Most of the responses were to ignore it, which is what I’ve been doing and what I’ll continue to do.
Talking about it and typing out my frustrations here actually helped quite a bit. Otherwise I was just replaying it over and over again in my head and mentally arguing with him
That’s crazy you knew you intimidated me lol. Damn you’re good
Hes never actually met my kid so I’m not really keeping him around him in any way.
Here’s my .$.02:
He’s a version of the White Knight, a group I generally view as rapists without the balls to rape. He thought you were a vulnerable and easy prey due to your confessed issues and bad choices with boyfriends. You proved not to be easy prey. First, good for you. Second, he’s a creep.
A dude who is getting out of prison? Really? Respect yourself.
He built up a massive fantasy about how he was going to manipulate and use you. This failed. So he is pissed.
Be nice, professional, but view him for what he is, a creep. His habits will catch up with him and he will go away, for one reason or the other. Don’t worry about it.
Nice to see you here. Always enjoyed your posts.
Listen to Emily.
What do you like spock? Bowling, comic con, golf, homebrewing, fitness, church? Go find a group of people that share your interests and make friends there. Give your trust to people who are actually worth giving trust to.
It’s okay to be friendly at work, but keep a safe distance and don’t make any true lifelong friends until you’ve moved to another job.
Also, put yourself in dbags wife’s shoes. Would you want your husband being best buds with a single mom at work, while you’re pregnant?! Going for walks with her, reading her blog, writing songs about her? This guy was clearly crushing on you. Not saying he was trying to smash, but I’d bet he wouldn’t have stopped you.
Just because people need companionship doesn’t mean you should be their companion. Choose your friends on purpose.
Everything has been mentioned that needs to be, but I would encourage you to create a ‘log’ of any incidents of questionable contact from him, HR departments love timelines and data, if you are worried that it may threaten your job in any way (especially since he has some authority over your position) I would encourage you to have data on your side with specific instances, dates, emails, etc., to point to, if things were to come to a head.
Very astute.
I understand the guy from prison thing not getting approval, but hasnt anyone else loved someone not -so-worthy ? I dont know how to not care about him anymore ?
Romantic love is but one part of a meaningful relationship. It’s important, but grossly overblown in its significance in the Western World.
Romeo and Juliet was not a love story; it was a warning.
I know I’ve mentioned Al-anon before, so I won’t belabor the point, but they can be very helpful for your exact situation.
Quoting this for emphasis because it’s so important.
This, I disagree with. All of my closest friends have come from work. It’s the place we spend the most time, generally. If boundaries are in order (realize this is still a work in progress) it’s perfectly fine, in my opinion.
Were any of them married, interested in you and emotionally needy and manipulative? @Spock81 's creeper detector is broken. Best to go with zero friends from work until it is fixed and assertiveness is regained.
I’ve made some good friends at work too. But they were all men and we didn’t hang out and grab beers outside work until one of us didn’t work there anymore. I’ve always held people at a distance because of having to lay people off and stuff. That might be my hangup though.
I do think in the age of ‘me too’ a man would do well not to make female friends at work. Regardless of if he’s single or not.
I have a rule, I will not be friends with any coworkers or colleagues. So far it has worked. I don’t have any friends.
I’m sure @T3hPwnisher would consider this a win.
No, and all have been women. There was the one night my lesbian friend drunkenly told me “you’re gayer than you think you are” but I said I wasn’t and that was that. She got married this past weekend, as a matter of fact.
If there is doubt, then there is no doubt.
Caring about someone doesn’t mean being in direct communication with them. You’re recently dealing with the semi-boyfriend at work who manipulated you, fresh off of the married guy who tried to manipulate you, and you think this is the best time to open yourself up to a sober drunk (yes, there is such a thing) in prison - AKA the most manipulative class of person that exists?
Again, your heart is in the right place, we all know that, but you have a habit of wanting things and being upset about the inevitable consequences that follow.
