Am I stalking or "breaking the rules" (lengthy details inside)?

It doesn’t sound entirely kosher for sure, but I think it’s the kind of thing many of us might do in the throes of break-up angst. I wouldn’t beat myself up too much over it but I would try not to do it forever.

It may be going over the line a bit. I’m sorry you are hurting.

No, this is not stalking. due to the unfortunate circumstances of your love for him and he for you, both are being restrained by his parents. i do not believe that he would resist you logging onto his email site. i say this, because he apparently loves you and you two are attempting to communicate in any way possible. love will make some people really do strange things. this does not meet the criteria for stalking, since both parties are agreeable to the email arrangement. if it were only one-sided, then the situation would change. have you tried texting him, instead?

I guess you’re not really “stalking” him. We need a new word to define “weirdly keeping tabs on without actually interfering—much”.

Let the boy go. He’s got bigger problems than a failed teenage romance if he can’t stand up to his parents about his choice of girlfriend. You can’t resolve those problems for him, either.

_____________________
And welcome (your new ID) to Fluther.

I’m sorry but I pretty much stopped reading at “I knew the password and logged into his email.” That is very bad in my book, it doesn’t matter what he/she did to you there is no excuse for logging and continuing to log into his email. That is just me though, I don’t like my privacy violated for any reason (I’m funny like that).

I think this is bordering on the side of being unhealthy and a little bit wrong. I understand it hurts and it’s really sad that his parents are calling the shots in your relationship, but you won’t have an opportunity to heal and move on if you continue to do this.

While I don’t think what you are doing is stalking, I do think it’s best if you can find a way to stop doing it (perhaps even tell him to change his password so you can’t look anymore).

Please leave the guy alone.
You’re totally obsessing and yes, frankly being a little crazy by invading his personal stuff.
Stop it now while you still have your dignity.

You said you know it’s wrong but you still do it. That’s the problem.

I’m sorry you’re going through this. Breakups can really suck.

However, your behavior is not ok.
He doesn’t want to be with you. He doesn’t want you to contact him or is a child and his parents have set rules. The end..
Things you found out through sneaking through his email have nothing to do with the fact that your relationship is over and you need to find a healthier way to deal with it.

I think i would give him a call on his new number, tell him that you still love him much and that you really want to talk with him to sort things out like two people who shared a (part of a) life together would do, once their relationship ended (for whatever reasons or by whatever means).
You (and him) have the right to clear things up, no matter what his parents think of it.
If you have the guts to check his email (which you think he’ll know you do) i think you can find the guts to give him a call too.
Good luck.

I just read your other question under your second alias. Is this the married guy? If so, even more reason to STOP now and change this behavior.

Busted!

How old are each of you?

No, it is not the married person. That thread helped me cut that shit out, and now we’re friends the way friends should be, and I have distanced myself greatly to keep it that way.

We are both in our 20s. He is technically an adult but because his parents pay for his college, he is stuck doing what they say. I am pretty positive that is what they threatened him with if they caught him contacting me.

One of the things I discovered from the drafts I read was that he is blocking me because he doesn’t trust himself to obey his parents, which if he doesn’t, has drastic consequences, so it isn’t that he doesn’t want me to contact him. Which further makes me believe that he still reads the emails I send.

I know it’s wrong. I know it seems crazy and sort of unhinged. I willingly admit all of this. And I know I have to stop. But if you want the ugly truth, I have just gotten to the point of showering regularly and eating again. So I just haven’t gotten myself emotionally to the point where I can let go and stop.

Okay, so with the email checking aside, nobody has addressed the part about me continuing to email him regularly. He asked me not to contact him because his parents dictated it. Is it crazy to keep emailing him, even if there’s a good chance it’s a comfort to him?

The whole point is that I am hopeful that once he is done with college, we can try again, since his parents don’t have that to hold over his head, so the emails are my way of letting him know, should he choose to read them, that I am still here for him.

@pixitrek Yes, emailing him is crazy. If he wanted to get a hold of you he could. There are payphones, alternate free email accounts, postcards… He doesn’t want to. You need to accept it.

