Weird friend of wider family member stalked my email and tried to tell me off

[Justfortodaysnonfun]

Had the weirdest thing happen and just wondered if I’m a nutcase magnet or if people are just lunatics these days.

We are going through a tough time. My husband’s mum died and we had her funeral a month ago. I do not get on with his sister so have not seen her for a number of years as we live quite far away. At the funeral I was helping my FIL as his mobility is bad.

This woman came up to me and asked if I were Sally, his carer. I said no, I’m his son’s wife and she shrank away like I’d sprayed her with bleach. Later I was sat down with someone and she went to join them, saw me and pointedly moved her chair so she was not sat next to me. I didn’t know many people there, it was already uncomfortable due to estrangement from SIL, so to be treated like a leper by a stranger was very jarring.

I later find out this person is friends with my husbands sister and they aren’t close at the moment, and she’s seemingly trying to reestablish their friendship. Whatever, but understandably I’m not keen to see this person again.

Fast forward to now and my husbands father has been ill in hospital, and had a serious life threatening operation. He’s a very popular sort that everyone loves. It was so serious that my children took the day off school to see him before and we drove several hours to do so.

When we arrived at the hospital, this woman was there. She knew we were coming and could have easily left, but instead chose to get up and stand in front of me to apologise for mistaking me for a carer. I quite rightly said, I don’t care about that, why would I? She said she was embarrassed and I told her straight that this was not what happened, she treated me like a leper and it was very upsetting. She started talking about her friendship group and her not liking one of my SIL friends and I felt like I was transported back 35 years. This woman is over 50! I told her I did not care, she made a very difficult day harder and basically I just wanted her to go away. I know why she shrank away, she’s desperate to be in SIL good books and talking nicely to me would not help her cause. I was not friendly, but then why would I be? She truly upset me on a very tough day where I was very much alone (husband busy hosting, as he should).

She then kissed my FIL, told him she loved him and left. Weird, but good riddance. Hopefully I’ll never see her again.

At the weekend I opened my work emails to find this woman had stalked me to my place of work, where she decided to tell me off for being frosty to her and talking down to her. With a mild threatening warning to not speak to her like that again. This woman I do not know, who has placed herself deliberately in front of me twice. Now she is invading my work, my home life all at a time when we are really struggling. My husband has been away with his family on and off for 8 weeks and it’s really hard.

Why on earth would someone do this? She’s clearly mental as her email said things like ‘why did you speak to me like that when you should have been focusing on your FIL’. Well, you were standing in-between us you moron.

I cannot fathom a situation where I would do something like this. None. What is wrong with people?

Her behaviour is very odd. OP, what you said at the hospital was completely fine. You were doing what people on MN are always told to do and standing up for yourself - she was rude to you at the funeral and you told her so.
I would reply 'Please do not contact me again as I do not wish to discuss this further' and then block her email and tell HR, as well as see if IT can block her email coming through to the whole work system.

The only thing I could be seen to have done wrong is not accepting a bullshit apology from a stranger. If she had just mistook my identity, no apology required. We don’t know each other, why would she know who I was.

Unfortunately, I believe that integrity is more important than being polite.

All I did was say to her was, you were really rude to me and it upset me. I didn’t attack her character or say anything else. I just didn’t say ‘oh it doesn’t matter.’ It did matter, it was unkind and cruel and actions have consequences.

You're giving her way too much of your energy.

Block and ignore the insignificant woman.

That’s the most truth in one statement. Thank you!

You were rude. She was clumsy.

you want to dismiss her.

shes really upset.

it’s called a misunderstanding.

Why not clear the air and apologise for miscommunication during a difficult time and suggest it’s put behind you, no harm done, peace and goodwill, etc etc

Why is she ‘ insignificant’? Isn’t she a human being, with feelings? If she was an immigrant would you casually call her insignificant? If she had special needs would you casually call her insignificant?

I think you were a total drama queen. A stranger who doesn’t like you by reputation because she is or has been friends with a SIL from whom you are estranged chose not to sit next to you at a funeral, after initially mistaking you for a carer. She apologised for the initial mistake next time you saw her and you kept banging on about her ‘making you feel like a leper’. Her looking up your work email was weird, but a less aggressively melodramatic person would have just said ‘OK, thanks’ and gone on to your FIL. I mean, she sounds a bit odd, but so do you. All this drama was caused by someone moving a chair so they didn’t have to sit next to someone they didn’t know. Not a biggie.

Oh go and play somewhere else 🙄

ThePalla

With all due respect, I think you have things backwards.

Insignificant - I believe - to me. No one’s suggesting her life is without value. It’s just that I do not know her, so why would I treat her like someone of note in my life.

Think I’d message back saying, “Please stop messaging me. If you do not like it when people tell you when you have been rude to them then this is easily resolved, by NOT being rude.”

