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

[cereta]

In utter fairness, many, many people fall into the trap of, "I am seriously bothered by this thing a person does, which I will address in every other way besides telling that person it bothers me." In likewise fairness, it's been my experience that doing so seldom goes well, so...

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, in general,"please stop" doesn't tend to work, and in particular, "please stop" to an Evangelical means "KEEP GOING FOR THE GLORY OF GOD."

[lemonsharks]

Yeeep

It's the cavalier approach the answer takes that just... Wow. Yikes.