I might add that in rare circumstances, caring for someone can mean keeping them at arms length - for their good and your own.
It drives my wife nuts, but I have a legit “no personal questions” policy in my worklife, and even among some of my friends. I’ve noticed that EVERYONE has a tragic story and they’re WAY too willing to overshare, to the point that there are no safe questions anymore.
“Hey man, how was your weekend?”
“Not good: my dog died”
“Oh geez…”
“Hey man, how is the family?”
“My wife and I are getting divorced.”
“Oh geez…”
“Crazy weather we’re having eh?”
“Yeah, my grandfather got struck by lightning yesterday, causing my grandmother to die of grief”
“Oh geez…”
In turn, I’ll spend HOURS with people and learn NOTHING about them: and I’m fine with that.
Really insightful.
I would leave out the “rare” part though, imo; especially when you add “yourself” to the “someone”.
If you’re part of a shit show, you’re gonna come out with some shit on you.
I suppose I’ll chime in on the prison boyfriend too. I left that alone originally because it’s your business who to date, but I’ve known enough addicts who always seem to find poor gals who are ready to put a lot of heart into a situation and get absolutely nothing in return. That’s usually one of the better outcomes, too.
I don’t know any pertinent details besides “soon-to-be-released-from-prison-boyfriend” and your sense of obligation to be there for him when he gets out. To him, to yourself, to your ethical code, to your feelings, whatever. You sound like you think it is your duty.
Fair enough. But if you think you’re the only person in a position to help, you’re not. First and foremost, the entire process is on him. Second, there are entire support networks that will be available to him who make it their business to help. Third, your ability to shape his outcomes is severely limited. You may feel like you can be a force in his life, and you can, but odds are this guy’s got a rough road ahead of him no matter who he latches on to and how great they are.
Again, I don’t know enough about you or the situation to call this specific advice, but what you describe sure fits patterns I’ve seen before. I’m wracking my brain trying to think of a situation where a girl swooped in and rescued a guy I knew with SERIOUS issues. I’m coming up blank in my rolodex of about a dozen or so people I’ve known who fit that bill. Things might seem fine for a while, but they all seem to end up badly.
The biggest sense of rejection I ever felt was losing out on my crush when I was 18 to a budding heroin addict. He was much better looking than I was and she was attracted to him, not me, even though I tried way harder than that loser did. Talk about a rough blow, losing a girl to a junkie…
She was a catch too, gorgeous gal with a Christian upbringing, good values and and she didn’t sleep around. He never quit using, but she thought things were going well enough to marry him a couple years later. She never doubted her ability to save him. She literally believed it was God’s plan.
Not long after that I cut all of my drug-using friends out of my life and moved far away. I didn’t want to know anything about what was happening among the people I grew up with, which seemed like a nonstop stream of bad news. I recently started re-connecting with a few people over social media. I have absolutely no idea what’s happened in the last 17 or so years with her, but I recently learned she was arrested for breaking into a house with some dude who is 20 years older than her. She has a serious heroin addiction and seemingly all of the problems that go along with it, 20 years after she fell in love with that charming junkie. Now she’s in prison and looks like she’s been through hell. She probably has been.
I couldn’t say whether or not she’d be in that kind of place if she had just dated me instead of the dashingly-handsome junkie who told her all of the right things. It would seem like an unlikely event considering life as I’ve known it. Who knows, maybe she had it in her from the start, but I doubt it. Something in the last 20 years turned the best gal I knew into an unrecognizable shell of who she used to be. I think marrying a heroin addict may have been a factor.
I can rattle off about a dozen similar situations with people I’ve known over the decades, but this one I just learned about recently and it hits pretty close to home.
Am I saying you’re going to fall apart if you date this guy? Not at all. You’re in charge of your outcomes. All I’m saying is that a similar sense of duty to another person pulled a well-meaning and genuinely good woman I knew into an orbit of destructive behavior and terrible outcomes.
As soon as parole is over. Within a week. Every time.