Ex Moved to Neighborhood

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am I crazy or is this just against the rules of a breakup? Six months post breakup you don't move TO that person's neighborhood which increases your chances of running into them.

Amicable breakup/mutual split? Fine. Acrimonious, he dumped you? Dick move, but whatever. Acrimonious/abusive, you dumped him? Offputting af.

Abusive to the point one party scorched the Earth or had to get authorities involved to extricate themselves? Stalker move. Creepy.

You'll have to be more forthcoming with the breakup details to get a better answer, OP.

+1 Details matter, yes. And is "neighborhood" an area in a city center? The same apartment building? A suburban town where people run into neighbors All. The. Time. at the same few grocery stores and coffee shops? A suburb of a city where someone can live in your "neighborhood" but though their house is three blocks away, you might never run into them ever? Will they have kids the ages of your own kids so you will end up at school events together for years to come? Neighborhood as a term isn't helpful here.

I don't need breakup details other than it was relatively OK/he won't bug OP, or it was horrible and he could genuinely be stalking. I do need to know what "neighborhood" means here.

[Anonymous]

Since you said breakup and not divorce I wouldn’t worry about it. Live your life but if it is clear that he’s stalking you and you can prove it get a restraining order. In college people breakup all the time and they live on the same campus or in the same dorm and they deal with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Assuming he's not a stalking concern.

Suck it up and get over it. You don't own a neighborhood.

While I agree no one "owns" a neighborhood I think there are shades of gray here. Same general neighborhood but otherwise you don't see them any more than you did before and it's not like they are right next door is very much a "suck it up and get over it" situation.

But I have seen people behave very weirdly post breakup and one of the most common "weird" behaviors is people who make choices that put themselves in the other person's life more than before. So moving to the same block or building or signing up for the same activity or befriending people from your work or similar. I've seen this enough times to be wary of it generally. Like if you suddenly your ex is showing up to the coffee shop you go to regularly to work at the same times or you are seeing them often on your run or whatever I think you have every right to think it's odd and also be annoyed. It might not rise to the level of stalking (after all the beauty of moving to someone's neighborhood is that you can "incidentally" run into them and then claim you were just on your way to or from your house -- it's like an end run around the definition of stalking) but it is absolutely a violation of boundaries and just bad form post-breakup.

I would also note that I've had some breakups where the problem this would pose is that if I knew they moved close by I'd find myself drawn to adjust my commute to walk near their house or hope that I saw them at the grocery store. Because I was the one who wanted to keep things goign and they didn't. And in those situations having my ex move near me would be a form of torture -- sometimes you need distance to get over someone and if you don't get it you wind up trapped in this limbo of still wanting to be with them. I had an ex once who was determined to maintain our friendship and was ALWAYS around and it was horrible and I finally just had to tell him to make himself scarce so that I could actually let go of my feelings for him. I wanted to walk into a party or meet up with friends for drinks and NOT see his face every single time. And sure enough once he disappeared from my life I started forgetting about him and actually developing an interest in otehr men and actually moved on. Depriving your ex of that is kind of rude if you were the one who ended things.

[Anonymous]

Op hasn’t been back. She’s probably back banging him

[Anonymous]

My now ex-husband’s affair partner moved 2 blocks away from our house. I was livid. Also, can’t fathom why she would want to be near me???