My Husband's Ex-Wife Reads My Blog.

I have the same issue. Not on my blog (she hasn't found that). But My DH's ExW logs into her daughter's FB page (I'm friends with my SD on FB) and has the NERVE to call up MY husband and complain to him that my clothing choices are inappropriate. So you know what I do? I post lots of pics of me and my DH together.

I agree with the suggestions to A) block any IPs you know are hers and B) moderate comments from here on out.

Personally, I don't ever write anything online--blog, Facebook, Twitter, magazine jobs, etc. that I would not be okay with everyone in the whole world reading. Because it's the Internet. It isn't private.

Sometimes, there is something special I want to share and I might send an email to a select group of people and call it "unbloggable."

It's a tightrope, but when we choose to journal in public we have to be prepared for our journal to be read by anyone and everyone.

"All that you have is your soul." Tracy Chapman

I was beginning to think I might be the only person who deals with my husband's ex wife stalking us.

It started out with MySpace...she would call up and complain about things people had wrote on my wall about family things we did. Or pictures I posted. I was supposed to exclude HER son from anything posted on my page, because I wasn't his biological mother. It went so far that after we had our daughter and purchased our home, she emailed DH to tell him she had been going through all of our pictures and wanted to let him know that she thought our daughter was just so beautiful, and that she had to admit that she was jealous that we bought such a nice house. I ended up deleting my MySpace, and switched to Facebook. I run an at-home business and advertise on my site so it needs to remain public. Lo and behold, she shows up there too. And says things to DH about things on my page.

They were fighting a few months ago and she brings up something I had wrote on my blog. DH asked her how she knew that, and she told him she had googled my and found my blog a long time ago. We had always wondered why it seemed like every time we had something major going on, she would call up on these rants trying to cause drama. Well, we started going back through the documentation we keep regarding her crazy tyrants and comparing them to my blog. The dates lined up.

It's just amusing to me that everytime DH calls her out on her behavior, she tries turning the table and saying we are so impossible to get along with. No, we are just asking you NOT to STALK us!!!

I'm having a similar situation with my own family. We fought and she tells me not to visit her Twitter page, yet she STILL visits my blog.

I've blocked her IP address but if she clicks on links from my Twitter, she can still get to my blog. I'm hoping to get self hosted soon so I can block her completely.

She doesn't leave comments but since we are not in each other's lives any longer, she should not be knowing what is going on in my life.

There is a free IP blocking service you could try. I can find the site if you like.

pricousins at gmail dot com

Good luck!

Hugs!

Angie

I don't have an ex lurking anywhere in cyberspace, but my gut reaction to reading your post was you need to do what you need to do. If it has made you sad that your old blog is down, then put it back up. Delete her comments when she posts them and try to forget about her. If her presence is making you change the way you live your life...then she wins.

Lanita Moss 

A Mother's Hood ( http://amothershood.com )

Birth by Paperwork ( http://blog.birthbypaperwork.com )

You shouldn't have to end your blog because of one clearly nutty individual.

If you recognise her comments you can block her. There are applications to block specific IPs from your site. Alternatively you can set your blog up where people have to request access or moderate comments before they go up.

Sad some people have so little life that they need to stalk your blog.

Michelle Roger writes for Living With Bob (Dysautonomia) ( http://bobisdysautonomia.blogspot.com/ )

with a very similar sounding ex.

My blog *was* anonymous for the most part (except my profile pic and a couple of other photos). I used pseudonyms for everyone (including her...she was "Mommie Dearest"). Through a very convoluted and dogged search for me on the internet, she found my blog. My husband had dislocated his hip at the time and I did blog about it--which made it quite obvious when she came across my page who I was.

She even printed and highlighted a couple of entries I wrote that involved my sister-in-law. She 'presented' the printout to her after not seeing her for years. My SIL thought she was handing her an envelope of pictures.

The ex also told my stepkids that *everyone* in their city knew about my blog (I live 75 miles away) and were following it to see what I would write next about the ex. She told them how embarrassed and ashamed she was about the "Lies" I wrote about her. Speaking of lies--my blog stats showed that she was the *only* person from her city who had ever visited my blog. She actually spent 8 hours on my blog over the course of just two days.

My stepdaughter--15 at the time--refused to visit my husband until I took the blog down. Hub stood by me and I didn't take it down at first. I eventually did, though. (Long Story--but I didn't *delete* anything, I imported it to my new blog and it currently resides in draft mode.)

She still stalks me, but now I am not anonymous. In fact, she'll probably read this comment, because, like you, more than 10 years later, she can't let go of her obsession. Screw her, is my feeling. Let her read my writing. I don't publish anything that she (or anyone else, for that matter)) can't see. Hell, *strangers* read my writing. She's just jealous because I actually know the difference between "exacerbated" and "exasperated".

At this point, I figure she can just eat her heart out. If she can't get over not being married to my husband anymore, there's nothing I can do about it. And seriously--he's a great guy, so I don't blame her for her obsession regrets.

I could go on and on, but I don't want to hijack your post. You *aren't* alone in that weird feeling that goes along w/ knowing the ex cares *that* much about you and your writing.

~Margaret

Just Margaret ( http://maurhoffbarney.blogspot.com )

I hate to say it, but it's part of what happens when you are in public domain. I've been blogging for years and often wonder/fear who reads it. You can always set it so you have to approve all comments. Then you can reject hers. She should get the hint that you are not keen on her posting. But unless you privatize the whole thing, you can't prevent her from reading.

I'd stay anonymous. It's scary to think everyone can read your stuff. I always blogged with my name and realized I had held back a lot that I wanted to share/talk about with my bloggie friends, because my name was attached to it. So I started a new one and kept it anonymous. I use both now and my close friends know its me, but no one can find it by Googling me.

