Dear Richard Madeley: I'm worried my boyfriend is trying to turn me into his ex
My boyfriend has bought me some lovely gifts this year – clothes and jewellery – and I'm very grateful. Except I recently tracked down the big love-of-his-life ex on social media (it took some doing, as he's not very active and they are not connected, plus I only knew her first name), and the things he has bought me are very much in her taste. It's not that he's bought the same stuff again, more of a general vibe.Before I made the connection, I thought it all suited me, though the ex and I are not very alike. But inevitably I'm worried that he's trying to shape me to be more like her. I'd like to mention it – but of course I wouldn't know about it if I hadn't been cyberstalking his ex. Any advice?–G, via telegraph.co.uk
Dear G,
I'm going to be honest. I think your behaviour is definitely on the creepy side, and now you're reaping what you've sowed. You need to examine your actions, learn from this whole episode and step back – otherwise I see trouble ahead for you in future close relationships.Look. It's not as if you stumbled accidentally over this personal, buried-in-the-past, mostly irrelevant information. By your own admission, you really had to go digging. (You only had your boyfriend's ex's first name to work with – how long were you online for, G? Hours?)I can understand your curiosity to know more about his former significant other – so why didn't you just ask? Why go snooping and ferreting around behind his back? You're right – it is cyberstalking. And if your boyfriend discovers that's what you've been up to, comparing gifts and drawing suspicious, quasi-paranoid conclusions, he's likely to be pretty spooked. I know I would be.
So what if he has an eye for a particular type of gift? It doesn't imply anything odd or suspicious. It just reveals an underlying personal taste. It's not in the least sinister, G.Meanwhile, it's not what you've gone looking for (the information you uncovered is, by any reckoning, trivial); it's why. To me, G, it speaks of controlling, even obsessive behaviour. But I'm glad you've written, because I can reply frankly and honestly and, I promise you, with your best interests at heart.So, no. Do not disclose your cyberstalking to your boyfriend, and resolve never to do anything like it again. I wrote of 'controlling' behaviour. Well, here's a more positive line on that for you: discover the power of self-control. Find the strength to leave the (innocent) pasts of others undisturbed. No good comes from that kind of pointless prying – as I think you're beginning to appreciate, G.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Solve the daily Crossword
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
13 minutes ago
- New York Post
Halle Berry fires back at David Justice over marriage comments: ‘Cooking, cleaning and mothering'
Halle Berry heard the comments made by her ex-husband, David Justice, on the demise of their marriage, saying he left her in 1996 because 'she don't cook, don't clean, don't really seem motherly.' The Academy Award-winning actress seemingly trolled the retired MLB player in a post on Instagram Thursday, which included a carousel of snapshots showing her laughing and vacationing with her boyfriend, Van Hunt. 'Phew…! cooking, cleaning and mothering,' wrote Berry, who turned 59 on Thursday. Advertisement 7 Halle Berry seemingly responds to comments made by her ex-husband David Justice, who said she 'didn't seem motherly' during their marriage in the 1990s. Instagram/Halle Berry Other snapshots showed the actress laughing and lounging on an outdoor bed in the middle of the ocean while holding a wine glass in between her toes. One photo showed her holding a card that said, 'Mom' with a hearts on it. Advertisement 7 Halle Berry and boyfriend Van Hunt getting cozy on vacation amid her ex-husband David Justice's comments about their marriage. Instagram/Halle Berry 7 Halle Berry seemingly responds to comments made by her ex-husband David Justice, who said she 'didn't seem motherly' during their marriage in the 1990s. Instagram/Halle Berry 7 Halle Berry celebrates her 59th birthday while on vacation with Van Hunt. Instagram/Halle Berry Berry shares a daughter, Nahla, 17, with ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, and a son Maceo, 11, with ex-husband Oliver Martinez, to whom she was married from 2013-16. Advertisement The caption seemingly referenced her ex Justice's recent comments made during an Aug. 7 appearance on former NBA star Matt Barnes' 'All the Smoke' podcast — when Justice discussed his four-year marriage to Berry before their divorce was finalized in 1997. 'There really wasn't a lot of negative attention until I decided to leave her in 1996,' the ex-Yankees star said. '… She asked me to marry her after knowing me for five months. I said, 'OK' because I couldn't say no … but I don't know if my heart was really into it. '… My knowledge and wisdom around relationships wasn't vast. So I'm looking at my mom, and I'm a midwest guy, so in my mind I'm thinking, a wife at that time should cook, clean — and then I'm thinking, 'OK if we have kids, is this the woman I want to have kids with or a family with. Advertisement 'And at that time, as a young guy, she don't cook, don't clean, don't really seem like motherly and then we start having issues.' 7 David Justice and actress Halle Berry attend the 25th Annual NAACP Image Awards on January 16, 1993 at Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images Justice added that he was 'footing everything' at the time because Berry 'didn't have any money.' Halle and Hunt went public with their relationship in 2020. During a joint interview on 'TODAY with Jenna & Friends' in June, the music artist joked that he proposed to the 'Monster's Ball' actress. 7 Former MLB player David Justice discusses his marriage to Halle Berry during an appearance on the 'All the Smoke' podcast on August 7, 2025. All the Smoke 'So I put out the proposal, and it's still on hold as you can see,' Hunt, 55, said as Berry laughed. 'It's just out there floating. You know, maybe you can encourage her.' Berry explained why things have been on hold in terms of getting married. Advertisement 'Well, I've been married three times. Van has been married once, and so, no, we don't feel like we have to get married to validate our love in any way. We don't,' Berry said. 7 David Justice and Halle Berry during MTV's 7th Annual Rock 'n Jock Softball in 1996 in Los Angeles, California. FilmMagic, Inc 'But I think we will get married just because, out of the people I've been married to, this is the person I should have married. And I feel like I should, we should get married, but it's not because we feel like we have to. I think it's something that we would like to do just because we want that expression.' Berry was married to her second husband, musician Eric Benét, from 2001-05.
