Receiving Disturbing Cards

[Circularspandex]

Name changed because it's outing.

DH and I have been together for twenty three years and have two teenage children.

Last year, about a week before mother's day, I received a mother's day card with my name written inside and then a heart. Nothing else. I didn't recognise the handwriting. It was posted from a city which is at the other end of the country (NE and I live in the SW). My street name was misspelled on the envelope.

I was freaked out by it, but ignored it after a while.

We've been away this weekend, but have just found another one in our letterbox. Similar To My Mother card, with my name and heart. Written in the same green pen, it seems.

This time there's no address, stamp or postmark on it, which is really worrying. It just has my name on her front. Unfortunately our Ring doorbell has run out of battery and we haven't charged it.

Do you think I should contact the police? DH thinks I should, but I don't want them to think I'm wasting their time.

I definitely do not have any other children.

Teens dont do royal mail/stamps these days.

Doesn't scream teen vibes to me.

Very odd.

So worrying for you, OP. Sounds like the start of a creepy novel. Hope it gets sorted.

I can't think of any valid scenario apart from:

1. Cruel prank or some mentally unstable person close to you doing this.
2. The mistaken identity as mentioned here about adoptive child.

Maybe the child thinks you are their mother however they knows you have family so they don't want to leave details to disrupt, even now it already feels disruptive anyway..
Maybe for them just sending anonymous card is enough, it equals to them that they made you aware they exist.

Im trying to think what i would do in similar scenario and I was actually once with my estranged dad when I was in my early 20s.
I wrote him a non anonymous letter so he responded and we met few times, thought he wasn't that interested anyway.
But the difference was he obviously knew I exist as my parents got divorced after I was born.
But if he had no idea I existed and I tracked him down, maybe knowing he had nice happy family, I perhaps wouldn't contact him with my details first - purely not to shock him - but maybe just sent him card.. ?
I don't know.
It's hard in both scenarios, once they make contact either anonymous or not- both are disruptive..

Oh OP, I can see why you’re freaked out! I do wonder though, there could be a chance that they’ve been sent with kind appreciative intentions (rather than a malicious way).
The vibe is more like Valentines, in that it’s a secret admirer. But obviously it’s sent only for Mother’s Day, so – I know you said you can’t think of any kids you’ve helped in your life – what about any nieces or nephews?
Or someone whose pet you’ve looked after? (I think you said you look after your elderly neighbours pet or she looks after yours, and she was acting worried when you asked her if she’d seen any deliveries)
Or, are you sure it’s not one of your own DC?
I’m just trying to cover all possibilities, as often these strange things in life turn out to be something different to what we expected.

and the police will do what .... how ridiculous.

Go to the police about what? No crime has been committed. Scary letters (that don’t contain any threats) aren’t a crime. The police will look at her like she is stupid… they don’t even prosecute rape or theft let alone ‘anonymous letter sending’.

I had a weird card from someone once and it turned out to be someone that I’d had an bit of an argument with, who held a grudge months later and who somehow managed to get my address.
Did you have any incidents a couple of years ago with someone?

Unfortunately our Ring doorbell has run out of battery and we haven't charged it.

Reminds me of the part in a horror movie when it’s explained the cabin they stay in can’t get any telephone signal.

Next time you go away I’d charge your Ring doorbell. That’s just common sense for normal security precautions. And you will have the added benefit of being able to see who the person is if they come back.

Suzy Lamplugh Trust

i suggest contacting the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. You’ll be able to have a chat with a real person and they can talk you through what might be happening and suggest what to do next.

It is an odd thing to happen. I can’t believe it has food intentions. And tbh writing in green ink was always the give away for unhinged writing.

I agree these cards won’t be classed as malicious communications as they are not threatening.

That really sounds disturbing but as long as there were no other cards besides these ones on Mother's day, I'd probably try to forget about it (though kept the camera or ring doorbell charged!)

I can't understand why they would take that weird approach either.

And why the green pen?

Surely they would just write - in blue or black pen - to ask what they were wondering about. I mean, saying nothing achieves nothing.

Blimey, that would unnerve me too.

Hi OP
A couple of thoughts on the birth parent scenario.

I am an adoptee who has traced birth parents, and this is where I am leaning too for a few reasons.

Firstly, people who have taken commercial DNA tests sometimes don't understand how 'centimorgans' of DNA work - I have been contacted by people who are very low matches who have gotten confused and assumed I can help them find their immediate family/understand their circumstances when in reality even if I'd grown up with my birth family, it's questionable we'd even know each other. It could be that someone has tried to follow the paper trail, done the DNA and hit upon you (or vice versa.) It would be interesting if you deleted your account what happened next - if things accelerated or the letters stopped.