“I know it’s wrong. I know it seems crazy and sort of unhinged. I willingly admit all of this. And I know I have to stop. ”

That should really be the end of it.
If you can’t stop, you need to get professional help with this.

Why do his parents dislike you? Do they have valid reasons?

@pixitrek Do you know why his parents don’t want him contacting you?

The bottom line is this: He told you to stop contacting him, so regardless of his reasons, you need to stop. As unfair as his parents might be (if they really are being unfair) being, do you really want them to possibly cut off his funds for college, thus ruining his chances at getting an education? If he wants to contact you after school, he will. If not, you’ll know that he has moved on.

@pixitrek Yes you need to stop with the e-mails as well. If he really wanted to contact you, he would. You will never move on if you continue with this behavior. Stop contacting him, stop logging into his e-mail account, and give yourself time to get over him.

I am troubled by the fact that the term “stalking” is used so casually by many in this culture when it should be saved to denote a particular criminal pattern, defined by state statute. Although I have no idea where you reside, your behavior does not, as described, sound as though it rises to the level of statutory “stalking.”
That said, as an unreasonably emotional girl myself, I would have been all over his information also. The fact that he has not changed his password, and knows that you have it, would seem significant to me. I would be tempted to send something via MAIL (not e-mail.) Or an old-fashioned TELEGRAM. (do they even have them any longer?)

Everyone (esp. the MALES) will tell you to back off because, of course, that is the sensible course. But, if you can turn off your feelings like a garden hose, you were not much of a lover to begin with.
Why do men not see the value in that?
BEST OF LUCK!

@jenmelf Not just men. I’m a woman. I’m very emotional too, and tend to take breakups very hard. It’s not about turning feelings off like a garden hose. It’s understanding that your very intense, very real feelings do not excuse certain behavior.

Sorry, I just read your update.

This boy is too tethered to his parents for you to pursue at this point.
Cancel the telegram.
You are young. Go explore the world.
There is so much to see.
You have much to experience before tying yourself down.
CARPE DIEM!

@jenmelf Please. It’s not just men saying that, first of all – I’m a woman – and I don’t condone the behavior. Maybe he forgot that she knows his password, and even if not, that’s not the point. He told her to stop contacting him. Regardless of the reasons, that’s all that matters, especially if his education is in jeopardy. If he truly wants to contact her, he will find a way, no matter what his parents say.

It’s also not a matter of “turning off your feelings like a garden hose”. What it is about is dealing with the feelings, without resorting to things like she’s doing.

You need to stop contacting him, and stay out of his e-mail. He may say he loves you, but he doesn’t love you enough to choose you over “easy.”

I have had difficult breakups in the past and resorted to similar behaviour you have described. I know that you believe it makes you feel better to still feel connected to someone you care so deeply about but ultimately, you are prolonging your agony.

If this is as difficult for him as it is for you and for the reasons you described, impossible for him to continue seeing you without jeopardising his schooling, then you are potentially making this difficult for him too.

It is probably in your best interests to accept that this has to end. He knows how you feel about it and reinforcing this point will not change anything.

xoxox – It gets easier with time hun… get together with some friends, do a road trip. Cast your life in a new direction. * hugs *

This whole thing with his parents has nothing to do with me. They are very manipulative and very controlling. He told me right before all this happened that they destroy his confidence every time they want him to do something. They make him feel like crap, and when his defenses are down, they get him to agree to what they want out of guilt. When that doesn’t work, they threaten him, like they did to get him to break up with me.

We got along very well. But when he told his parents that he wanted to marry me when he was done with college, that’s when this happened.

He does want to contact me. He’s too scared of his parents. They have been doing this to him for his entire life. I was even intimidated by them, though we got along really well. I read in his own words that if he contacts me at all, he won’t stop, and he’ll destroy everything he’s worked for. He even started to write an email to my grandmother saying the same thing.

I know it’s hard to understand being under that kind of pressure, but I met these people, so I understand. I’ve watched them in action.