Wall Street Journal
14 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Fiction: Leo Tolstoy's ‘Resurrection'
'It was perhaps inevitable that a man who did nothing by half-measures would experience something beyond the typical mid-life crisis,' Rosamund Bartlett writes in her 2010 biography of Leo Tolstoy. At the age of 49, while completing his work on 'Anna Karenina,' (serialized in 1877), Tolstoy underwent a profound spiritual crisis. He began a comprehensive study of world religions, published his own translation of the Gospels and left the Russian Orthodox Church, which he considered fatally in thrall to political power. He threw himself into wide-ranging philanthropic efforts, started dressing in peasant garb and learned to cobble shoes. By the turn of the 20th century, as he entered his 70s, Tolstoy had become the founder of a growing Christian sect based on pacifism and the abolition of privately owned land. Though much of his writing during this late stage was devoted to theology and pedagogical treatises, and though he was becoming increasingly disenchanted with fiction (his own included), Tolstoy continued his literary production. He is mostly known from this period for his stories, both the brief, cautionary parables modeled on rural folk tales, such as 'How Much Land Does a Man Need?' (1886), and dark, sophisticated works such as 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' (1886) and 'The Kreutzer Sonata' (1889). But he also wrote another novel, 'Resurrection,' which he worked on in fits and starts for nearly a decade and published in 1899. This long, significant book has, strangely, become the black sheep in the Tolstoyan oeuvre, and for many serious readers its reissue by Everyman's Library will serve both as a commemoration and a reminder of its existence. 'Resurrection' opens with a courtroom trial in Moscow, where a prostitute named Katerina Maslova is wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to hard labor in Siberia. Sitting on the jury is Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, who is shocked to realize that he knows the defendant. Years ago, when Maslova worked as a servant for some of the prince's relations, Nekhlyudov seduced and abandoned her, setting her on a downward path toward the brothel. Maslova's conviction has direct causes—both prosecutorial bias and absurd administrative errors play a part—but Nekhlyudov holds himself singularly culpable for her fate and, in horror, resolves to seek atonement. Nekhlyudov is in many ways similar to Pierre Bezukhov from 'War and Peace' (1869) and Konstantin Levin from 'Anna Karenina'—a well-to-do young landowner who enjoys the pleasures of aristocratic living while feeling secretly repulsed by its idleness and decadence. Before Maslova's conviction Nekhlyudov had been content to ignore his principles and behave in the easy, dissolute way of those around him. 'This he had done,' writes Tolstoy, 'because it was too difficult to live believing one's self; believing one's self, one had to decide every question, not in favour of one's animal I, which is always seeking for easy gratification, but in almost every case against it. Believing others, there was nothing to decide; everything had been decided already, and always in favour of the animal I and against the spiritual.'
Vogue
14 minutes ago
- Vogue
Lily Collins Trades a Suitcase for a Gargantuan Balenciaga City Bag
Who said ludicrously capacious bags were only reserved for the Burberry owners among us? Lily Collins arrived in Venice, Italy today, where she favored a mammoth Balenciaga bag instead of a suitcase. The actor, who is resuming Emily in Paris season 5 filming duties in the northern Italian city, opted for a neutral travel outfit. Over a black crewneck tee, Collins wore a nude button-up shirt with a popped collar and a sturdy gray Uniqlo drawstring chore coat. Keeping it comfortable on the bottom, she wore a pair of black joggers that tapered in at the ankle and a pair of dusty brown Adidas Handball Spezials. (After touching down in Venice, Collins swiftly transformed into her alter ego, slicking back her chin-length bob, swiping on a vampy lip, and donning a polka-dot dress with a matching dupatta and dangling rhinestone earrings.) Lily Collins arriving in Venice. Photo: Backgrid
