Ex-Spouse Stalking

by Alisa Peskin-Shepherd | Jan 16, 2017 | Off Topic

Admit it. You’ve done it. I know you have. I have too.

You’ve searched around on Facebook to find the new girlfriend of an ex or been the new flame that someone else spies on.

You hear from the kids that your ex is seeing someone new and you’ve googled to find all the dirt you can about this new love.

Social media makes it easy for us to be stalkers. I thought we were dignified, educated, intellectual people with our eye on the ball, but no, it turns out we’re just as base as the next person now that we can hide behind the screen quietly at home.

Yes, it’s sinister in a way but also really funny.

We’re all snooping on each other!!

A friend googled the man she started dating after her divorce and found a man with the same name in a different state who was a sex offender. With three young children, this friend was horrified – and searched high and low for a photo of the molester to make sure it wasn’t her new guy. (It wasn’t.)

Phew.

Relief. Close call. She almost (but not really) brought a child molester home.

Another friend receives text upon text from a long-ago love interest who never quite got serious, which is why she’s not with him anymore. But just when she gets annoyed with her new husband, he pops into her social media sphere or sends a text about how she’s such a MILF.

Nice.

Thanks, technology. You’ve made it easy for us to get close but not too close.

Creepy stalking behavior is the norm of the day. You can look online and find out more than you’d ever want to know about anyone, pretty much.

You can even find out that your ex is dating someone new when you would not otherwise know.

Or learn that your former best friend is no longer your friend (she unfriended you).

But don’t become obsessed with it. You let go of whoever it is for a reason. Don’t yearn to have them back just because they’re with someone new.

News flash: you can block people!! Unfollow. Unfriend. Keep them out of your (virtual) life.

You really don’t have to see whoever is out there. It’s within your control. (Really!)

That weirdo who wanted a second date after grabbing a piece of your anatomy – you never have to glimpse at him again.

Blocked.

That disgruntled colleague who was rude to you.

Blocked.

Your ex’s ex who still peers secretly at you online, commenting to her ex about the fun you were having with your new man on a boat this summer with friends causing your ex to broadcast snide remarks about you. (Quite a few individuals in this chain of exes could learn from this blog.)

Blocked. Blocked. Blocked.

It’s freeing, actually, to let go of people. Let them all go. Free yourself from the chains, imagined or otherwise, of social media.

Run free.

Search free.

Live free.

(And don’t forget to post about it.)

Just kidding.