Yo all This is a question on behalf of someone else, is that allowed? Anyways, I have a friend who is receiving the attentions of a male who is VERY delusional... I've seen some of the correspondence and heard the stories from my well-balanced friend, and it's clear he's delusional, egomaniacal, and out of emotional control. He's coming out of a divorce after a 5 or 6 year marriage and lost custody of the child. He's a guy she dated for a few months when they were 16. They're now about 28 or 29, and haven't had much contact for the intervening 12 years. Apparently they've been in contact for abour 6 weeks, and dated for 1 or 2 of those. He was professing profound love and lashing out with insane jealousy at even casual contact with any other male. He's now professing to be excessively self confident and completely independent of her and (perhaps we can be grateful for this) claims that she will receive no further contact from him. The guy is just completely off the rails. Now, the options i've thought up for her are: completely cut him off? If so, and he doesn't cut it out, how much more of this shit do you take before you take out a restraining order? show copies of the fucked up correspondence to his counsellor? Are they obliged to keep confidence from him? If he finds out, he might be liable to flip his lid and go completely postal. what does this situation warrant? He hasn't yet actually made any physical threats, i don't think... [edit] Oh and also, the reason for asking about showing copies to his counsellor is that he is apparently EXTREMELY adept at lying and projecting a false image. We worry he'll bubble up and implode if he doesn't get the proper help for what he's doing to himself, it's altogether possible his counsellor has no idea.
To make the response simpler, I'll write it to her: I think the safest and most reasonable course of action is to cut off contact. First do so politely, and make clear that it just isn't working out and you just don't feel comfortable having any further contact, and that you'd appreciate it if he'd honor your request. If he does not take kindly to the attempt to cut off contact, I would make one more attempt to communicate directly with him, and just say that a single further contact of any sort will result in your contacting the police and filing for a restraining order. If contact happens again, simply call the police and go through the steps for the restraining order. Having the correspondence to give to the police, and contact information for his counselor will be helpful at this stage. I don't think it would be wise to provide the correspondence to the counselor unless he doesn't take the first or second warning. Then, I would provide the correspondence to the counselor while simultaneously reporting to the police (and also notify the counselor that the police have been notified, and you are concerned for your safety.) This ensures essentially a double layer of protection; if his counselor believes that you may be in any sort of danger, then s/he is also required to report his actions to authorities. Unless he has shown violent tendencies or indications that could warn of that, the actual likelihood of violence is relatively low, but it's not something one wants to take chances with.
He has never made a direct threat but has hit things while in tantrums, for example the frame of a car he was sitting in.
