Dear Prudence,
I just found out that my stepson’s wife has been “looking into” the death, thirty years ago, of my high school boyfriend and the loss of a child. That she has been doing this makes me uncomfortable. It’s none of her business, so I don’t understand why she has made FOIA requests, contacted the hospital (thankfully without any success), and ordered copies of local papers to try and find coverage. She also contacted my old schoolmates, which is how I found out about it.
The problem is, that I have no idea what to do now. It feels like she has overstepped the bounds of decency so thoroughly that I can’t imagine a proportional response. When I imagine talking to her, I can only visualize hitting her or spitting in her face—obviously inappropriate reactions, but I am extremely angry and I don’t get angry often. Right at this moment, I don’t see how I can have any relationship with this woman, and by extension my stepson, going forward. I repeat that she has no viable reason to pry into my past to this extent except some terrible prurient curiosity about my pain.
I know it sounds dramatic, I feel ridiculous for how upset I am, but I feel violated. I can’t sleep. Am I wrong? Am I being unfair? Is there some way I can look at this that doesn’t disgust me?
For the record, I don’t talk about this because it was painful. However, there’s no dark secret for her to uncover. It was a car accident and I unexpectedly miscarried at the hospital (I hadn’t known I was pregnant). My daughter-in-law is no relation to me, my late boyfriend, or the woman in the other car.
—Dead to Me