The second thing is - I do think you need to have a heart to heart with your DH to understand whether he may ever have donated sperm or had a one-night stand he needs to rethink.

When I was going through the commercial DNA/birth parent reunion process I was binging podcasts which also take in NPE's (non-parent expected) and donor conceived children and as part of a process to figure out what to do next after a shocking discovery, it seems like people do make really strange choices. It doesn't strike me as impossible that someone who thought your DH was his parent (or - let's be honest - conceivably could be) might try an approach like this. Not quite courageous enough to contact anyone directly, but 'hinting' at their existence. There is also a narrative out there where the woman the man (donor/one night stand) goes on to marry/have a family with becomes the 'vessel' for ill feelings towards the father.

I am not for a moment suggesting your DH is lying to you or has had an affair he's not disclosed. I have been shocked by how stories I have heard where the father genuinely had no idea but no one expected these commercial DNA sites to take off I guess.

If I was to look at this in an non-innocent way I would wonder if your DH is having an affair and he’s told the OW he will leave when the kids are adults, as many men do. And perhaps that’s why Mothers Day is being targeted - because OW resents it and is trying to unnerve you. I would say the green pen is a hint to who it is if that were the case, and I would be thinking if I know someone who I associate with Green - Green car, a house that is decorated Green, someone who often wears a green dress etc.

Stab in the dark, and possibly already mentioned (and also v unlikely!) - do you have a lunatic ex who is convinced your children are his?

Or should I say, your eldest child

Someone I knew years ago was let down very badly, and, very long story short, she sent a few cards in a similar vein.

However, she actually asked a friend in another city, complete opposite end of the country to where she lived, to post the cards for her, to ensure total anonymity. So she'd post the card to the friend, and the friend would send it on to the recipient from her location. It was really elaborate and the recipient would have been totally perplexed as the friend lived in a really random location.

I have no idea who is trying to trick you, but the city of origin doesn't necessarily mean anything, as per my example. I really hope you find out what's happening as this would seriously unsettle me. The thought that someone out there is going to so much effort to cause you unrest is horrible.

As to the green pen, what type of pen? that may give you a window into who did it. Sharpie / felt tip probably young / child, biro could be anyone, fountain pen (green is a popular colour for fountain pen ink) someone older, probably with a professional job who signs letters.

This is what's in my mind too. I've known of 2 green ink writing styles and they are very different. One is the correction by a school pupil function, and is very often the green biro you find on the 4-colour biros (rest are red, blue and black).

The other was an ex public-school type teacher who had very nice, fairly small, writing, and that was a proper ink fineliner, a strong green compared to the biro green. There were allegedly associations as a code in the Navy (green indicating a certain higher rank, and apparently difficult to forge - this is where the MI6 tradition originally crossed over). With hindsight I would not be surprised this was where he'd had that knowledge of it.

I never knew green pen is seen as negative. I love everything green, I have lots of green clothes, bags, car... green light in house.
And I use green pen too if I can't find any other. I actually took a green pen to work and used it write official notes and nobody said anything ..

@TreatyPie The structure of using Mrs Jane Doe to address the envelope.......

Neither the envelope nor the card was addressed to Mrs Jane Doe. OP has used that name on here to protect her anonymity. She says several times that it was addressed to her and that she has an unusual name.

I always used to like to have a full set of coloured biros when I was studying. I had a system of ordering my notes that involved red, blue, black and green. I liked the green biros best (current favourite is blue these days, if it matters) and still have some hanging around. They're just pens and are easy to get hold of.

This green ink thing: it used to be a joke back when people wrote actual letters to newspapers and complaints departments. The more nutty / peevish / unreasonable / obsessive , the ‘Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells’ , were often called ‘the green ink brigade’ because they reputedly wrote in green biro.

I am an older generation and don’t remember it being associated with poison pen letters.

You can google ‘green ink brigade ‘ or ‘green biro letters’

I am one who thinks this is someone who mistakenly thinks you are their birth mother, and it may have been your original pre-married name that they searched?

It’s not that hard to find all sorts of background details on people, especially if you are barking up the wrong tree.

Same! I'm quite surprise to learn this was a thing!

The most likely answer, if its not someone playing a prank is that you've got the same name as the cards intended recipient, a case of mistaken identity?

I have a first name of someone two generations older than me, and a surname that I’d only ever come across with people related to me. I’d have bet any amount of money that there was no one shared my name. But, shopping one day, handed my card over and the checkout lady said oh, how unusual, thats my friends name too! So, totally possible if you’re an everyday Jane smith!

If it was delivered by the man wearing the helmet, that information may not necessarily bring you any closer to identifying the sender because he could have been hired to do the delivery.