To ask my personal and professional friends to unfriend him?

[SoonToBePinocchiosExWife]

Just that really. Over the years we were together he randomly added lots of my professional contacts and friends (that he's never met or communicated with) to his Facebook friends list. I'm guessing they approved his friend requests because they saw we were married. I feel really uncomfortable with this and am thinking about asking these contacts to unfriend him. Our marriage was really awful by the end, and I'm pretty sure he was tracking me online. AIBU to do this?

I don't think you can dictate who is sm friends with your ex, sorry!

You can’t be telling people what they can and can’t do.

I think you can politely inform your colleagues that you're no longer married and let them connect the dots.

Sure, ask your friends. I wouldn't mind, especially if he's using social media to keep tabs on you.

You might have to shut down your socials for a while or name change.

Unless it's genuinely a safety issue, such as he's stalking you online to try and find you/hurt you -then you can't do anything about it. If that is the case then I'm sure those people would remove him for your safety, I would. But it would mean you would have to divulge that information.

Not intending to tell them what to do, just ask politely. Problem is that a lot of my industry contacts are on his friends list, which means he can see any posts that I make via the friends of friends function. I need to be able to post to friends of friends because of the nature of my particular industry (which he isn't involved in at all) and without being able to do this I'll lose work opportunities. But I am trying to prevent him from accessing my life full stop and I know this is a way he uses to track me. The only other thing I can think to do is report him to police for stalking me, but am scared this will make things much much worse. I have little faith that the police will protect me tbh.

I think if I go this route I'll have to be honest with them.

I don't think anyone would judge you based off his behaviour. If it was me and this was the case, just read your recent update, then I would definitely compose a message that can be sent to everyone detailing why you're asking. I can't imagine anyone having an issue with it.

I think I'm over thinking it, was worried I might seem weird for asking. The way I see it is that to these people he's basically a stranger that they've never met or communicated with and he has zero ties to our industry so I suspect most will actually be fine with it.

I had this with a nightmare ex. I ended up setting up a completely new FB account, blocking said ex as the first thing I did, then added everyone to the new account and then deleted the old one completely. I also found and blocked all their family members so he couldn't find me via them.
It was the only way, I'd tried blocking them which does stop them seeing posts, but I then got them tracking me down via a friend and asking why I had blocked them.

Would it not be easier to just block him?

There’s a function on Facebook where you can dictate who can see tagged posts etc so if you were to be tagged by a professional colleague then he couldn’t see the post.

Also I’m pretty sure if you blocked him he couldn’t see anything you posted anyway even you tagged mutual friends so just do that.

Why can’t you block him?

I’m going to be honest- the amount of women I know and have on social media (not close friends) who seem to have added or kept my ex on Facebook/ Instagram since we split is a bit odd. I can only assume they think he’s nice to look at but most of them know he’s been physically abusive to numerous people now. I couldn’t care less, not my problem thank goodness, let them go for it and learn- they have far more of a pre warning then I did.

Block him then he won't see anything you post. That saves getting anone else dragged in

As others have said just block him and he won’t see anything you post even if you tag mutual friends.

Then block him. He won’t see anything then will he? I see that’s been suggested several times but you seem to be avoiding doing that?

Asking is not dictating.

I think it is a perfectly reasonable ask, for reasons of privacy.
Absolutely ask.
I certainly would happily comply without any great thought.

Just block him.

You're going to make yourself look childish if you ask people to unfriend him.

And you'll probably get annoyed if some refuse because they like him or enjoy reading his posts.

Yes please!

I have a friend who has set up two different accounts, one is for professional/networking use and the other is more personal. You could try that or look at the more specific settings to see how you can restrict what he can see. I have divided my contacts on FB into Friends and Acquaintances and set it so some people can’t see what I post and also I don’t have them in my feed which is very useful for people who want to connect and pay attention to their friends list but post lots of stuff that I don’t want to see.

If you block him. He won't be able to see anything you post including If it's a friend of a friend

As said above blocking will not allow him to see anything posted or totally make a new account. Have to say I wouldn't have personal and professional together anyhow