I am seeking therapy at the moment. I have a regular doctor’s appointment this week to discuss some kind of medication, and unfortunately the soonest appointment I could get with a therapist isn’t until next month. But I am still working to find another one that can take me sooner. It’s a matter of cost/insurance.

Yes, he told me to stop contacting him. But I read with my own eyes (whether right or wrong) that it’s not what he wants, and why he isn’t contacting me. Whether I should know it or not, I know that he is keeping a semi-open channel. If he really truly did not want to hear from me, he would not be keeping my email saved somewhere when he can easily filter them into the trash.

I should also point out that he just took his last exam of the semester on Friday (I already knew his school schedule. This was not me snooping on him.) It is not out of the question that he waited until the end of the semester so he could concentrate on finishing for the year.

Please don’t be harsh. Really. I am trying so hard. But this is really recent, and what makes it so difficult is that I know he’s heartbroken and just as much a victim and that rips me to pieces even further than my own pain.

I would also like to note one thing. If he had chosen me, and sacrificed his ability to finish college, I would have told him to go back to school and I would wait for him until he was ready. In some small way, I am glad he chose school because I would have had a really hard time doing the right thing and letting him go on my own.

If he’s in college, why the HELL is he listening to his parents still?!

@pixitrek The thing is, you know his parents are like this and what will happen if they find out that the two of you are contacting each other, do you really want that to happen to him? He has a choice, he is choosing to listen to them. He needs to find a way to stand up to his parents and until then, you need to back off.

@pixitrek He is an adult, and he is making choices. He is choosing the benefits that come with doing what his parents want over being with you.
I’m sorry, but stop.

@pixitrek No one is trying to be harsh. But he did choose school over you. He is letting his parents control him, in order to finish school. You’re going to have to accept that, because he already made his choice.

If he wishes to contact you after his school is paid for, okay. But for now, he wants his education. If he doesn’t wish to stand up to his parents, that’s all there is to it. Let it go.

He will never stand up to his parents.

@Draconess25: He commutes to school, lives at home, and they pay for school. If he pisses them off, they don’t pay for school. He doesn’t qualify for independent funding from FAFSA because he’s under the eligible age to be considered independent, and his parents make too much. He was also denied several student loans without a cosigner because of the economy, I suppose. So, they have something really important to hold over his head.

@Seaofclouds: But he’s not contacting me. He isn’t disobeying them. That’s the whole point.

@DrasticDreamer: With the difficulty of getting jobs these days that pay a damn, without a college education, I don’t even think it was much of a choice.

@PandoraBoxx: He does stand up to his parents, quite often actually. I’ve heard some epic arguments. But this is the first time in his life the stakes have been so high.

@pixitrek “With the difficulty of getting jobs these days that pay a damn, without a college education, I don’t even think it was much of a choice.”

People always have a choice. That said, now that you yourself realize ^^^ how important a higher education is right now, don’t jeopardize that for him. Stop contacting him, stop checking his email. You sent things, he knows how you feel, he knows that you’re okay with him contacting you should he choose to do so. Now… Just stop. You’re only making it harder for yourself and him – and possibly threatening his only means to an education.

@pixitrek He may not be contacting you directly, but what if his parents got into his e-mail and saw all those drafts that you have seen and that folder with all the e-mails you have sent him marked as “read”. You are potentially making things worse for him. The fact that he is not actually contacting you is enough to say he doesn’t want to and he is choosing to obey his parents over continuing a relationship with you. I’m not trying to be harsh, but you need to face the truth that is right there in front of you and move on.

This is seriously the most ashamed I have ever been of myself. I have been in relationships that failed miserably and harshly, and I have never been brought to this level.

I guess I could will myself to quit checking to see what he does with my emails.

But the thought that the ones I send might be a comfort to him, that he keeps them because he wants me to continue to contact him, is what keeps me from being able to let that go. I do see the other side of the coin, but it’s thinking about his pain that keeps me from stopping the emails too.

