Sunday, March 15, 2009

run for the hills

I saw this letter to Dear Abby:

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend, "Josh," won't leave me alone. We have been living together for almost a year, and he is the ultimate overprotector. When I start to leave the house to run errands or anything, he stops me and asks, "Where do you think you're going?" When I tell him, he will then follow me to the location.

I love Josh and would never want to hurt his feelings, but I think he's a little too worried about me. I'm an adult, and I can take care of myself. Is Josh being too overprotective, or am I just crazy? -- OVERPROTECTED IN OREGON


My advice - RUN, now, quickly, and far away. That's not being "overprotective". That's being suffocatingly controlling. "Where are you going?" asked out of curiosity or just for informational purposes is one thing. But "where do you think you're going?" is a completely different question with lots of other connotations, and to me, an underlying threat. There's really no way to take that, especially from one adult to another.

He doesn't want to go with you on errands - he just wants to follow you. Yeah, ok, that's normal. RUN.AWAY. NOW.

1 comment:

Sherry said...

That would be my advice, too. It's not far away from being physically abused, so I hope she gets out of there soon.