I was meeting up with a group of friends when one of them asked if I had deleted my Facebook. I hadn’t, and I said so, confused. He told me it was because I had disappeared from his friends list. I checked my phone and found he was blocked.
Along with a whole bunch of my other friends and acquaintances, every single one of them male, who I knew for a fact I hadn’t blocked. I was ninety-nine percent sure it was my boyfriend of seven months. He used my computer all the time, so it would have been easy for him to do it without me noticing. When we first started dating seriously, he had gotten jealous about a guy I messaged sometimes, totally platonic, and asked me to delete him.
I understood that one a little more because I’d had some history with that particular guy, and he had at least talked to me about it first instead of just doing it behind my back. This was different. This was him quietly removing my friends, on his own, without a word to me. It felt weird.
It felt controlling. I confronted him, and he admitted it straight away, like it was no big deal. I told him it hurt, and that it made me feel like he didn’t trust me. He said it wasn’t that he didn’t trust me, but that he didn’t trust my friends.
I asked him what he thought was going to happen, and whether he seriously thought I couldn’t handle myself if some guy did message me. He just kept repeating that it was normal for guys to be protective of their girlfriends. He genuinely didn’t seem to understand why I was upset. I hated that he did it behind my back.
I thought we had a good relationship. He had no reason not to trust me. I posted about it, and the responses were pretty unanimous: a massive red flag. Insecure guys like him seem to think you’re naive and have no say in the matter when a guy tries something.
It’s a deflective way of saying he doesn’t trust you. The comments told me to change my passwords and stop giving him access to my stuff, because he couldn’t be trusted with it. One comment in particular hit hard. A 28-year-old man dates a 22-year-old woman and takes the initiative to block her friends, it’s not a coincidence.
He’s dating you because of the age gap, not in spite of it. He thinks that because you’re younger and less experienced, he can control and manipulate you. If he tried that crap with a woman his own age, she’d dump him immediately. I had never thought the six-year difference was an issue.
But maybe it was. He obviously had more relationship experience than me, so maybe he really did think he could get away with it. The week that followed was tough, but I started to realize it was probably a good thing to be out of that relationship. The replies got me thinking about so many other things I had overlooked, because I just thought he loved me.
Really, they were him trying to control me. That night, I felt stupid for not noticing things earlier, and I couldn’t face talking to him. I was supposed to go to his place, but I texted him to say I couldn’t make it. He was pissed.
He kept calling, and I kept ignoring, but eventually I gave in. He asked me what was wrong, so I told him the Facebook thing had upset me and I didn’t like being controlled. He said I was only getting upset because I had a guilty conscience. That made me so mad that I told him if he really thought I’d cheated on him, then fine, it was over, and I hung up.
I was fuming, and I ignored his calls and messages for the rest of the night. The next day, after we’d both calmed down, I agreed to meet him. He acted like everything was okay, grinning and trying to hug and kiss me, but I pushed him away. We talked, but he never once apologized or backed down.
He was sticking to his stance: he didn’t trust them. He even tried to twist it into a compliment, saying those guys can’t help themselves. I had met him with a little hope that he’d apologize and we could work it out. But his reaction made me realize we couldn’t.
I told him he was full of crap and that he was trying to control me. I told him I didn’t want to be with him anymore. He got mad and called me all kinds of names. In some ways, that made it easier for me.
It reassured me I was doing the right thing. We had no contact for a couple of days, but then the calls started again. He left messages saying he was sorry and he loved me. I probably shouldn’t have, but I agreed to see him again.
He told me he only did it because he didn’t want to lose me. But I just got the feeling he was telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. I knew it was over, and I told him. He got mad again.
His parting words were something like, “Fine, go and be a freaking hoe then. ”
It was upsetting to hear from the man I thought loved me. But if that’s his opinion of me, then he’s not the guy for me. I haven’t heard from him in a few days.
Hopefully, I can get over it soon. —
I moved into my flat in October, taking the place of a mutual friend of mine and my new flatmate. We got on well, both having similar expectations and habits. We weren’t close friends, but we were friendly.
She seemed super normal and level-headed. When the lockdown began in March, my boyfriend of two years, who was living with his sister and mother, needed a place to stay. His mother was undergoing chemo and lived alone, so she moved into his room, and he came to stay with us. My flatmate was totally fine with it, and we had a proper chat about ground rules.
The flat was huge, and she had her own little granny flat setup in her room, so there was space. She gave definite approval. We three got on great, but we never really spent a ton of time together. My boyfriend cooked every night for the both of us as a thank you, and we did begin eating together, with my flatmate included.
It was all great. But last week, my boyfriend took me aside. He looked anxious and flustered. He told me that while he was hanging out the washing in the courtyard, she had ambushed him from behind and given a huge speech about how she was in love with him.
She said she respected that he was with me, but she had deep feelings for him and she was available if he were single. She asked him not to tell me. She didn’t try to kiss him, but she tried to hold his hand. He yanked it away and hurried back inside.
