Poppy I am sorry for you having to go through this. I KNOW that your life is going to become the amazing life you deserve. I would like share an experience I had. It is not exactly like yours, but your experience reminds me of what I went through. I shall give you a back story that does not have details as they are not important. I had a very bad upbringing. My step-father was very abusive toward me, verbally and physically. However he was extremely protective of one of my sisters (I have 2 sisters). The relationship between the two was developed through his manipulation to the point where she was “taught” to view me as an adversary. He managed to brainwash her into believing that she should hate me and as a result my one sister and I did not have a normal sibling relationship. Through the years as we grew up I tried my best to establish at least a good relationship, but to no avail. My other sister had apparently had an amazing relationship with her. Allow me to clarify something first…I shall call the abused sister “A” and the other one “B”. Anyway sister “B” lives in Massachusetts and sister “A” lives in Texas. My mother also lived in Massachusetts. As my mother got much older she had a very difficult time taking care of herself so sister “B”was pretty much her caretaker. In 2007 our mother had left this Earth. When she had did, it wasn’t until about 3 months later that I found out that our mother had left the 3 of us $550,000.00.  This would have left us $183,000.00 and some change for each of us. Knowing that our mother had left this amount of money only to have that fact concealed from me not only shocked me but hurt me as well. I hadn’t mentioned that I knew about it hoping that one of them would do the right thing. Then one day I called sister “B” and alluded to the fact that I knew what our mom had left us. Sister “B” got excessively defensive and ugly with her words, a classic defensive tactic to keep me away from forcing the issue on her. About a week later I decided to call sister “A” with the intent of eventually bringing up the issue. Her reaction mirrored sister “A”‘s reaction. In the past, when I have gone against my intuition, I was 100% wrong in doing so, 100% of the time. My intuition was that sister “A”, throughout time after our mother died, was in collusion with sister”A” about keeping what my mom left us away from me. I had made probably 2, maybe 3 more efforts max, to open the door to talk with them in a grown up, rational way about the money, only to have the door slammed on my face with words of hate. Although your story and mine are quite different, they are the same in that someone owes us money so here are my thoughts with the hope that you find comfort knowing that you can move on toward a life you deserve. What I did to deal with this was let it go. I decided that the terrible bond between the two only serves them for reasons that are not important to me. I chose not pursue the $183,000.00+ of my portion that our mom had left because in my mind it was dirty money at that point. In fact, I believe that walking away from that amount of money, to this day, was so worth it. There were so many avenues available to me to force this issue on them, but that would have only served as a vehicle to engage in, and briefly maintain an ever so brief profoundly negative relationship with 2 people who, for reasons that they prefer to nurture, have been manipulated into hating me. When I decided to not pursue this, I immediately felt liberated and have experienced even more happiness than I had thought would happen. My decision did not end there. In addition to letting this go, to this very day, I also wish for the 2 of my sister’s, all the love, peace, and happiness that life has to offer, for an eternity longer than a lifetime. If they can realize my wish for them, they too will be liberated from what ever ugliness has controlled their life. My thoughts to you are this-let it go. Don’t ever let the quality of your life be defined by money. Let your life be defined by the love you have for you. Re your ex…close this chapter of your book and block him. When you see his efforts to contact you on WhatsApp it only allows the demon to raise it’s ugly head to remind you of all those things that are keeping you from moving on and being happy. Ask yourself this; is 2000 Pounds the value of your happiness? The happiness that you and your partner should be between you and your partner. It should not include your ex. Poppy let it go. Your life is priceless. Your happiness is priceless. Be the bigger person. Just know that when your ex feeds his demons, his demons will feed him. If necessary, you may have to file a restraining order on him for electronically stalking and harassing you. Unfortunately there are times that this must be done. Finally, my wish for you is this, I also wish you all the love, peace, and happiness life has to offer you, for an eternity longer than a lifetime. It is the least you deserve.

Pearce Hawk

Hi Poppyxo,

If he has religiously been paying, say, $100 a month, I would leave the WhatsApp and private number open. I had an old friend of mine (another post for another day) and whenever he sent a weird text, I would answer with a VERY occasional emoji in response. So he didn’t feel all the rejection, but he wasn’t getting into a conversation with me either.

If your ex has been paying very erratically or not at all, I would view the $2000 as a life lesson: Don’t loan or lend money again. In your next relationship if you are tempted to give money you would want back, truthfully tell the person that your ex ruined it for the rest of you.

In short, bite the bullet and block the ex once and for all.

Good Luck,

Inky

Hi Poppy…

I know how frustrating people like your X can be. It truly is a reflection of their soul and really doesn’t have anything to do with you, it is the hostility, the fight, they have within themselves, about themselves, but for some reason, unfairly, you’re a target. Your X, behaving like this, was very more than likely this way before you were in his life, and will very more than likely be this was as life goes on, at least until, hopefully, he rids himself of whatever it is inside him. You have an amazing support group surrounding you, here at Tiny Buddha, and with your current partner. You may not feel it now, but you are well on the way to realizing just how strong you are. Words of a song written by Simon and Garfunkel remind me of you:

“Your time, has come, to shine. All your dreams are on their way. See how they shine.” The best is well on it’s way. I shall leave you with my email signature: “Release your peace, live your love, and enjoy the ride.”

Pearce

You are welcome, Poppyxo. Reads to me like good thinking on your part.

anita