sounds like this is new behavior for you, but I know you can do it. She’s not used to being told what the rules are, but by not taking her calls at all, she’ll figure it out eventually.

I hope this helps.

Let me know how things go.

[jjmac382]

Hey April,

Thanks for your help. To clear a few things up, she began to see her new boyfriend or “the boy” as she now refers to him whenever she calls me, in the beginning of December while we were still dating. All throughout the month she would still call and text me telling me that she loved me and wanted to marry me and start a family. I only found out that she was cheating on me in January when a friend saw comments she made on facebook towards the other guy. After finding this information out, she tried to deny everything but then admitted to her infidelity which led to us ending our relationship. Since then she has called or text me everyday trying to strike up a conversation and telling me that “hopefully we can get back together in the future”. I’ve tried to ignore her attempts at contacting me, but the constant ringing of my phone has started to annoy my roommates so I just answer. I have also tried to block her phone number but my cell phone carrier said I can not do it unless I change my service and remove all text messaging.

Thanks again for all of your help.

[April Masini]

If it’s that bad, send her a typed letter telling her to stop calling you, texting you and contacting you altogether, because she is disturbing you and your roommates with her excessive calls. Tell her that if she doesn’t stop contacting you immediately, you will contact the police for help. Send the letter certified with a return receipt, and keep a copy for your files.

If that doesn’t help, contact the police, give them a copy of the letter and the return receipt that shows she received the letter and ask them for help. She’s harassing you and there are laws that will protect you.

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