The flat atmosphere became very awkward. As far as she knew, he hadn’t said a word. I spoke to our mutual friend, who was shocked and said she’d never known her to do anything like this before. We couldn’t move because of the virus and money, so I asked for advice on how to deal with it.
The comments were clear: her behavior was inappropriate, disrespectful, and wrong. She had crossed major boundaries. She asked my boyfriend to keep a secret from me. She wasn’t just confessing her feelings; she was making a move on my boyfriend, knowing full well he wasn’t single.
The continued touching was harassment. I had to confront her. But before I got the chance, an update came three days later. I trusted my boyfriend completely.
He told me about the confession a couple of hours after it happened. He explained that he was afraid I wouldn’t believe him or would be angry, and that at first he’d thought it was a weird joke. I empathized with him, knowing it wasn’t easy to be in a situation where someone is sexually harassing you and you start to doubt if those brief moments of crossing a line even happened. He’s not on the lease, and she pays the bigger share, so he was worried about the power dynamic.
The tense few days of trying to avoid her came to a head yesterday morning. I was in the kitchen with my boyfriend, and my flatmate was in the living area. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I walked back out to grab my phone, I saw her sliding behind my boyfriend, who was looking in the fridge.
I watched as she ran her hand and forearm across his lower back, where his t-shirt had ridden up a little. My boyfriend yelped loudly, startled, and yelled at her to stop. Then he saw me and started going, “You see? You see?
This is what I was talking about. ”
I was furious, whole-body anger. She realized he’d told me about her confession and her behavior, and she sprinted to her room, slamming the door. My boyfriend and I went for a walk to calm down.
He kept apologizing for not being more firm, but he was shaken up. He said he’d rather give her the opportunity to do it diplomatically. I was willing to be kind to her, thinking maybe an element of it was naivete and a fantasy gone too far due to lockdown pressure. When we returned with a plan of action, we knocked on her door.
She didn’t answer. We tried a couple of times, but she wouldn’t come out, even though I saw she was reading my WhatsApp messages. By late afternoon, I was over it. I knocked and told her I was coming in.
I sat down on her bed and told her gently but firmly that her behavior was inappropriate and made us uncomfortable, and that she had to get over it if she intended to continue living with us. She burst into tears, crying about how sorry she was and what a bad person she was, saying she couldn’t believe the pressure of lockdown was getting to her. I started to feel bad for her, trying to be compassionate. Then she said, “It’s just so unfair that the guy I’m in love with has a really great girlfriend.
”
I lost my crap. I told her she had a lot of growing up to do and that she owed the house an apology. She started having a full meltdown, weeping, hiccuping, snotty. When I stood up to leave, I spotted on her clothes rack.
My freaking shirt. The one I knew I hadn’t seen in a while. I took it and went back to my room. My flatmate cried loudly with the door open until 7 p.
m. , clearly for attention. I cracked and used our emergency contact sheet to call her mom, telling her she had to come pick up my flatmate. I’d never met this woman, but she came rushing in.
The look of annoyance and embarrassment on her face when she arrived and found her 27-year-old daughter having a tantrum told me this wasn’t a new part of her personality. My flatmate shut up pretty quickly when she realized her mom was there. They didn’t say anything to us, and we hid in our room until they were gone. I texted her to let her know it would be best if she texted me before she came back.
The lease ends in August, so my boyfriend and I think we can make it work and find someone new. If not, it’s not so long until we can resign without her. As a coda to all this, my boyfriend mentioned that if she had taken the shirt, maybe she took other stuff, too. I know some may see it as an invasion of privacy, but I did go back in, just to check the clothes rack.
I found a set of my jeans. My T-shirt. One of my boyfriend’s work shirts. A vinyl I owned.
My freaking charm bracelet from when I was a kid, from inside my jewelry box. And a sheet of my old antidepressants. This was just what was on the rack, on display. I imagine there’s more in the drawers.
I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I left them there for now. I don’t want there to be any doubt that she stole them. There is zero chance she’s going to live here anymore. I hope she gets help.
I’m angry and violated, as is my boyfriend. But I can empathize with the havoc an uncontrolled mental health issue can wreak on your behavior. Our mutual friend later told me that another friend who went to school with my flatmate had shared a rumor that she had once told a bunch of people in her year that she had leukemia. In a final update, I decided to just go in and take my stuff.
I didn’t record it, as that felt weird and legally iffy. My boyfriend pointed out that I wore my jeans last week, and that we’d all been listening to the vinyl in the living space a couple of weeks ago. So I’m kind of interested to see if this was maybe an episode or an ongoing but usually managed thing. I also only switched my medication at the end of April, but I have zero clue if the foil pack I found was my discarded last lot or taken before I changed.
I still hope she’s okay. I’ve definitely let my health issues push people away before, albeit never so dramatically. So, I don’t think I’ll be calling her crazy.
