This is kind of a complicated story, but I will do my best to simplify it. Asshat and I got divorced in 2000. In 2001, I began dating a man who was 19 years my senior. He was a widower, had two kids, and his late wife died in child birth with the second kid. Lots of baggage and drama related to that, but that’s not the point of this story. We will call him Marvin.

He and I were together for 9 years. I was 34 when we began dating. He was your classic emotional abuser and it took me a long time, but I finally left him in early 2009. 6 months later I reconnected with DH, with whom I attended high school. Two weeks after that, I had a birthday. Upon returning home from work that day, I found Marvin sitting in my driveway. Kids were with Asshat, and DH was in SkidTown. I had not laid eyes on Marvin in over 6 months, but Marvin wanted to take me out to dinner for my birthday. Uh, nope. I asked him to leave, and long story short, ended up having to call the police to get him to leave. Yes, a restraining order was granted. I have only seen Marvin once or twice in the last seven, almost 8 years, despite living in the same town and having mutual friends.

Cut to about three months ago. DH began advising a new client on a business start up. We will call this guy Randy. DH begins to tell me about this new product and it becomes abundantly clear to me that I know Randy from my days with Marvin. I tell DH of the connection, and we laugh it off as one of those small world moments. DH and Randy are now partners in this business.

Over the weekend, DH and Randy went to a large consumer show to showcase their product. About 4pm, DH sends me this text – “just had a conversation with Marvin.” Chills immediately ran down my whole body. When DH got home he told me about it. Here is what happened….DH and Randy were standing around demo-ing their product and along comes Marvin. He and Randy exchange pleasantries (they had a falling out a few years back, apparently) and then Marvin turns to DH and says, “you look so familiar to me. I know you.”

Now, DH and Marvin have never met, and while DH knows what Marvin looks like from back in the stalking days when I sent him a picture of Marvin, the two of them have actually never seen each other. DH sticks his hand out and says, “I am married to WOB.” Marvin’s wife pipes up with, “oh, YOU married WOB?” At this point, DH turns away from the conversation because a potential customer wanted to demo their product.

There is NO WAY that Marvin should have recognized DH. DH even said, “how the hell did he recognize me? There is no way that I should have seemed familiar to him.” The only way he could have possibly known what DH looks like is if he has been/was stalking me on FB (unlikely, since we are NOT FB friends and my page is locked down pretty tightly) or if he has been stalking me in person. It made me really uncomfortable the rest of last night. I worked hard to get over the trauma of that relationship and I do NOT like feeling like Marvin has any power over me.

This morning, I texted a mutual friend of ours who chose me in the breakup, but sees Marvin at Synagogue. She told me that he has asked her before about my new house (she is also my realtor) but she refused to give him that information. She also said that she wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled public records to find the address and stalked me a little bit.

Ugh – just ugh. I am not afraid of anything except clowns, but this scares me a bit. I hope it is much ado about nothing…