I had a really uncomfortable encounter today with the ex wife of a guy I used to share a house with some years ago.

He was a casual acquaintance who I knew through mutual friends, largely because we all worked in the same industry. I was dating someone who was part of that group of advertising people, and when he needed someone to share the rent on a townhouse, my then-boyfriend suggested it to me. The location was great, the rent was very affordable, and I would have the top floor exclusively to myself. Sounded like a great deal.

Eventually my boyfriend and I broke up but we all remained friends (for the time being). Then one night the roommate hit on me. I spoke to him and made it very clear what my boundaries were and he apologized. But it happened again and then happened again once more, at which point I was furious. He had come up to my floor, a place we had agreed he had no business being, and insisted that he needed to sleep with me. He made me feel unsafe in my own space. I sent him a very strongly worded email in which I made it clear that his behaviour was unacceptable. I referenced the fact that it was not the first time I was addressing the issue. I told him if it happened again I was moving out. I avoided him for weeks, I was so angry.

At this time he was seeing (and sleeping with) different women and also occasionally sleeping with his wife, from whom he was separated. I had met her a few times and she seemed very nice but I could tell she had questions about the nature of our so-called friendship. 

When he inevitably crossed the line again I moved out immediately and had nothing more to do with him. In the midst of another attempt at reconciliation, her better instincts lead her to go snooping and she apparently found my email. She called me one day and talked my ear off about their problems, none of which I cared to hear about. I just wanted distance from anything related to him.

I ran into her today at my tent at the Emancipation Village. We greeted one another and she left. Then she came back and asked to talk to me in private. 

She then proceeded to tell me that my email had had a profound impact on her. That she read it so many times she knew parts of it by heart. She said she was glad someone had experienced with him what she had also gone through (I wasn’t but I guess my feelings were irrelevant).

She told me she printed multiple copies of it out and taped it up all over the house for him to see. She confronted him repeatedly on the contents. She wrote it out by hand and mailed it to him. She printed copies of it to show it to his close friends so they could see what kind of man he was.

Listening to this I just wanted to pick myself up and run as far away from her as I could. This email was personal. I referenced incidents that happened that made me feel vulnerable and unsafe. I had felt violated by his behaviour, and the idea that she was showing it to people, and referencing it in arguments, made me feel violated all over again. But she sounded like she was obsessed by the contents. In telling me all of this it was clear it never occurred to her that she was crossing the boundaries of my privacy. Her eyes glazed over as she talked about it, as though she had found a lost gospel. 

I felt like I was standing in front of a lunatic. I simply nodded politely while she went on hoping if I said nothing it would end soon. Eventually the tent filled up with customers and she became aware that I needed to get back to business so she wrapped it up and we parted ways. But not before telling me how much it meant to her. This email that had not been addressed to her. That she had found while snooping. That contained my raw emotions. That she’d taken and shown to god knows how many people. She expressed gratitude for it. To me.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see the back of another person as I was today.