My boyfriend has a crazy ex-wife who can’t let go. She is the meanest, most vengeful and manipulative person, initially convincing the 15-year-old son she has with my boyfriend that I’m the reason “Dad won’t come back.” (He actually divorced her after she, in a fit of rage, made a false police report about him.) She also slashed my tires and spread a rumor that my boyfriend is a child molester. I love him dearly, and we feel we’re soul mates, but his ex-wife is making it so hard to be happy. What can I do? –Besieged
Where is the very small, highly targeted zombie apocalypse when you need it?
Don’t take this woman’s behavior personally. And yes, I’m serious. Assuming what you say about her is true, she seems to be one of those born bar brawlers, ever on the lookout for a reason to break a bottle over someone’s head and start the second Hundred Years’ War. If she could, she’d not only slash your tires but take a sponge bath in the Fountain of Youth so she could live long enough to slash your great-great-grandchildren’s, too.
The problem is, because she isn’t acting from anything resembling reason, there’s no reasoning with her. As personal security expert Gavin de Becker says about the irrationally persistent in his terrific book The Gift of Fear, “There is no straight talk for crooked people.” So, practically speaking, short of finding a home security company that sends out zombie squads by radio call, all that you, personally, can do is decide whether you find love and soulmatery worth the trade-offs in terror and tire costs. As for what your boyfriend can do, the answer, unfortunately, is “not much more”: Install video surveillance, document everything she does and use the legal system to the extent he can (and the extent that seems prudent).
The following advice – to use gratitude as a buffer against ugliness – might sound like it’s from the Little Miss Sunshine Solutions Department, but there’s actually solid science behind it. Research by social psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky and her colleagues finds that people are meaningfully happier when they take regular stock of the things they have to be grateful for. (A caveat: This happiness-increasing effect was found only for people who did this blessings counting once a week, maybe, the researchers surmise, because doing it more often felt like a chore.)
So consider getting gratitudinal once a week, maybe on Sunday night. You could even write five things down on slips of paper and put them in a “Gratitude Jar” so you have a visual reminder of how good you actually have it when things go bad. This may also help you avoid getting snippy with the irritatingly well-meaning who chirp, “What goes around comes around!” Right. If there is such a thing as karma, it seems to go after the truly heinous offenders first, like all the people who ever dropped a straw wrapper or let out a puff of tail wind in the elevator.
© 2015, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (advicegoddess.com). Weekly radio show: blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon. Order Amy Alkon’s new book, “Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck” (St. Martin’s Press, June 3, 2014).
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2015.
