Dear Emily,
My boyfriend and I have been together off and on for the past five and a half years. He was really nice when we first met—loving, thoughtful, generous. Then he lost his job, his savings, the condo he sacrificed for.
He went back to live with his parents. They converted their garage into a little bedroom with toilet/bath and a kitchenette as a source of extra income for them. He lives there now for free as they want to help him regain his confidence after that series of bad breaks.
He was the type who got victimized so often because he’d plunge head-first into get-rich-quick schemes. Nothing came of it except losing everything he had.
I have a secure job with a comfortable salary and have helped him financially. When I became his regular go-to ATM, I began to beg off. He knew I also have mortgages to pay and other personal expenses. That’s when he began to get nasty toward me.
Soon, he was posting derogatory messages against me in social media. When my friends pointed them out to me with such regularity, I broke up with him and demanded that he pay back those loans I extended to him.
When he continued to badmouth me, I went to his parents who are so nice and knew of those debts. They promised to rein in their son and do something drastic if he didn’t stop. He has not stopped attacking me. Do I have any recourse for legal action?
MAD EX
You got yourself a horrible lemon of a human being (with all apologies to that nutritious fruit)! Allow the intervention of his kind parents to take root and see what happens. You’re his only source possibly of a decent life after everyone has closed their doors on him, and now that you’ve turned your back as well, his brains just went haywire. He probably can’t figure out how the love he thought he had with you means nothing anymore.
His bad luck, through nobody’s fault, has obviously turned his brain into muck, and now he can’t even decipher right from wrong. It must be horribly frustrating and utterly depressing to keep on euphemistically running after that pot of gold, even when both his legs have already been chopped off by circumstance.
Surely you can consult a lawyer but that’s throwing more good money after bad. Why spend additional precious savings when you’ve already lost much on him?
Find a common friend he trusts and respects to appeal to his common sense and fair play. Or at least to mend his errant ways? There must be at least one way to communicate with him and find a successful ending to this drama.
No matter how demented he has become, his inner self will still crave peace. His financial turmoil has turned his world upside down and he needs help. He is perhaps screaming for that now.
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