Not at the funeral, at the wake.

I’m clearly not someone who is unaffected, but so what?

She is entitled to give me a wide berth, hence why I have no idea who was she is. But if she ‘does not like me by reputation’ then she could have left the hospital and we wouldn’t see each other again. You can’t make your negative feelings obvious and then expect for all to be forgotten as my SIL isn’t there to disapprove!

Look, @Justfortodaysnonfun — you’re so annoyed by her behaviour because it’s so like your own. Both of you overreact to minor things, and both of you then can’t let anything go. Both of you have estrangements you seem to think are important.

You don’t know that her moving her chair had anything to do with her friendship with your SIL. That’s just hearsay. She might have just been mortified she mistook you for ‘staff’. Or maybe she just didn’t want to sit next to a stranger and make polite conversation at a difficult time. It doesn’t matter why, anyway.. And why on earth do you think she should have left before you got to your FIL’s bedside because she knew you were coming? She clearly left shortly after you arrived anyway, and would presumably have left faster had you not strung things out by contradicting her when she was apologising. Then she emailed you. But now you’re posting about it on the internet. Neither of you can let it go.

You’re looking at yourself in the mirror, which is why this is irritating you so much.

Agreed. Language like ‘treated like a leper’ … ‘brutal’, and talking about being scared of my inbox as a routine thing and how this email ‘will never be topped’…. Lots of drama and high emotion here.

If she is such an insignificant peripheral family friend, why was she at the hospital? How did she know your FIL was in hospital? Who let her in the ward to see him?

Of course there is high emotion, I’ve spent the entire thread talking about how distressing this time has been. This is my family.

This other person is not a member of the family, they are on the outside with 100 others who know the family socially. Therefore emotion of this type is inappropriate.

Over explaining just leads to this sort of thing, and the horror of the initial action that lead me to make this thread is muted by all the noise.

I thank you for your input but there is no need to lay into me. I’m awash with self reflection and I know who I am, and I’m aware of what I do.

He’s a popular sort and his daughter has sent in at least ten of her friends so far.

She wasn’t ‘clumsy’ moving to sit away from someone isn’t clumsy, it’s really bloody rude, and it’s totally awful when that person is busy supporting their fil because his wife just died. The op wasn’t rude, she was honest with boundaries which include not pretending other people aren’t exceptionally rude.

Thank you. We’ve reached the stage of the thread where everyone is telling me I’m an awful person and I’m lucky she didn’t actually slap
me.

You should reply firmly to the email ‘This is harassment. Do not contact me again.’

I don’t think you’re an awful person at all. I’m just saying you’re so irked by this woman because she has some behaviours in common with you. Both of you overinflate minor things and then don’t let them go afterwards.

A lot of us are driven crazy by people who (sometimes unconsciously) remind us of ourselves.

Just don’t reply to her email, put it out of your head, and be glad your nice FIL is improving.

Ah, okay, kind of makes sense why you might not see eye to eye with SIL then. Who sends randoms in to visit a critically ill old man.

I suspect you were on already high alert at the funeral because of SIL, so what was clearly a casual snub – this person moving her chair away – seemed far more loaded at the time, and that when you went off at her the hospital, it was driven by that, as well as your distress over your FIL being ill.

In other words, you needed an outlet to vent from the stress and grief and she gave you the opportunity to do that by bringing up the wake at the hospital. I think if you're completely honest with yourself, she didn't actually make you feel like a leper, rather just ignored, because you were with other people anyway, and to use that term in the chat that followed was OTT. She shouldn't have sent the email, but it does sound like you were rude to her and she just wanted to have her say, as you did at the hospital. She appears to have a loving relationship with your FIL, so for his sake, while he's recovering, I would not reply and just draw a line under it if you see her again. Don't let him get drawn into it.

You are getting a very unfair ride here OP.

You stated your boundary and upheld it. The childish woman disliked that and has massively overstepped by emailing you. Absolutely contact HR and IT.

You were well within your bounds to stand firm with that woman as you did and it wasn’t rude.

I hope FiL has a strong recovery

Well she sounds absolutely unhinged. But she’s obviously desperate for your attention, so the most satisfying thing you can do is not give her any of it.

Don’t reply to her, block her email address and try to give her as little of your brain space as possible. If you feel your thoughts edging towards her, tell yourself “she is irrelevant to me” and deliberately think of something else. You’ll train your brain not to think of her at all.

Thank you for this.

But being told that someone you find abhorrent must clearly similar to you is pretty distressing. I’m never inappropriate or rude. I would never make anyone feel any type of way on purpose.

Not letting someone who has fully upset you off the hook is not the same. I believe in fairness, but also in consequences. I’m just not fake.