I agree with @DrasticDreamer & @Likeradar. As hard as it is for you to hear it, if he really wanted to he would contact you and try to be with you. I rejected my parents and their money at 17 and I went on to get a BA and MA. Many people do.

He may very well be hurting, but you need to worry about yourself right now. For your own sanity you MUST stop emailing him. You need to stop focusing on him and what he might be feeling and thinking, and focus on your own thoughts and feelings.

You need to grieve and you can’t do that while you grasp at these “what if’s”. You are ignoring your own needs for someone who is not doing the same for you. I know you are hurting, but you are worth more than this guy is willing to give.

He could use a friend’s computer or one at the library if he really wanted to contact you, or make arrangements through a friend to meet up with you somewhere. Surely his parents aren’t with him 24/7 and his friends aren’t his parents’ paid informants. And there’s always this thing called the US Mail, where he could write you, put a stamp on it and send it your way. His parents wouldn’t know unless you told them, and that doesn’t sound likely.

@pixitrek – Have you considered that he knows you have the password to his email account, and that his writing drafts (and leaving them saved rather than sent) is his means of “contacting” you without breaking his parents’ rules since the correspondence isn’t technically sent? I’m sorry to add another “what if” to your conundrum – and let me be clear that if he doesn’t wish to contact you, you need to stop checking his email, pronto – but it occurred to me.

In any case, I think one thing you could do to alleviate your feeling of helplessness would be to send him an email telling him about your current state, that you have been logging into his email account and why, and tell him in no unclear terms that if he does not wish to have you in his life, he should change his email password.

Obessed with love. it happens. i have a question for you….....if the situation were reversed and you were in college and he knew your email passcode, how would you feel? how would you feel if your parents gave you the same ulitmatum as him. how would you handle it? kind of curious to know.

I have come to suspect that some of us are addicted to these kinds of experiences. We fall in love and we get high, but when the love ends, it’s not all bad, because the pain is so intense, and we feel close to the edge of life, and our minds fulminate and circle like guard dogs, seeking ways—any way at all—to keep the drama going.

It can be extremely painful to lose a lover. The pain can last years. So our minds may work overtime to find ways to deny the facts or to hope for a change in facts. Concerns about ethics and morals lurk in the bushes and behind the fences, and they are threatening, but the urges here in the light have much more power—at the moment.

There are no rules in love, they say. Like war, you do what you have to. You are doing what you have to, and something deep inside you is pushing you to behave in ways that you do not otherwise approve of. You seek support in stopping. You throw out all your objections, hoping that we can give you a reason to do what you think is probably the right thing to do—let him go.

But you don’t want to/can’t let him go. It is too wrong—this breakup. It is Romeo and Juliet, The Montagues and the Capulets. It is forced on you from the outside. So there is another narrative going on—not just the breakup narrative. It is the love will win over everything narrative. True love will stop at nothing, and if you convince yourself that he still loves you, then you will never stop waiting for him. No matter what anyone else says.

Morals and ethics? They’re important, of course, but I don’t think they are so relevant that they deserve much focus. This is about action and guts and schemes and myths about love and truth.

If you like the drama and the intensity enough, you will wait for him. Your life will be on hold and you will worry worry worry and lose weight (unless you gain it) and have trouble sleeping and you will be waiting on every little hint of communication. You will forsake your friends (who will look down on you anyway), and slowly descend into depression of another sort from the one the breakup brought on. It will be dramatic. Dickensonesque. An Edward Gorey drawing. Your life will center around it and you will not be released until you find out what his truth is.

If you want another life, you will stop this, and stop trying to see what is going on. It will hurt, but it will not drag you under. Eventually you will come up for air. And you will find yourself able to enjoy the sunlight (to mix a metaphor).

If you believe there is only one true love for you, you will take the first course. You have no choice. If you understand there are many men you can love happily, you will take the second. Life will help you be happy at some point. You can seize it. Remember, this is the man who buckled under to his parents. You say it is to save his college, but if he truly truly overwhelmingly romantically loved you, he would have told them to fuck off.

His love is not so overwhelming. Does he deserve yours?

