Dear Prudence: My Christian Stepdad is Obsessed With Saving My Soul

[minoanmiss]

After an awful battle, my mom died from ALS last year. In the intervening year since, her husband, who was my stepdad for most of my young adult life, has taken it upon himself to see that my (gay, spiritually something) soul is saved. I have him blocked on social media and from my phone, but on a regular basis, I will receive proselytizing letters or unmarked Amazon packages filled with evangelical Christian literature, along with extremely presumptuous notes from him about this being what my mom would have wanted and how sad she is I won’t be joining her in heaven.

I’m still grieving, and to say I find this upsetting is an understatement. I even went so far as to instruct the rest of my family to not give him my new address after moving, but sure enough, he found me anyway! I have always had an awful relationship with this man, and I can’t say I care so much about his opinion. In truth, toward the end of her life, my mom and I were very communicative and reconciled about our beliefs, and my stepdad isn’t even being factual in this bizarre crusade. So why does getting this mail bother me so much? Am I overthinking or is this harassment? Is there any way I can get him to stop?

A: You didn’t mention whether you’ve asked him to stop. I assume you have, but if you haven’t—do that!

If he already knows that he’s sending this stuff to you against your wishes, that’s awful. Sadly, to constitute harassment, I believe the mail would have to contain something threatening. But he doesn’t have to know that. Can you temporarily unblock his number and text him to say, “I’m going to ask you one more time to stop sending me packages and letters. I’ve sought the advice of a lawyer about how to deal with your harassment, and if I receive another piece of mail from you, I am going to take whatever action is available to me.”?

I suggest reaching out to any other relatives who have better relationships with him and asking them to intervene. The next idea I had is that you could start sending him materials that he would find equally offensive, but that’s probably not a healthy use of your time and wouldn’t lead to a great outcome. This is tough! Maybe lawyers reading this can tell me if I’m right about the harassment issue, and others can help with additional ideas.

Comments

[frenzy]

come on. Return-to-sender the packages and letters. Dont even open them. Come on, Prudie.

[melannen]

And if it's real bad: get your mail redirected to a trusted friend's address, have them dump the packages from stepdad and not tell you about them when they give you the rest of your mail.

[azurelunatic]

My partner and I are currently screening the email of a friend. Anything from a few addresses gets (on their end) forwarded to us and dumped to trash. If it's important, the messages can be retrieved from trash and replied to.

[cereta]

Honestly, I think even that much of a visible response to him will only cause him to escalate. Just dumping them is probably the best answer.

[azurelunatic]

There were some books that, upon reflection, I dumped into my dad's incinerator rather than pass along to someone else who might be harmed by them.

Those were science fiction, by an author I used to like and might have wholeheartedly loved if his books had come to me sooner. These books probably don't have the potentially redeeming features of those.

[conuly]

Don't return to sender. Dump directly in the trash. Return to sender can read as a "response" to stalkers, causing them to up the ante because, after all, every response is attention, it must be working.

[gingicat]

What about covering the address with a sticker and writing "no such person at this address"?

[cereta]

I suspect that would just give the stalker an excuse to "investigate." They'd be so concerned about their loved one's safety or some such excuse.

[gingicat]

Drat, I can't do that for my roommate, then.

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, she asked me about it and after thinking for awhile I advised her it was a bad idea -- they'd probably use it as an excuse to drive up with the bounced mail.

[bikergeek]

"No such person" might cause USPS to start bouncing mail that the recipient *does* want.

[gingicat]

Which is why I'd block out the name and address.

[conuly]

I don't know, but I'm fairly certain that's also not advised by experts because, again, it reads as a "response". You wouldn't see it as a response, but then, you wouldn't deluge somebody with unwanted tracts in the first place.