My ex from hell

Most people have probably had them – exes from hell. But what makes someone you once loved turn into someone you absolutely hate. At some stage in our lives we all would have fallen in love and fallen out of love and sometimes you go your separate ways and that’s that. But sometimes cling on to the point that it becomes unhealthy. 

The discussion around exes from hell was sparked by an article I read about a British woman who was subject to a campaign of harassment from somebody she was dating. And the person she was dating was actually a policeman who had contacted her using her phone number he had lifted off an accident report she had filed some time earlier. 

He had obviously seen her at the police station, was attracted to her, got her number, texted her and they went out for a while. Then she broke up with him because she found out that he actually had a girlfriend at the time of them getting together. And instead of just going his own way after the breakup, he got all his friends on the police force to start harassing her. According to the article, these officers pulled her over more than seventy times for what she called “trumped up charges” like suspicion of drinking and driving and so on. 

I don’t fully grasp the idea of someone behaving in this manner. I have a friend who broke up with what can only be described as a psychotic woman, who was so angry at being dumped that she made his life a living hell. She keyed his brand new car, showed up at his place of work and caused a huge fuss that he had to be called in by his boss and reprimanded and she continuously harassed him on his phone – using text messages and emails to wield her madness. Eventually, this chap had to file a restraining order against her before he let up. 
 
According to relationship expert, Fiona Dorse, a lot of these issues post-breakup lies in the fact that there’s unfinished business. For the person that’s creating this havoc, the anger stems from them feeling a little short changed of the future plans that they had made. And this might be all in the one person’s mind and the partner not necessarily privy to it.   

But the fact is: people do battle to move on from relationships because they simply can’t let go, and what they do is try and re-win this love they once had and they feel that partner is irreplaceable. In normal behaviour, psychology tells us, we would contact the person through texts and social media perhaps, but when this behaviour escalates, you can experience an ex from hell. And more often than not there is an underlying mental or psychological problem or a social disorder. 
 
It’s problem when battling to let go turns into inappropriate contact with the person after you’re told it’s over, trying to contact them through friends and family, or escalating it to stalking where you’re waiting in places you know this person is likely to show up. This goes beyond the normal scope of: “This is a difficult break up!” 
Other relationship experts say that there are some people who just can’t handle the rejection and they don’t accept the rejection, so they live in the unrealistic hope that they will get back together with their exes. 

Often people that are most vulnerable are those that define themselves through the relationship, so their whole being is dependent on being with this person, and they get the feeling that once this person has left, they will have nothing more to live for. The idea, for me, would be to remember who you were before you met this person. And draw strength and hope from the fact that you lived your life perfectly well before you got into the relationship. 

Here are some exes hell-bent on getting revenge

1.    The person who went all Carrie Underwood on his car (scratching it with a key).
2.    The girl who burned her Valentine’s Day gifts full of lies.
3.    The person who gave away her guy’s possessions.
4.    The girl who sent her ex on a breakup scavenger hunt.
5.    The person who broke up in the best way possible, which makes the breakup even more sad.
6.    The ex-wife who used the joint bank account to make a very public breakup.
7.    The guy who put the girlfriend’s clothes on the curb.
8.    The guy who took the dog.
9.    The girl who went way too hard on the TMI game.

There are a number of things that you can do if you think you are being stalked by an ex? But, if you are not sure you’re being stalked by your ex, here are some tell-tale signs for Stalking Victims from nobullying.com.
 
1.    Your former partner pops up almost everywhere you go.
2.    You have to deal with repeated, unwanted contact or communication.
3.    Your ex is repeatedly sending you gifts you don’t want.
4.    Your ex is threatening to hurt or kill you or members of your family.
5.    Your former beau is threatening to commit suicide.
 
Have you ever been stalked or had a bad situation take place at the hands of an ex? You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1 and tweet him your thoughts.