If you do not wait for him, and move on, he may still find you before you have found someone else. Or other narratives could play out. Maybe he is the lost love that you find when you hit your mid-forties and your husband has left you. Maybe you become friends and discover you never really would have made it as a couple.

So many choices. But the right and wrong of it, I think, are beside the point. It is your choice of narrative that really matters.

@john65pennington: I was way more deceitful than he is when I still had to answer to my parents. I never had an issue disobeying my parents or lying to them. Also, my parents never would have done this. They gave me a much wider berth than I deserved. So it’s near impossible for me to tell you what I would do if it was switched.

He does know my password. Well, he sort of knows my password. It’s my password to my computer also, and sometimes he would remember, and sometimes he wouldn’t. I wouldn’t care if he logged into my email, in all honesty. I have nothing to hide, and to him, the only place I need privacy is in the bathroom. That was mutual, hence, why I know his email pass.

also, please don’t try to make any connections with my adolescent/teenage willingness to lie to my parents and what I’m doing now, because there really isn’t one. Everyone knows someone who was that screwed up in their teenage years and became completely upstanding adults.

@wundayatta That was just….epic.

I’ve been thinking about this q a lot since my last post.
You’re doing the technological equivalent of reading his diary. He is making a choice not to send these drafts (either through his email or another method), and therefore they are private.

Have you ever gone through a breakup and written in your diary about what a mistake it was, and how you love him, and blah blah blah? Then you look at it a few days later, and those feelings just aren’t the same? Imagine if the person you were writing about could read those.

I think it’s possible that you’re reading what’s essentially his diary. You are not meant to see those thoughts, and there’s a very strong possibility that you’re completely fooling yourself into thinking that by reading his private words, you’re seeing his real thoughts.

You’re not a stupid girl. It’s obvious through your writing. You can do better than this.

@Draconess25 I believe the Cliff’s Notes version should be coming out in a few months! ;-)

I read through this entire thread (very rare for me on a thread this long) and here is what I come away thinking.

First, @Likeradar took the words out of my mouth, these emails could very likely be this fellow’s diary or journal – his way of processing and working through the break-up. If he is writing them and not sending them there is probably a reason. As someone else mentioned upthread, he could very easily go to a school or library computer, open another email his parents know nothing about, and send these notes to you. But he isn’t. He is keeping them to himself.

Second, I really can’t let go of this nagging feeling I get that Dude probably has a pretty messed up relationship with his parents that isn’t going to change any time in the near future. It is fabulous and beautiful and touching that they are willing to pay for his education. The fact that they wield their money as a sword against him in order to get him to abide by their wishes is horrifying and all kinds of dysfunctional. My advice to you, coming from a woman who just got out of a relationship with a man from the family whose portrait you see when looking up dysfunctional in the dictionary is think long and hard about whether you want to be with someone with that kind of background for the long haul.

Finally, is it stalking? In a way I think it is. Whether you know the password or not, or are looking at anything else that is there, you are no longer a couple and what is in his email is none of your business. Period.

I have to agree with all who say it is best for you to move on and quit sending the emails. Maybe start a journal of your own. If you must, make it online at a place like google docs and send him a link. You can write to your heart’s content and while you still need to, believe he is reading every word.

This hurts. It is going to hurt for awhile and there is really no way to get around that. Just keep moving forward, working hard to let him go, and know that every day it will get just a bit easier. Pretty soon you will go an entire hour without thinking of him, then two, then three, and so on until you have made it through an entire day. Slowly but surely you will start to feel normal again.

BTW, I have to agree again with @Likeradar, you are obviously a bright girl. Move on. Start the work of getting over him. In the long run you will be glad you did.

“My friend says I’m stalking him. ” You should not have burdened your friend with this secret.
You will eventually get tired of keeping your life on hold for someone who specifically asked you to break contact.
Right now it makes your heart beat faster. It will eventually suck the life out of you. Stop when you notice the ride going downhill.