Although there are some people who I'm sure would realize it was me if they ever stumbled on it... but hey, they should just be glad I didn't name them out ;-)

sorry--it was my ex-husband who was blog stalking, not husband's ex-wife.

I've been in the exact same situation. He found the anonymous blog. I deleted it. He found the next anonymous blog. I kept it.

He printed 40 pages of my first blog to include in our divorce proceedings, trying to prove that my feminist perspective meant I was also lesbian, wiccan, atheist, unfit as a mother. . .

It's creepy. And for that matter, I'm sorry I deleted by first blog, and my second.

Thanks to @peevedmichelle on Twitter for RT'ing this to me.

I feel your pain because my husband's ex did the same thing. She then printed the entire blog out and shared it with our daughter while daughter was spending the summer with her mother.

I knew she was reading it and when daughter came home she told us about it. I asked her how she felt about what she read and she said, "there wasn't anything in it that wasn't true".

I purposely didn't share it with our daughter (who lived with us full time then) because it wasn't appropriate. Sadly, her bio Mom thought otherwise.

I've made just about every mistake there is to make (peeved michelle can attest to this as she is the boss of me, consequently has helped me many times with this situation) and the best solution I've found for myself is to just let it go.

The down side for me is that said blog was used against us in a custody case with our daughter. That's the worst part of it and I considered closing my blog up but decided against it. A lot of the terrible things I wrote were four years prior to the custody case, yet still used against me. I owned up to that publicly on my blog and elsewhere as needed.

I had to determine how important my blog was, as well as the ability to write freely about lots of stuff. In many ways, the disaster aspect actually improved my writing and maturity, due to being careful about what hash I was slinging at the time.

I currently write for another site under an anonymous identity and that takes care of the yucky stuff that would hurt another person. If they happen to find that, I cannot take any responsibility for it as I've done my part to remain anonymous.

Again, my best course of action if I could go back would have been to just ignore it, block the comments and move on with my life. (I should note that my husband's ex sent trolls to attack me too back when she first found it). In many ways, it made me stronger.

I hope that helps, if you want to email me I'd be open to share more with you.

dailypiglet@yahoo.com

Forgive my ignorance here, but can't you just require name/sign-in for your comments on your blog? Or do you feel like that will be too limiting? I think some people abuse the anonymity of the internet to a length that is extreme, and I actually appreciate measures like identity checks that validate that there's an actual person (with an actual email address) there on the other end of the comment. I know I don't mind providing that information when I comment on blogs (so long as it's hidden, as I don't like sharing my email publicly.)

I was horrified when I found out people like my high-school crush, my boss (who friended me on facebook before he was my boss) and one of my ex's read my blog. Especially since I'm just as single now as when I started the blog almost three years ago.

But I let that go. I'm proud of the me that I'm putting out into the world. ALL of the world.

I'm sorry that this small woman has darkened something you loved. I say take back your blog! and set up moderation and delete her snarky comments.

Saving the World One Fat Ass at a Time!

www.jellykean.wordpress.com ( http://www.jellykean.wordpress.com/ )

I'm so sorry, and I completely understand.

I took a blog down once for exactly the same reason. However, I had also blogged some not nice things about her, and I didn't want that hanging around cyberspace. That was when I adopted the rule of, "Never blog anything you wouldn't say to someone's face."

Since there really isn't anything I would say to her face, I just don't talk about her anymore.

My new blog is no longer anonymous. She found it too - while I thought it was anonymous. After a few "anonymous" comments that I ignored, she quit leaving them. She still read it though, and actually showed up one night at a small concert I had blogged about attending. Without going into the details, I'll just say that all of that taught me two more lessons. The first was, "Never blog where you are going to be and when." The second was on how to get a restraining order.

I did, in fact, quit blogging for a couple of months after that - but I decided that it was letting the terrorist win. I missed it so much that I started back.

Now, I just ignore it. She reads, at least one of her sisters read, and honestly? Considering how bitter she is, I just figure it hurts her more than it hurts me to read it. Because I'm ridiculously happy and in love with my husband.

But to answer your question, I think you have to do what is right for you and your family. Even with her creepy stalking, it would still be your decision to take down your blog - she's not forcing you to do it.

One day, a few years ago, I was telling my therapist how ridiculous it was that whenever my husband's ex-wife calls the house, she hangs up if I answer the phone. She will then call right back. Repeat and repeat. It's annoying to say the least. My therapist said, "Then don't answer the phone when you know it's her." I retorted that I wasn't going to let her win - it was my phone in my house and I could answer it if I wanted to! She said that yes, I could answer it, but why would I want to if it bothered me when she did that? It was my decision not to answer the phone if I didn't want to be annoyed.

We can't control what the ex's do. If she's going to stalk you, chances are that she will find your new blog too. It's only a matter of time. What you have to do is find a way to be comfortable with that and protect yourself as much as you need to.

Sorry for the novel length comment. You obviously struck a chord with me - and I wish you all the best of luck with things.

I feel so bad for you. I really do. It's one (creepy) thing for her to read your blog and it's another thing for her to leave comments and feel it's ok because she is anonymous.
If you miss your old blog, put it back up. If she starts her crap again, politely email her and explain to her that you know it's her leaving the comments and to please be an adult and stop. If she either refuses to stop or denies it, then block her IP address and any other subsequent IPs she might obtain from commenting on your blog. WordPress allows such privacy options.
Your blog is YOUR little space and you shouldn't let someone get the better of you for it. Choose your love of the blog over your creeped-out feeling for her. There are tools out there that can help you :)
Somer blogs at Merry Wife of Canon ( http://www.merrywifeofcanon.com ) as well as Smell My Plate ( http://www.smellmyplate.com ).