Dear Coleen

MY BOYFRIEND and I have been together 18 months. We’ve had a really hard road because of his ex, who he was with for almost 13 years.

After they broke up, she still acted like they were in a relationship. She still talks to him almost every day and finds excuses to “drop by” his place.

She’s extremely unkind and disrespectful towards me and treats me like a mistress, even though they’d broken up when I met him.

When we first started dating, he did lie to me and cheated on me with her. This was awful and the most painful thing that’s ever happened to me in a relationship.

When she disappears from the picture for a few days or a couple of weeks, things are wonderful with us.

When I’m not sharing him with her, I couldn’t be happier and he feels the same. But then she’ll pop up and remind him she’s still there, desperately waiting to be with him even when she knows he doesn’t love her.

It’s his fault as well as hers. Yes, she’s incessant – she’ll come over at 3am, screaming and crying, banging on the door or showing up at family events uninvited. But he won’t put his foot down and tell her to get out of his life. He feels guilty for moving on.

I can’t take any more of her nastiness. She came over one night, screaming abuse at me and even stepped inside my house as if to physically assault me. Luckily my boyfriend stepped in between us. I feel so helpless and angry and don’t understand why he doesn’t respect me enough to send her packing for all the awful things she’s done.