@likeradar: they were his real thoughts. I was actually in his email while he was writing two of them, and so I could watch them as he wrote. He kept changing them. Writing things like “I will unblock you on Facebook” and then deleting that part. And then he wrote “if you want to email me anything, I will have them filtered into a folder” and then that would go away too. All signs point to him fighting himself to not contact me. Those drafts were all deleted almost immediately after they were written. Some of them were half-written when they were deleted. That shows me that it wasn’t a diary situation.

I don’t think he knows I’m doing it, though he’s not stupid, and the email client clearly shows the IP address that last logged in. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe he couldn’t know what I’m doing, but I’ve managed to convince myself that he doesn’t know, instead of holding out hope that he does. Doesn’t that count for anything?

And there hasn’t been a draft written in a while. The drafts were near the beginning of the ordeal.

I am sure I could stop the what-ifs and move on much easier and faster if I had any indication that he really wanted this. I’ve had absolutely not one bit. I’ve had, however, SEVERAL things, including his own words, that he doesn’t.

I’m ashamed to admit that right now, my hope is centered around the fact that he’s moved stuff around in his email account, made folders, created folders, deleted folders, sorted out tons of emails into their appropriate places, but still hasn’t touched “my” folder. If he deleted the folder and the stuff in it, that would be indication, and I would accept that. But my heart is stuck with what it knew last.

I forgot to mention that one of the things he said was that the breakup email was all “propaganda from his parents.” How am I supposed to accept something that was proven to be all BS?

I also know him well enough to know that if he opened the door right now, he wouldn’t be strong enough to close it, which is why I stopped questioning why he didn’t use other methods pretty quickly.

I agree with @rebbel Call him. If you get him and you can talk, great. If you can’t talk, then you will have closure. HOWEVER, I would then seriously consider what you are getting into with him and his parents. Make no mistake. From what you say, they are heavy handed controllers and no matter how epic the arguments you have heard, THEY are in control…..and they will continue to be in control even if he marries you.

Note the fact that he lives at home. There is absolutely nothing my parents could have done to force me to live at home and go to college. They would never have suggested it. They wanted me independent. His parents want him to remain their little boy. Think real hard about that. Until he is free from them (which will require something as drastic as a “divorce” from them) he is not even available to you.

I said that I have his new number because I logged into his email and stumbled over it.

Everyone’s down my neck about the fact that I check his email.

But it’s okay to call the number that I’m not supposed to have? How is that not just as invasive as checking his email?

@pixitrek the fact of the matter is that he is not opening the door right now. He his holding it shut and whatever his reasons may be, you have to accept that. It is very clear from this question and your replies throughout the thread that you really want to be with this guy, but for one reason or another, he just can’t be with you – at least not right now. I think the sooner you start to face that reality the better off you will be. Maybe he will come to his senses and see what he is giving up here. Or maybe he won’t. Either way you have got to focus on yourself and begin to put your energies and hopes into moving on.

Usually at this point in a thread such as this I get frustrated with the asker because s/he is not listening to whatever it is s/he does not want to hear. Because s/he has obviously asked a question they do not want answered. But you are well written and come off here as a fairly well balanced, if temporarily shaken, young woman. Please try to tap into that part of yourself that can help you to work to move past this situation.

I have to give my two cents worth on the phone call. Please don’t do it. Checking his email is inappropriate, but calling a guy who has asked you not to contact him, who has even gone to the extent of changing his phone number, that is without a doubt stalking.

You shouldn’t be doing either. So stop the email checking for sure. That’s sneaky and underhanded (no judgement…I’ve been there). One call is at least above board and honest.

The much much much bigger issue is his parents and their control over him.

Personally, I would just let him know you’re there for him. Don’t let yourself be burdened. If he thinks you’re upset, that will make it worse for him.

Check out some other guys. Maybe you’ll get over it, maybe you won’t. Every relationship takes something & leaves something behind.

@Supermouse: Thank you for acknowledging that I’m not stupid or belligerent. I’ve had love in relationships, but this one was true love. I know for a million different reasons, but the main one is that I put myself on Match.com, talked to several guys who eventually asked me out, and for the first time in my adult life, felt absolutely not a shred of anything at getting positive attention from a guy. This has dragged out two months already, and I’m just getting to the point of taking care of my basic needs, like food. And normally adore eating.

