Boundaries

Boundaries

Boundaries with my addict. I had to stew on that thought. I tried setting boundaries and he would just push through them. I would set harsher ones and he would just ignore them. I changed my number and blocked his email, so he started calling my work and emailing my work email address.

Any boundary I made, he would barricade through relentlessly. It was exhausting. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, how long I went with no contact, he would find a way to get to me. Finally, I had to take drastic measures.

One day, he had been emailing all day asking me if I had a boyfriend because he deserved to know if his son was with another man. At this point we had been divorced for over a year. When I didn't answer he just kept emailing over and over, begging for me to answer him. I ignored them all.

Finally after no answer to many emails, he came to my door. He knew our son was asleep but rang the door bell over and over until I answered. I told him to leave me alone through the shut door. He said he just wanted to talk. I told him I was calling the cops, then ran to my room and called 911.

I had been preparing for this moment for over a year. I had a safety plan in place. I knew what to do and how to handle it, but nothing prepared me for the time between calling 911 and waiting for them to show up.

When the police finally showed up, he had run away. I knew exactly where he was hiding but was too shook up to explain it to the cops. I loaded my son, my dogs and myself in the car while the cops were there and we went to our safe place. A place I had planned ahead if this day ever came. A plan I never thought I'd actually have to use.

It was that day I knew that no matter how strong my boundaries were, he would never respect them. The next day I went and filed a restraining order. I was granted a temporary order and eventually went to court and was granted a permanent one. It will be in place unless/until it is brought back to court to be removed.

He emailed me 36 times that night. Some of them, he was sitting outside my house while he was sending them. I don't know for how long. I ended up getting a new car, moving to a new town and getting a new job so he could no longer find me and my son and we would be safe. I couldn't live in the constant fear anymore. One week after we moved, he was arrested one street away from our old house for Fentanyl possession, at the park I always took my son to.

Sometimes, to keep boundaries, you have to go to extreme measures.