I am well aware now that there is most likely an underlying issue that goes beyond just the breakup. Which is why I have appointments made to seek medical and mental help. It’s even been suggested that I’m suffering from PTSD, but I don’t know about that. If this were a trial I would most definitely be using the insanity defense for just about everything I’ve done or thought in the last two months.

* Cough *...Stalker…. * Cough * Cough *

I’m just teasing you, stalk him all you want, just don’t kill him or anything like that.

@pixitrek If he’s deleting them as he writes, you have to know the words are NOT for your eyes, and may not be representative of his true thoughts. He’s deleting them for a resaon, and that reason is very likely because he doesn’t want you to see them. Ever.

What you’re doing is inappropriate, and the fact that you’re convincing yourself that watching him write and delete emails has significant bearing on his true thoughts is upsetting. One sided breakups are hard. I can’t honestly say I definitley wouldn’t do the same thing you’re doing. But when you do get over this, and you will, you will hopefully see that your thought process about what’s happening here is messed up.
You are better than this.

E-mail/call/run into him and ask him and ask him to meet you somewhere. It would be good for you to get some more closure around what is happening. BUT as others have stated, if his parents have this much control in his life then I would think very, very hard as to whether you want to get more tied up in his life. If everything were to work out between you, you would have them in your life for as long as you were with him.

If my parents had ever tried to pull strings with me that way I would have made a point of doing exactly what I wanted to do their wishes be damned. I would have worked then gone to school, worked and then gone to school.

Don’t underestimate how hellish they could, and it sounds like they would, make your life.

“Also, just for clarification, when we were together, he knew I knew his password, and he didn’t change it. It seems odd to me with all the bases he covered to block me from contacting him, that he would forget that part.”

Sorry, but your grasping at straws here. Chances are he was pretty emotional about the breakup and may not have thought about everything he could have done. Or, as I would have done if it were, he might have assumed that once you break up you wouldn’t be checking his email anymore.

In any event, now that you’ve checked his email, you can confirm your guess by looking for emails/drafts that acknowledge that you are checking it. Something like “next time you log in, I just want you to see that…” If you don’t see those, he is probably not assuming you will check his mail.

Anyway, I’ve seen this sort of thing happen. A lot of my family is very conservative and have a great many hangups about who their kids marry. If the kid chooses to listen to their parents over what they want, you need to respect that. People have different priorities and his appear to be his parents/family/college education/etc… I know it sucks, but thats the way it is. For my family, its a cultural thing and in the US some of them try hard to keep their original culture.

But, I also like to create constructive advice, so here is mine. If you can’t get yourself to stop right away, fade it away over some time (not too long). Are you checking daily? Check every other day, then every fourth day, then etc… till you aren’t really checking anymore, and then stop. Its like quitting smoking (at least according to my dad).

I do admit one time, and only one time, doing this. I had a very very abusive, controlling ex that has tortured, stalked, threatened and terrorized me. He was especially good at messing with my head. I had been told so many lies and he played so many games with me that I felt like a mouse being played with by a cat. I broke down once and once only to hack his mail. I read it, and then knew the truth. He would be acting angry with me to my face while laughing behind my back, not as angry as he pretended to be. While I was dancing on egg shells trying to quell his rages he was snickering about how funny it was behind the scenes and his friends even gave him sadistic advice on how to upset me worse. I confronted him. I told him he couldn’t play with me anymore because I knew who he really was. I told him to change all his passwords. He did. I tried a few times but had no idea of the new password he chose. The old ones were obvious, like the name of his dog. He must have changed them good because I couldn’t do it anymore, which was why I told him to change his passwords. I felt guilty for doing what I did and I also didn’t want to fight temptation. I just wanted him out of my head after that. i gave him rent free space in my brain for way way way too long. It was my way of apologizing and removing the temptation all at once. So what I did was fess up and then tell him to change his passwords. I don’t know if that was “right’ but it felt like the only way to handle it at the time. It is sad to say I don’t entirely regret reading the mails that one time. It showed me the emotions he presented to me, weather it was love, rage, hate or sorrow, were never genuine but calculated tools of manipulation.

OMG, YES, you are stalking. Doesn’t matter what his reasons are for breaking up with you. More than likely he just said that because he feels you have stalker tendencies (crazy) and couldn’t find a way to break up with you without feeling in fear for his life.
Move on. Plenty of boys in the world. I’ll chalk this up to you being young so perhaps your not crazy. But there are bounderies you have crossed and its time you step back in line and get a little sane. Let him go.

This is the future. New e-mail addresses are free. :D

If you’ve been dating for awhile, don’t you have any mutual friends who can get you to the same place at the same time? Or do his parents control where he goes, too?

@PandoraBoxx: We don’t really live close. Besides, I’m trying to exercise my boundaries where I am still able to, since I am obviously having issues there. Getting friends involved is something I don’t want to do. I spoke to one of his friends briefly right after, who confirmed that he was devastated. That’s it, and I’ve had to fight hard to keep it that way. I’ve also had to fight like hell to not call the new number.

@Pandora: You’re a jerk. I hope none of your friends or loved ones come to you because they’ve lost their way. I am not stalking, and logging into his email, while wrong, has nothing to do with causing him physical harm or endangering his life. Considering I have not tried to physically find him, or call him, or send anything in the regular mail, or go to his house, or talk to mutual friends, all things I am fully capable of doing that would be actual stalking, I think I’m doing a lot better than I could be.

Thanks to mostly everyone who’s seriously tried to help me, instead of just calling me a stalker. I hope that once I am able to get into therapy or maybe some medication I will be able to start feeling like I can deal with this better.

I think I need to back off Fluther for a while.

It’s really hard, but more importantly, it’s important for his migration into being a man that he be the one to stand up to his parents and contact you. He really needs to do all the work on this one. Perhaps it will be easier for you to stay away if you think of it in those terms. In order to be a man, he needs to be able to make his own choices, and stand up for them. Otherwise, he will be trapped being a dependent little boy. He needs to own his life. Think of staying away as part of his character education. He has to come to you.

I agree with @PandoraBoxx, he needs to do this for himself.

@PandoraBoxx I’m tempted to disagree with you. Its a very American thing to say (and I am an American) but having spent some time living in India, and having met some conservative people here, I can’t completely agree with you. There are different ways to view love and marriage across different cultures.

I don’t blame you for trying to find out what went wrong. His parents behavior is what’s sick.

@roundsquare, I thought about that, and I even factored in the cultural expectations of the parent-child relationship, however that was not presented as a factor in the scenario, and the OP is using a second identity to expound on a situation that I think has already been discussed on Fluther.

@PandoraBoxx: it hasn’t been discussed before. I haven’t made reference to it on my regular name because of how ashamed I am that I can’t make myself stop doing something I know is terribly wrong. I don’t want that associated with my “regular” self in any way, shape, or form. I don’t want anyone’s perception of me to change or be sullied, because this behavior isn’t me. I haven’t been the same person since the day I got that email.

@pixitrek You’ve had some harsh stuff thrown on you on this thread and I just want to give you some sympathy. It’s easy to say just walk away from someone you’ve loved when you’re not in that situation; harder to do when it’s fucking you up. While checking his e-mail is probably counter-productive, I can understand the impulse. It’s good that you are going for help. Best of luck with it (and a hug)!

@pixitrek, then you’re not who I think you are, and your anonymity is preserved. :-)

And if I’ve been harsh, I’m sorry because I mistook you for someone who has beaten a dead horse several times on a thread of a similar line.

@PandoraBoxx Its true that I’m probably projecting my experiences (well, those of my cousins anyway) onto this situation, but since it seems so close to what I’ve seen happen I couldn’t help it.

If this happened to me I would have kept checking his email as longas i have it. I would try to call. But would not drive by his house or places he goes.